Walking, with excited anticipation, into the Royal Hospital Chelsea and a grand wood-panelled room adorned with royal paintings, I was quickly struck that the room of invited guests was a ‘who’s who’ of leaders from the female veteran community. It was like a reunion of everyone I had encountered in my time as Senior Programme Manager for the Female Veterans Transformation Programme on our journey around the United Kingdom reaching out to female veterans and those who work with them to understand the needs of this community. Returning, with colleagues from the Centre for Military Women’s Research (CMWR) – Dr Lauren Godier-McBard, Centre Director, Abigail Adams, Research Fellow and Alice Henderson, Advisory Group – to witness the launch of their new toolkit was a privilege. And it only reinforced the sustained commitment by the Centre as a critical friend to this programme, which itself was catalysed following, amongst other reports and inquiries, the publication of the CMWR We Also Served report.

We were welcomed to the launch by Ali Brown, Chair of the COBSEO Female Veterans Cluster and leader of the FVTP Steering Group, who has been a driving force behind the need for and delivery of this programme. Ali introduced the Minister for Veterans and People, Louise Sandher-Jones, herself also a veteran.

The Minister reflected, ‘As a veteran, I know first-hand the unique challenges women face in military service and the extraordinary contributions they make. With women now making up 13% of the UK veteran community, we need to make sure that they have a strong voice at the heart of Government.’ She went on to speak about the themes of the new veterans strategy – celebrate, contribute and support, linking them to the Female Veterans Toolkit, before announcing the establishment, in 2026, of a Women Veteran’s Forum to ensure that the mantra ‘nothing about us without us’ is at the heart of the OVA’s support to female veterans.

The Minister was followed by Anna Wright, representing the Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust who were the major funder of this programme, and gave an impassioned plea to all who engage with veterans to be inclusive of female veterans. She also highlighted their recent funding programme ‘Servicewomen: Seen and Heard’ which has awarded £650k in grant funding for programmes over the next three years. As a Royal Navy veteran herself, she closed by praising the FVTP team, endorsing their effort with the Naval phrase of Bravo Zulu or ‘BZ’.

Anisha Worbs, Director of the Office for Veterans Affairs, was up next and encouraged the audience to communicate the toolkit’s resources far and wide. She spoke about the importance of both recognising difficult experiences whilst celebrating the fun and positivity of military service. It was fascinating to hear that the most engaged with OVA social media posts ever have been those relating to the imagery raising the profile of female veterans in the run up to the toolkit launch.

Nicky Murdoch spoke on behalf of Kate Davies, representing the Armed Forces Healthcare team, NHS England, another major funder of this programme. She advocated for remembering where we had come from and acknowledged the influence of CMWR’s research as a catalyst for this programme.

Liza Jarvis, the FVTP Programme Lead, then introduced the toolkit, explaining how the programme had synthesised a growing body of research in its Evidence Review and then sought input from over 800 female veterans from across the three services and across the United Kingdom in order to develop the toolkit resources. She then gave us a virtual tour of what it offered. Liza shone a light on the work of two particular programmes, who are featured as case studies of best practice within the toolkit and who were represented in the room: Veterans Outdoors (Artemis Programme) and High Ground.

Alice Knight-Driver, from the Drive Project was next invited to share a film which they had produced as part of the toolkit, based on research and lived experience, called 7 clicks. Three individuals who spoke in the film then got up to share their experiences of being involved in making the film, addressing what made them speak up. They talked about re-entering the sisterhood after having stayed silent about their memories, the sense of solidarity and belonging that came from making space to share their collective truth. The film itself was an impressive encapsulation of the diverse perspectives of the female veteran cohort and a challenge not to assume that this community has a single truth.

Liza closed with a call to share the toolkit: ‘This is just the beginning’. She explained that next up the programme will be engaging in a social media and communications campaign as well as a programme of education and awareness raising, which will also gather feedback to inform future iterations and updates.

It was a truly inspiring moment that brought together so many who have the power to bring about tangible lasting change when it comes to service provision for female veterans. The occasion kept the focus on the voice of female veterans and I truly believe that so many important conversations and collaborations will come about as a result of getting everyone together in that one room.

If you do nothing else as a result of reading this, click on the link to visit the Female Veterans Toolkit. If you can only spare 10 minutes of your day, grab a cup of tea and sit down to watch the film 7 Clicks. If you can find 20 minutes, take a nose around the resources that the toolkit provides and then write a social media post to share it with your networks. Power and change comes from acknowledging the diversity of our community and speaking out together.

The call is on the surface a welcome commitment given that women in the armed forces can experience preventable health disparities and adverse experiences within military service. Read through a feminist lens—analysing with a consideration of gender dynamics, especially power structures and inequalities—the phrase “unique challenges” raises uncomfortable and important questions. Whose challenges are these and why are they framed as unique? What assumptions about the military, the body and health are being subtly reinforced in this language? I contemplated how the language used in the call may shape our understanding of service women’s experiences—and what that might mean for the kinds of research and interventions that are ultimately supported.

