Veterans often navigate complex needs that extend across identity, family relationships, compensation and access to professional advocacy. Eyes Front and Advocates Online address different parts of this support landscape through education, social programs, specialist claims assistance and new professional standards designed to strengthen service quality, information security and trauma-informed practice across the veteran advocacy sector.
When Kelliegh Jackson began working with veterans through research, education and informal support, she repeatedly encountered gaps between the complexity of their experiences and the services available to help them. Eyes Front and Advocates Online emerged as separate responses to those gaps, with one focused on connection, education and social impact and the other providing structured professional advocacy.
The foundations were laid through an Anzac Day service Kelliegh delivered for JP Morgan with Brigadier Pete Daniel. Kelliegh was completing a master’s degree in human resources and industrial relations at the time, with research focused on the military psychological contract, institutionalisation and the mindset formed through service. A related University of Sydney interview project brought together JP Morgan employees with military backgrounds, including Army veterans, a former ranger and an Israeli submariner.
Those conversations highlighted how difficult it can be for veterans to explain military service to people who have never experienced it. Civilian questions often focus on deployment, combat or trauma, while the discipline, relationships, responsibility and personal growth developed through service can be harder to articulate.
“Military service shapes how you think, work and relate to other people, yet veterans often struggle to translate that experience for a civilian audience,” Kelliegh says. “They need language that allows them to speak about their service with honesty while also recognising what they contributed, learned and valued.”
A conversation with Kelliegh’s future business partner, Laura, turned that insight into a broader opportunity. Laura was interested in coaching female veterans, and the pair began exploring educational programs that could respond to veterans’ needs. Eyes Front was established as a charity through which those programs and community initiatives could be developed.
Its purpose expanded soon afterwards when Kelliegh learned that her friend Pete Shefford had stage four bowel cancer. She encouraged him to think about the time ahead as something he could fill with meaningful experiences with his family, then proposed creating a project together. The Pete Shefford Enduring Spirit Fund grew from that conversation.
Shefford was a schoolteacher, mentor and active community fundraiser who had supported causes including men’s health and programs for children with disability. The fund now provides $5,000 each year to help a terminally or seriously ill veteran create an experience with their family. Its first recipient used the support to take his youngest son on an activity-based holiday that helped rebuild their relationship. Eyes Front has since continued assisting veterans and families facing serious illness.
Turning lived experience into practical support
The charity’s education work also grew after Wellbeing Australia sought presenters for a Veteran Health Week program. Kelliegh developed seven programs in quick succession, including Celebration of Service, which has since become a 12-week course.
Celebration of Service helps veterans examine their military experience and identify the people, achievements and moments they value. Participants develop a narrative they can share with family, friends, employers and the wider community, while traumatic experiences can be addressed in an appropriate therapeutic setting.
Veterans who leave Defence feeling betrayed, discarded or diminished can find that painful experiences come to define the way they describe their entire career. The course helps them recover a fuller account of their service, including the relationships they formed, the responsibility they carried and the qualities they can take into civilian life.
“The difficult parts of service remain part of the person’s history, but they do not have to become the only story they can tell,” Kelliegh says. “We help people identify what they are proud of, who influenced them and which experiences still make them laugh. That gives them a narrative they can carry forward.”
Helping veterans reclaim their service story
As Eyes Front developed its charitable programs, Kelliegh and an experienced war widow and advocate were also providing extensive pro bono support to veterans. The work revealed another gap. Retrospective medical separation and compensation matters required sustained specialist attention, while the people delivering that support needed viable workloads, training and remuneration.
They initially began charging for retrospective medical separation work. Around seven months later, the service expanded into paid veteran advocacy, leading to the establishment of Advocates Online in 2020.
The company now employs 55 people and manages around 300 retrospective claims each year. It has also become Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation’s largest client by a margin of hundreds of claims, according to Kelliegh.
Charging fees allowed Advocates Online to build the staffing and systems required for complex cases. Its structure includes governance and compliance, social impact, research and training functions, reflecting Kelliegh’s view that responsible advocacy depends on much more than preparing and submitting a claim.
“My obligation to serve guides the way the organisation operates,” she says. “I serve our staff, and our staff serve our clients. A sustainable fee model allows us to employ skilled people, support them properly and give each veteran’s case the attention it requires.”
Building a sustainable advocacy service
The growth of Advocates Online exposed a further weakness across the sector. Veteran advocacy involves sensitive medical histories, traumatic experiences, complicated legislation and substantial volumes of personal information, yet service delivery has lacked a consistent professional framework covering areas such as privacy, information security, trauma-informed practice and workload management.
In response, Kelliegh and her team developed Veteran Advocacy Professional Standards Australia. The standards provide a framework for advocacy organisations and practitioners covering governance, security, staff support and trauma-informed care. Advocates Online applies the standards internally, while the standards body has been structured as a member-based, non-profit company that can ultimately operate independently.
Staff have begun completing core continuing professional development modules, with further training available throughout the year. Other organisations that commit to the framework will also be able to become members and access its professional development program.
“We reached a scale where setting our own internal expectations was only part of the answer,” Kelliegh says. “The wider profession needs a clear framework so veterans can expect secure information handling, trauma-informed support and consistent standards of service wherever they seek help.”
Creating professional standards for veteran advocacy
Eyes Front and Advocates Online now address different parts of the veteran support landscape. Eyes Front creates programs, family experiences and opportunities for veterans to reconnect with the value of their service. Advocates Online provides the specialist workforce and governance needed to manage formal claims and advocacy. Together, they reflect a model built through direct experience of where veterans were being left to navigate complex needs alone, followed by practical structures designed to close each gap.
