Kent’s service veterans are being invited to join a free employment course to help them find work, find new training or switch careers.

Run by the Royal British Legion Industries, the Lifeworks course is on until August 1 at the RBLI’s Capel Morris Centre in Aylesford.

Previous courses have succeeded in getting 80% of veterans into employment within 12 months - despite 64% of delegates suffering from some form of mental health challenge such as PTSD, anxiety or depression.

Open to all Armed Forces veterans, the course will give attenddees the tools they need to find a job - no matter how long ago they left the services.

Delegates will learn how to write a CV, develop interview skills, adapt to change, and set realistic and attainable goals.

The course is itself run by veterans and supported by spouses of serving personnel. The wider team includes life coaches, career advisors, psychologists, and a career guidance coach who delivers the vocational assessments.

The course will be delivered by Tim Brown, who served in the Royal Engineers and in The Adjutant General’s Corps (AGC). He said: “We know that it can be difficult to transition to the civilian world, and through Lifeworks, we give veterans the guidance they need to adapt to and overcome change.

“It doesn’t matter if they left the Forces a day ago or 20 years ago; it is our duty to help them.

“During the course, we emphasise just how relevant and transferable the skills they learned in the Armed Forces are to civilian employers.

“Once they realise that, it really helps to raise their confidence and self-belief and remove limiting opinions they have about themselves.

“They also value the peer support from their fellow veterans, and the mock interviews that take place on the final day cement everything they’ve learned.

At the end of the course, each delegate will receive 12 months of support when they can access specialist employment advice from the Lifeworks team.

Find out more here.

To register for the four-day residential programme, call freephone 0800 319 6844 or email lifeworks@rbli.co.uk

A second course will run from August 12 to 15.