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Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and though We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Veterans are different. Its not just a matter of handing in your notice, going home, putting on your civvy clothes and you magically become a civilian again. Service is a one way door, it changes you. Its hard for veterans to articulate the differences but they are fundamental to whom we have become. In our courses for veterans we spend a great deal of time and effort on looking at what changed us in service, what skills we came away with, and how to use those skills to manage where we are now. We wrap it up in Stoic philosophy because that best fits - its Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for the service person.
Sebastian Junger is an American journalist and author who embedded with US troops in Afghanistan. In this excerpt from his TED talk he describes eloquently what so many military veterans understand intuitively.
Our aim is to bring together people from a variety of backgrounds (geography, medical, data, philosophy, training, educational) to share the richness of their lived experiences as peer providers, veterans and clinicians in order to learn from each other. This approach will enable us to develop a common understanding of how to support our veterans using some of the best practices available. In soldier speak we bring people from various disciplines together so that collectively we can work out how to keep the demons at bay - its an all arms approach.
What we are doing is building a Veterans peer community - providing resources, training, mutual support and clinical supervision. Making the provision of support more effective and safer for our veterans and for those who support them. Making it possible for social and medical support providers in New Zealand to access some subject matter expertise in order to help our veterans.
No Duff’s anecdotal experience over seven plus years of delivering quality support services to our veterans’ community has seen waiting times for specialist, professional counselling & psychological services continuously lengthen. Rather than bemoan the lack of resources, No Duff decided that we would not wait for a solution from others, we would grow our own. Easily said, but it's fucking hard to do - it costs money, the Dunning-Kruger effect is rife throughout the space, and it seems every one wants to throw a spanner in the works when they don't agree or feel their empire is threatened.
We spent a lot of time and effort trying to appease people and get the ticks in the boxes. In the end we got nowhere and went fuck it - this is the way we do it, if it works for you awesome, if not we will find you some one else, and if people don't like what we do then they can find a padre to cry to.
The Peer mentor course, the first of our provider training courses, is a formally delivered Peer Support package specifically designed to train individuals to support NZ veterans. It is a mentoring course based upon best practice from other groups already providing this kind of support. The first No Duff Peer Mentor course ran in mid 2020. We learnt a lot from that course, particularly about the realities of what can be achieved by a volunteer non specialist workforce and just how many spanners people will try and throw. We have therefore spent the last 2 + years redesigning our approach from the ground up.
In coming to the realisation that the gap between passion and the realities of providing a service may require more than we could could muster, we decided to take a step back and commissioned an independent review of No Duff. We reached out to experts to help us take a good hard look at what we do and see if it was in fact sustainable. Connect Assist is the UK organisation which had both the expertise and the Mana to undertake the review and as a result of their report No Duff has made a number of significant changes to who we are and what we do. We took an operational hiatus, redesigned from the ground up and are now back with a mission. Take a look at the "No Duff - who we are" page on this site to see more of the story of this journey.
The Peer Support Program has three stages of training; Peer Mentor, Peer counsellor and Peer Supervisor. The currently available course is the Peer Mentor. Delivery of the course and ongoing supervision of Peer Supporters will be managed by a team headed by the Trust's clinical medical Advisor and other mental health providers. We need to build not just the support to veterans, we also need to build the support for those whom support the veterans.
In designing these pieces it became apparent we still had a problem - there was no one with expertise to hand off cases to, so true to form we decided to grow our own capability. Our first specialist veterans face to face clinic began in November 2022 and a National veterans virtual clinic is slated to start in 2023. We accept a limited number of referrals at present but will be growing the numbers through 2023.
There are more projects in the wings, but existing on love rather than money slows what we can achieve in the short term. We are therefore building a business platform which will give us financial independence in the future and enable development at the pace we believe is needed.
No Duff remains dedicated to improving the state of the NZ veterans support sector and has committed to lead the way in doing so.
It is estimated that there are now more than 40,000 military veterans in New Zealand with operational service, the highest number since the Vietnam war. More people served in Timor and Afghanistan than served in Vietnam, however the contemporary conflicts have quickly fallen from the public consciousness. The total number of veterans is in fact much higher because of a legislative quirk in how we define veterans in New Zealand. Over 75% of veterans are now under retirement age and the proportion of young veterans is the highest since the second World War.
We have all heard it before, it was news when we were involved in the conflicts and everyone was talking about it. However, now that we have left the conflicts and the politicians have moved on, so have the media and the public, which means the awareness of the issues faced by the contemporary veterans cohort has fallen from view.
We have a large generation of veterans whom have largely disconnected, which has happened for many reasons. What that means however is that we have no real idea of what is happening with our veterans - are they doing better or worse than our allies from those conflicts?
What was the real cost over time of those conflicts? How much does a veteran with a mental health injury cost the country over their lifetime? We have no data to make even educated guesses, which makes us an outlier within the western nations whom engaged in the recent conflicts. Are we an outlier because we lack the resources to look at these questions, or are we an outlier because we don't see it as a good investment?
The harsh reality is we have become good at political reviews and ever more complex bureaucratic systems but poor at care delivery that changes outcomes.
No Duff is looking to change that. After a decade of talking, reviews, meetings, papers and general fuckery we decided to simply walk away. Too much time wasted that was not going to where it mattered - helping the veterans and their families.
So this is our story, what we do to help veterans and its what we hope will make a difference.
One person can make a difference…
We are continuously updating our courses and adding new information, so check in often. Let us know what you think we should do, what is it that would make a difference? Leave us comments on what you like, what you think is bullshit and what you think needs to be here.
The No Duff learning centre (NDLC) is a project of the No Duff Charitable trust (NDCT).