Fire Fighters Charity gets funding boost
The government has awarded the Fire Fighters Charity a £1 million grant and pledged a further £1 million endowment fund to enable ambulance and search and rescue personnel to access the charity’s rehabilitation services.
The charity has helped thousands of individuals in the fire community by providing world-class rehabilitation and support services. Chairman of the Fire Fighters Charity Ken Seager explained that the funding will go a long way to helping meet the charity’s £9 million annual running costs. He said: ‘In spite of the hard economic times, we continue to progress and improve our services. We’ve now successfully introduced psychological services at our rehabilitation centres, and demand for our support is growing year on year, so we need to ensure sustainable funding to effectively meet the needs of our beneficiaries.
‘This is a tremendous boost to all those who’ve risked their lives working at the frontline of public service – but we still need public and fire service donations and goodwill to help us continue our vital work.’
Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne said: ‘Emergency services personnel regularly put their lives on the line to protect the most vulnerable in society, and these funds will help support both them and their families through bereavement, mental health issues and physical injuries sustained through their vital work.
‘Having personally introduced MIND’s fantastic Time to Change campaign in the Treasury, I’m delighted to be able to support their activities further with £4 million from Libor fines. It’s only right that fines from those who’ve demonstrated the worst of values are used to support brave emergency services personnel who demonstrate the best of British values.’
