In my review I willfocus on our organization through the glasses of being a small NGO workingclose to the authority of Swedish Armed Forces. The historical perspectives aswell as the contemporary challenges of supporting soldiers, veterans and theirfamilies – in a psychosocial approach with the touch of our ecumenical anddiaconal profile – are going to be highlighted.
The internationalconflicts in our days, in which Swedish soldiers are embedded, often wear thesigns of being high-risk-missions and expose young men and women to being affected by post-traumatic-stress, moral injury etc. The Swedish Soldiers HomesAssociation work with this specific matters since 2008 in a formal cooperationwith the Armed Forces. We offer the soldiers entire families (included theveterans) psychosocial support before, during and after an internationalmission via professional; personal-/family consultation, PREP-courses forcouples in communication which strengthens the relation before being separatedduring the mission and support for youth and children during their parent/sabsence.
The independent role ofbeing an NGO is a big advantage in reaching veterans and families, when confidence in relation to the authority/employer in some cases, can becomplicated. The collaboration and distribution between Soldiers HomesAssociation and the Armed Forces in these matters is exemplary.
Although,situations rises when the Armed Forces can not cover all the costs of ourstakes. Mental illness amongst military personal sometimes lead to problems inrelation with other family members or the employers. In this cases, the SoldiersHomes Association have to find other sources to finance, for example juridicalconsultation or direct economical help.
A future challenge forour organization today is to strengthen our knowledge of finding alternativesources of finance connected to this specific situations.
