The Veterans Advisory and Pension Committee Northern England (VAPC NE) and Newcastle University’s Centre for Knowledge, Innovation, Technology and Enterprise (KITE) conducted a workshop with 2 objectives. These were to:
- focus on deepening the appreciation of sharing information within the armed forces community
- explore the need for developing information sharing infrastructure
to empower individual members of the regular and reserve armed forces, their families, and the veteran community
To help better understand the issues from the navy perspective, the VAPC NE lead, Mr. Michael Potts, and Profs Rob Wilson and Mike Martin, , engaged with a Royal Navy Officer who had experience of both regular and reservists in the north-east England and experience working with veterans groups from a naval perspective.
This workshop was part of the on going process conducted by KITE and the VAPC NE to develop new tools and infrastructure to empower the armed forces community and provide the tools to local and national government, service providers and third sector partners. These tools will place the control back to the individual community member, veterans, their families, and serving members of the community, to provide the tools to improve support delivery, reduce costs, and to help those in most need.
The Hub project has been on going for 5 years. These rounds of workshops are an important way to develop the project to help maximise the toolset, infrastructure, and talent needed in a complex mixed economy, which veterans and the wider community are facing.
It is an important part to ensuring that veterans are very much in control and are not seen as a passive problem but as part of a solution.
The coming rounds of workshops are continuing and form an integral part of the KITE/VAPC NE Armed Forces Community Hub development process.