Money Donated will directly assist New Zealand's first-ever Veterans Peer Supporters Course.
No Duff Charitable Trust is about to launch our Veterans Peer Supporter Course. The course is a formally delivered package specifically designed to train individuals to support Veterans in crisis and will revolutionise the way we operate as an organisation, and the wider Veterans support sector.
There is an urgent requirement for better access to mental health support services across New Zealand as evidenced by the Government’s recent Mental Health Inquiry report. No Duff’s anecdotal experience over the past three years of delivering quality support services to our Veterans community has seen waiting times for professional counselling & psychological services of up to six months. In addition, the Veterans’ community in New Zealand is likely to see a significant increase in the need for peer support, counselling and other mental health support in coming years as the impact of decades of sustained operational deployments by NZDF starts to be seen.
Combined with our deep experience in delivering immediate support to veterans, a new client management software and our existing team of committed veteran volunteers, the Peer Supporter course will produce a mental health support capability unparalleled in the history of the NZ Veterans support sector, and long overdue.
Delivery of the course and ongoing supervision of Veteran Peer Supporters will be managed by a team of clinicians headed by the Trust's Clinical Advisor, Dr Paul Nealis.
No Duff Charitable Trust has the motivation, capability and capacity to develop this Peer Supporter Course which will help to train members of the Veteran’s community to be able to support one another in a safe and effective manner. It will represent a substantial change in the Veterans support landscape in NZ by providing a formalised, consistent and monitored capability that currently does not exist, and is unlikely to for some time if no action is taken.
No Duff remains committed to improving the state of the NZ Veterans support sector and continues to lead the way in doing so.