Naming the problem or reinforcing it?

By describing service women’s health concerns as unique, does the funding call unintentionally reaffirm a deeply entrenched idea: that women are somehow exceptions to military norms. This wording treats women’s bodies and experiences as divergences from a presumed (masculine) standard of soldiering, a standard into which they must be accommodated rather than fully integrated. The result? Even well-meaning efforts to support women can end up othering them.

A question I asked myself while reading the extract was, does framing challenges as women’s reinforce the idea that the problem lies in their physiology, their biology or their perceived difference — not in the structures, systems or cultures that have not fully adapted to an inclusive force?

An alternative question: Why do these ‘challenges’ exist at all?

Instead of asking what challenges service women face, a more transformative approach could ask, why do these challenges exist in the first place? What institutional norms, practices and values are producing disparities in health and wellbeing? Are services provided to service women seen as exceptional or are they fully integrated into military service so that all bodies are routinely accepted for service.
The feminist response here isn’t to reject efforts to support service women, but to shift the focus from accommodation to transformation, from individual resilience to institutional accountability.

From downstream to upstream: Towards structural change

Health promotion and wellbeing interventions are essential but they must be coupled with efforts to challenge the upstream causes of the challenges. Supporting service women shouldn’t mean simply responding to their “unique” needs — it should mean rethinking why those needs go unmet in the first place. Taking a WPR approach to the proposal, responding to ‘unique challenges’ with information and education assumes that the problem arises through lack of information and education. As Carol Bacchi explains, “what one proposes to do about something reveals what one thinks is problematic (needs to change).” In this case, the challenges faced by service women are framed as a result of insufficient training and education—placing the onus on them. The proposed solution, then, is to educate and inform the service women themselves, rather than addressing broader structural or institutional issues.

While tailored advice and education for service women is helpful and adds value, questioning the language in this excerpt leads me to think that truly supporting their health and wellbeing requires going beyond these measures to address the deeper, structural issues at play. We need a shift in understanding whose bodies and whose experiences belong in the military. Instead of framing service women as deviations from a masculine norm requiring correction or supplementation, could we be asking how military structures, policies and cultures can evolve so that service women are not “unique,” but simply and fully included. Until then, efforts to support them, however well-intentioned, will always be treating the symptoms not the cause.

Kirsten Morris, PhD student at the CMWR

Reservists are under-represented in research about the Armed Forces community. The Centre for Military Women’s Research decided to explore reservist experiences in their latest colloquium, held on 9 January 2025, and identify future research priorities with this community. The Centre Director, Dr Lauren Godier, opened the day setting out the need for action based on the research gaps.

Abigail Adams, a Research Fellow also from the CMWR team, talked about what the research team had learnt from their Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) groups on the subject of current and ex-reservist women.  This visual representation captures the themes identified.

Next up was Col Leona Barr-Jones, Chief Executive of East Anglia Reserve Forces’ and Cadets’ Association (RFCA). She talked us through the history of women in the Armed Forces and how the reservist story intersected with this. Leona reflected on some of her own experiences, considering some of the different challenges encountered by reservist women compared to their regular counterparts and how to foster a sense of inclusion, respect and belonging.

Finally, we heard from Elisa Thomas, a reservist Warrant Officer currently on maternity leave, who delivered an insightful talk on the theme of maternity, fertility and motherhood.

The colloquium closed with a workshop exploring the priorities for future research. This saw us each identify three priority areas and then work in teams to prioritise as a group. This will be used to shape our future research plans.

We are very grateful to those, representing the Office for Veterans Affairs, the Royal British Legion, the Female Veterans Transformation Programme, Kings College London and our own Advisory group, who gave up their time to contribute to this important conversation. Thank you also goes to our three amazing speakers who gave use such a fantastic insight into women in the Reserves and really helped us to start mapping new research agendas.

We need your help to co-produce a toolkit for use by service providers in the commercial, statutory and charitable sectors, helping transform service provision for female veterans – the 250,000 strong group whose specific needs are not being addressed by current service provision. The toolkit could be a digital resource, awareness-raising resources, or an interactive app. The 3-year, UK-wide and tri-service programme is funded by the Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust and NHS England, in partnership with the Cobseo Female Veterans Cluster and the Women’s Royal Army Corps Association.

“The programme aims to build a legacy where female veterans feel confident to access the right support, at the right time, and in the right way for them,” Colonel (Retd) Alison Brown OBE, Chair of the Cobseo Female Veterans’ Cluster Group

• Are you a female veteran? If you have ever served, whether for one day or 22+ years, we would love to hear from you, even if you have never accessed support services
• Are you a service provider, employer or charity that work with female veterans?

Please head over to our website and complete the relevant questionnaire to help us find out: ‘What does ‘good’ look like for female veterans services?’. You are the experts on service provision for female veterans and we can’t do this without your voices.

