Regional Working and Funded Projects

Regional Working

The Council continues to collectively address priority issues identified across South Yorkshire through working jointly with our neighbouring Councils (Sheffield, Doncaster and Barnsley) through the South Yorkshire Armed Forces Covenant Group. All Armed Forces Champions and their lead officers are members of this group which meets quarterly and is chaired on a rotating basis.

Open Funded Projects

Support to Homeless Veterans

In summer 2019, the South Yorkshire Armed Forces Covenant Group secured funding (£90k) through SCR via the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to deliver support to homeless or those members of the armed forces community threatened with homelessness. 

The projects are as follows:

Development of a South Yorkshire E-learning Module

An e-learning package, specifically about homeless ex-services personnel and their families which has now been prepared and rolled out across all South Yorkshire Councils for homelessness officers, estate management and housing officers on the ‘front line’.  It has also been introduced to other key organisations and charities that deal with veterans and other partners within Community Covenant Groups.

Development of Strategy & Good Practice

A strategic review of the approach taken by each of the South Yorkshire Council’s homelessness teams in relation to identifying and responding to veterans and their families was undertaken. This included identifying best practice, applying relevant legislation and providing recommendations for improvement and working towards creating a consistent and excellent approach to responding to homeless veterans and their families across South Yorkshire. Homeless Link (a national homelessness organisation who specialise in undertaking review of homelessness services) and Stoll (leading provider of supported housing to vulnerable veterans) have undertaken this work and as part of the project they have also delivered specialist veteran awareness training to each Council’s homelessness team.

Homeless Veteran Grants Project

Some funding has been split across the four South Yorkshire Councils.

Rotherham Council’s housing team are managing this funding which will be used to provide immediate support to veterans to provide appropriate accommodation and support if this is required. This will be in the form of a personalisation fund which may include bond and rent in advance to secure private rented accommodation, deposit for housing association tenancy and any associated set up costs for a new home, eg. carpets, furniture, bedding and other household costs. In addition, bus passes or other financial support to find work or training may be considered, such as clothing.

To access this funding and for further details regarding the referrals process, please contact Rotherham Council’s Lead Officer for Armed Forces, via e-mail at membersupport@rotherham.gov.uk

Note:  Funding ends in 2022

Closed - Funded Projects

South Yorkshire Armed Forces Covenant Projects

In 2017 Rotherham Council, together with the other South Yorkshire local authorities (Sheffield, Doncaster and Barnsley) were successful in a bid to the Armed Forces Covenant Fund trust to strengthen the delivery of the Covenant across South Yorkshire. This project included three pieces of work as follows:

Sheffield Hallam University Research

Working with Sheffield Hallam University to better understand the size, characteristics and standards of living of the Armed Forces Community in South Yorkshire through a survey looking at all aspects of a veteran’s life, how they are perceived in society and what challenges they faced re-joining their communities. The report ‘South Yorkshire Armed Forces Covenant Project: Mapping the Armed Forces Community’ can be found here http://shura.shu.ac.uk/23671/

York St John University

Working with York St John University to deliver improvements in the understanding of military culture through the delivery of Military Human training for frontline support staff with almost 1000 staff trained to date. https://www.yorksj.ac.uk/courses/professional-and-short-courses/military-human/military-human-impact-report/

Outreach Provision (via the Rotherham Military Community Veterans Centre)

This project provided a strengthened voice for veterans and their families through the South Yorkshire Outreach vehicle and trailer. It enabled the funding of a new vehicle to tow the trailer and funded a Project Manager to work with other Councils in South Yorkshire through the Rotherham Military Community Veterans Centre. www.rotherhammcvc.org.uk/projects/veterans-outreach-connection/