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Offering Veterans’ Advice, Support, and Guidance in Sefton and Merseyside

Hello and welcome to Veterans in Sefton CIO. Established in 2014, our charity provides veterans’ advice and support services for individuals throughout Sefton and Merseyside. Our organisation was founded by Dave Smith and Steve Calderbank, who both served in the Armed Forces for many years. Based in Merseyside, Veterans in Sefton CIO has now been approved by Sefton Council and statutory agencies for local delivery of services to veterans, Armed Forces, and Reservist personnel. Get in touch today to learn more.

About Our Founders

Our CEO and co-founder Dave Smith served almost 25 years in the Armed Forces. On leaving the forces around the time of his 40th birthday in 2005, he spent several long months lost and in a bad way.
It was nothing more than a stroke of good fortune that brought him back to his family and started him on the long road to recovering and rebuilding his life. Teaming up with his good friend Steve Calderbank, a former Royal Navy Chief Petty Officer and a qualified, 20 years’ time-served Psychotherapeutic Counsellor, together they founded Veterans in Sefton CIO to provide the support they saw was needed for local veterans and Forces personnel.
What Do We Do?
We quickly recognised that a completely different approach was required to support the needs of former Armed Forces members, their dependants, and their families. Veterans in Sefton have set up effective pathways to provide:
  • A Mentoring and Befriending Service
  • Health and Wellbeing advice
  • Housing Support
  • Financial Advice
  • Employment support
  • Volunteering Opportunities
  • Early Intervention Psychological Support
  • Awareness, Education, and Training for Beneficiaries and the Wider Community
  • Health and Wellbeing Activities and Social Events

Our Approach

Never leave a man down, Veterans in Sefton CIO is built on the same straightforward and simple values on which our mighty Armed Forces are built, including:
  • Honesty
  • Professionalism
  • Willingness to Get Things Done to the Best of Our Ability
  • Supporting Each Other
  • Moving Forward Together
As you move forward on your journey with us, you may rest assured that you are not going through this alone. We use familiar phrases such as NAAFI Breaks and stand easy, which will hopefully put you at ease and reassure you that the people around you understand your current situation. As a former member of the Armed Forces, you will always know that the people are simply there to support you, not judge you.

Experienced Staff and Volunteers

All employees and volunteers at Veterans in Sefton CIO are either former service members or otherwise have a full understanding of Armed Forces culture. Many of them have fought through our own issues and have now come out on the other side. Having been through the process, they now volunteer their time to support other brothers and sisters who are looking for their own pathway to a better future.
Referrals and Support
Our referral process has been designed to be as unintrusive as possible. We always start with a full Needs Assessment (NA) to try and ascertain where we can best support any issues raised, and then form a Personal Centred Plan (PCP) to carry that out.
From your initial referral and engagement onward, we look at veterans’ practical, emotional, and health needs, and strive to provide the appropriate support. This might be as simple as a referral to organisations like the Royal British Legion or One Vision Housing via our unique Service Level Agreement, (SLA) or you might require our more complex Holistic service.
Commissioned to provide a “wrap around” and referral service for the NHS-led Veterans in Mind, we also have our own mental health and dependency counsellors, both of whom are members of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP). Our holistic care service is built on providing early and interim intervention for all your needs.

Our Pledge

“We Are Stronger Together”
Here at Veterans in Sefton CIO, we pledge to do all we can to support your needs. We don’t make false promises and all we ask in return is complete honesty so that we can move forward together.
Think of our organisation as the centre of a larger web, with the support you need all around you. Unfortunately, we cannot always get exactly what we want, but if that is the case then it is better, in our humble experience, to have the support and friendship to inspire you to keep working for a brighter future.
You know from your time served that the only way to safely deliver a set of viable orders is to know beforehand what obstacles lie before you so that you can lay down an effective plan of action. Remember, you don’t get to the top of the mountain by falling out of the sky. You need the right equipment and support to reach your goal, and once you are there, the view is well worth the effort.
Stronger Together

Interested in What We Do?

We offer a wide array of veterans’ advice and support services for individuals and their families.
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