📝 If you are a female veteran and also work providing services to female veterans, employ female veterans or work in a charity working with veterans then please complete both questionnaires.

📝 If you are part of an organisation that does not identify as veteran-facing but nonetheless may have female veterans as employees or clients please complete our questionnaire also as we would love to hear from you too.

We know that you have probably been asked for your opinions and views A LOT and may feel like there is ‘no point’ or ‘no-one ever listens’, so we agave committed to produce a ‘you said…..we did’ response to the co-production which will eventually be available on our website for you to see and to check we listened.

We will be running face-to-face and online focus groups across the summer so please register your interest in taking part in a focus group on the website too.

If you have a recent focus group report about the experiences of female veterans then please send it our way. If you are running focus groups or having an informal gathering of female veterans for a coffee and you might be able to incorporate our questions, check out our facilitator’s pack providing guidance on how you could do this.

Your opinion matters so any information you can provide will go a long way to helping other female veterans in the future. Thank you.

Study exploring digital platforms to support women veterans with alcohol use at King’s Centre for Military Health Research – recruiting now

For over a century, women in the UK Armed Forces have been integral to our national defence. Despite their longstanding service, research focused on women veterans and their health and wellbeing remains scarce. This highlights a critical gap in our understanding of their unique experiences and needs both in and out of service.

The majority of research exploring the impact of alcohol consumption in veterans is focused on men. However, we know from the existing, albeit limited evidence, that alcohol use in ex-serving women is substantially higher than that of their civilian counterparts.

We know that problematic alcohol use often co-occurs with common mental health disorders including depression, anxiety, and PTSD and alcohol is often used to self-medicate and cope with negative internal states. Research has shown that common mental health disorders are more prevalent in ex-serving women than in the general population and crucially that ex-serving women face barriers to accessing mental health support, including due to ongoing alcohol use.

Digital health innovations

Digital health technologies, like smartphone apps, offer promising avenues for delivering brief interventions, bypassing geographic barriers, long treatment waiting lists, and stigma linked to in-person assistance. They hold potential for advancing gender equity by empowering individuals with control over their health data, expanding healthcare access, and addressing specific challenges more prevalent for women, such as childcare. However, the development of these digital health interventions often lacks a gender equity perspective, a crucial aspect that needs addressing.

Supporting women who have served and consume alcohol

King’s Centre for Military Health Research (KCMHR) is a leading UK civilian institution for Military Health Research and focuses on research relating to serving personnel, ex-serving personnel, military families, and interventions.

To address gaps in the evidence base relating to ex-serving women, researchers from KCMHR are conducting a study testing multiple digital platforms to support ex-serving women manage their alcohol use.

Each platform has been developed incorporating expert feedback and guidance from focus groups with ex-serving women as well as military and substance use charities to be tailored to the unique needs of women who have served.

Want to take part?

If you are interested in taking part in this study, click here to complete the eligibility survey.

We are seeking to recruit individuals who are veterans of the UK Armed Forces, identify as female, live in the United Kingdom, use a smartphone, drink alcohol, and are willing to take part for 12 weeks in this online study. You can read the participant information sheet here.

At the end of the study, participants who complete the baseline and final questionnaire will receive a £20 Love2Shop voucher as a thank you for taking part.

By taking part in this research, your contribution will support the ex-serving community by helping us to test a digital health intervention which can benefit others in the future.

If you would like to know more about the study or have any questions, please get in touch at ration-study@kcl.ac.uk.

This year’s theme, #Inspire Inclusion, calls on us to “break down barriers, challenge stereotypes, and create environments where all women are valued and respected”.  In recognition of this theme, this blog puts a spotlight on our recent research project ‘I don’t feel like that’s for me’: Overcoming barriers to mental healthcare for women veterans’.  The project explored the mental healthcare support needs and experience of women veterans in England, and developed guidance for professionals supporting women veterans’ mental health. 

What did we find?  Women veterans may face several gendered barriers when accessing support for their mental health. These include services being perceived as being male-dominated and designed for men (often related to male and combat-focused branding), limited understanding of women’s needs, misconceptions around women’s role in the Armed Forces, women not identifying with the term ‘veteran’, and caring responsibilities taking precedent. Importantly, the project highlights how trauma-informed approaches to care can help to overcome barriers and facilitate positive experiences within support services for women veterans. We’ve created a mnemonic ‘WOMAN VET’ to help mental healthcare professionals remember the key takeaway messages for offering the best support to women veterans. 

Want to find out more? Check out the project infographic, summary report and guidance for mental healthcare professionals here.  

We wanted to end our International Women’s Day blog with a special thank you to all the women in the military community who have played a part in our research as members of an expert-by-experience group or research participants. Without your support and time, the work of the CWMR would not be possible.  

Stay tuned for our next blog post, where you will hear from interns at the CMWR about their experiences learning about women in the military community and assisting with research during their internship program.