Veterans given new beginning
Partnership offers education opportunities
FROM battle ready to noses in n books, a new partnership will l support veterans as they leave e the Australian Defence Force e and pursue a life after military y service.
Representatives from veterans’ charity Wandering Warriors signed an agreement on n Friday with James Cook University to provide education n pathways for veterans.
The announcement comes s as a damning review into veteran suicides calls for urgent changes to the way personnel transition out of the ADF.
The preliminary interim report from the Interim National Commissioner for Defence and Veteran Suicide Prevention, Dr Bernadette Boss, made 41 recommendations on how to prevent future suicides.
Her report notes that 43 per cent of veterans are unemployed for three months or
longer after they leave the ADF.
JCU Provost Professor Chris Cocklin said the partnership would initially provide an undergraduate scholarship for an Indigenous veteran before it expanded to offer all veterans affiliated with Wandering Warriors access to courses.
“What we’re trying to do is offer them post-service learning opportunities that will equip them for careers that may not otherwise have been available to them,” he said.
Wandering Warriors chairman Brett Sangster spent 14 years in the army, including eight years as a commando in special forces units. When he left the military in 2012, Mr Sangster said he had a law degree to fall back on.
“I was fortunate,” he said. “Not everyone comes out of the military with a law degree or any sort of education of relevance.”
Mr Sangster said discharging from the ADF was like leaving his “family” and then launching into the unknown.
In September the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare detailed the scope of the ADF’S suicide crisis and revealed 1273 permanent, reserve and veterans took their lives between 2001 and 2019.
Dr Boss’s report backed up the data, which showed ADF members are at a higher risk of taking their own lives once they take off the uniform, lose the protective factors of the military and face difficulty integrating into civilian life.