The Forces in Mind Trust (FiMT), established in 2012 to help ex-Service personnel and their families make a successful transition back to civilian life, has unveiled a new website section dedicated to its recently-launched Mental Health Research Programme.

FiMT has worked hard since its inception to develop an understanding of the mental health environment, and to identify where the Trust can best deploy its finite resources to maximum effect.  As a result, FiMT launched a Mental Health Research Programme (MHRP), with an annual disbursement of £1 million for up to 5 years, in collaboration with the Centre for Mental Health and the King’s Centre for Military Health Research, part of King’s College London, in October 2015.

The new Mental Health website area, which can be found at https://www.fim-trust.org/mental-health/research-programme has been developed to raise awareness of the MHRP, including how it is managed, the research priorities, specific funding opportunities and how to apply.  Funding opportunities will be offered through 3 routes:

  • Rolling Open Call.   These relate to applications that respond to the MHRP research priorities.
  • Highlight Notices.   These will be issued periodically to encourage applications in particular mental health-related areas.
  • Commissioned Research.   Research will be commissioned from time to time to answer a specific need in the mental health field, or which is identified as core to supporting FiMT’s aims.

Future developments will see links to mental health related guest blogs as well as updates about the Programme’s achievements and future direction.  News updates about MHRP funding awards, completed research reports and organisations supported will continue to be publicised by relevant areas of FiMT’s existing website.

Ray Lock, Chief Executive of the Forces in Mind Trust, said: “Suffering mental health problems presents one of the key challenges that ex-Service personnel and their families can face when leaving the Armed Forces that can make transition to civilian life extremely difficult.  Through our new Mental Health Research Programme website section, we hope to attract quality research applications relevant to our priority research topics to deliver robust and credible evidence that, by influencing policy makers and service deliverers, will make a significant contribution to the mental health and well-being of ex-Service personnel and their families.”

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Notes to Editors
For more information, please contact: Talia Cohen at The PR Office on tcohen@theproffice.com / direct dial: 0207 284 6957

About the Forces in Mind Trust (FiMT):

  • FiMT came about from a partnership between the Big Lottery Fund (‘The Fund’), Cobseo (The Confederation of Service Charities) and other charities and organisations. FiMT continues the Fund’s long-standing legacy of support for veterans across the UK with an endowment of £35 million awarded in 2012. Since 2004 the Fund has given more than £88 million to programmes supporting veterans http://www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/.
  • The aim of FiMT is to provide an evidence base which will influence and underpin policy making and service delivery in order to enable ex-Service personnel and their families to lead successful civilian lives.
  • FiMT awards grants (both reactive and proactive) and commissions research along three key themes: Evidence, Innovation and Collaboration. All work is published to a high standard of reportage to add to the evidence base from which better informed decisions can be made. Read more about those FiMT have helped and reports they have published at the links below: