Better Health for Ex-Seafarers & Welfare Caseworking Project

Are you an ex-seafarer – or do you know an ex-seafarer who would like some help or support with health problems of any kind, housing or debt problems, or potential entitlement to benefits or grants?

Two pilot projects - Better Health for Ex-Seafarers and the Welfare Caseworking Project - were launched on 24 February 2011 aimed at improving health and well being amongst older ex-seafarers across Merseyside, UK. Older ex-seafarers were found to be more likely to have poor health, be socially isolated and find it difficult to access support - which may partly be due to the circumstances surrounding their time at sea.

The Nautilus Welfare Funds hopes the projects will provide advice, help and support across a wide range of health, lifestyle, wellbeing and financial concerns including:

• finding appropriate health or community services
• keeping in touch with other ex-seafarers
• independent living
• accessing grants (from maritime organisations)
• benefit entitlement

The projects work with a range of public service and voluntary sector organisations in Merseyside and the North West including the NHS in Sefton, Wirral and Liverpool.

Learning from the projects will be shared and it is hoped to extend this work across the UK, with the potential to anticipate problems for existing seafarers before they retire.

The projects are jointly funded by Nautilus International, the Maritime Charities Funding Group and the Seaman’s Hospital Society, and delivered in partnership with the Shipwrecked Fishermen and Mariners Royal Benevolent Society.

For more information, please contact our welfare department.