SCSN Service Children Support Network In this issue…. My Daddy is a Soldier Adventures ‘Takeover Day’ in Bucks The 2012 SCSN Photo Competition Soldiers in Mind Carnagill CHIPS in action Sharing Information in North Yorks Sharing Best Practice to support Service Children Spring 2012 I’m also very pleased to be able to share with you some exciting new research into Military childrens’ issues that was conducted in Canada. Thank you Dani for allowing us to be the first UK newsletter to publish this work. Also of note, SCSN in collaboration with Buckinghamshire County Council and Halton School, have been successful in a bid for funding from the SCSN Update MOD £3M Service Children Fund which will enable us to run a 1 year pilot project in Buckinghamshire. It’s been a very busy 3 months since I last wrote for Following the success of the Halton School ‘Service our SCSN newsletter. I’ve met a lot of people from Family Mobility Coordinator Project’ we are now all walks of life and had many opportunities to recruiting two peripatetic ‘Service Children Support promote the needs of Service children and families. Coordinators’ for the county. The vacancies are I’ve been heartened by all the positive responses being advertised across the region and are also and I hope we will all be able to continue ‘spreading reproduced later in this newsletter. Our experience the word’ in 2012. has shown that it is extremely important to identify In January, Kev and I were invited to the North the right candidates for these roles. They need to Yorkshire Service Pupil Information Sharing Day in have the right personal qualities and depth of Harrogate and it was great to see how much relevant experience if they are to be genuinely able support is available to Service pupils within the to deliver the wide range of support we are looking County. Matt Blyton, the event organizer, has to provide. That said, the successful candidates will submitted an article about the event which appears find themselves at the forefront of best practice and later in this edition together with another that will no doubt find the job very rewarding! The DCYP describes the outstanding work of the CHIPS at the MOD are looking closely at the project with a supporters in Carnagill Community Primary School. view to potentially expanding the initiative across I’m only sorry you’re unable to see the wonderful the rest of the country in the future. work the CHIPS children do in person, they are And finally, SCSN is also collaborating with The Open inspirational… Keep up the good work Carnagill! University on another very exciting project. We are I was also privileged to be asked to be a guest putting together a high quality on-line Continuing speaker at the SSAFA Forces Help In Service Professional Development (CPD) Course that Conference in February. SSAFA Forces Help have focuses on the issues affecting Service children and worked tirelessly to support HM forces and their their families and explores ways to mitigate them. families for over a hundred years and they continue The course materials will be underpinned by the to do so. SSAFA social workers and In Service latest related research from the UK and overseas volunteers can offer emotional and practical and the course will be the first of it’s kind in the UK. support to Service families and are very happy to All the groundwork is done and we are now actively work in collaboration with schools and other seeking funding to progress the project further. professionals. By the time this is published SCSN will have In this issue we also highlight the work of some hard completed the first of a number of training days in working Military spouses: Heledd Kendrick (Recruit Suffolk and I look forward to seeing some of you in for Spouses); Sally Scarbrough (Support4Spouses); March and April at seminars and training events and Linda and Louise (My Daddy is a Soldier that have been organized at the Universities of Adventures) have all taken the plunge and set up Oxford, Warwick, Reading and the Vulnerable organisations to support Service families. I wish Children Conference in Buckinghamshire. Please each of them every success for 2012. remember that SCSN are able to offer bespoke On the research front, Dr Grace Clifton, the SCSN training days to meet the needs of LA staff, schools, Academic & Research Advisor, is organizing our first governors and other health and welfare SCSN Research Conference which will go ahead at professionals as required. For more details please Oxford University in September 2012. Grace is email: currently ‘calling for papers’ so don’t be shy, we’re [email protected] to looking forward to hearing from both experienced discuss your needs further. and novice researchers. Joy O’Neill - Founder and Chair, SCSN enhance the support already given to British Army Children via various sources by the following, but not exclusively; Ÿ To undertake to promote and enhance the quality of life of those who have a serving parent away from the family home. Ÿ To provide workshops and activities that My Daddy is a Soldier Adventures is a charitable offers a distraction to British Army children. Ÿ initiative founded by Louise and Linda in June 2011. To give the parent serving their country The organization is dedicated to British Army away from the family home the reassurance children who face unique challenges especially when that their child(ren) have support . a parent deploys to an operational theatre of war Ÿ Support the parent left at home and provide for sometimes up to 7 months at a time or even a a wider community. shorter exercise or course away from the family The support and positivity we have already received home. In March 2011 they organized the ‘My Daddy has been phenomenal and we already have run is a Soldier Trek’, an ascent of Mount Snowdon! some fantastic events for children with a parent away from the family home, including a Christmas Party at The Victory Services Club in London for 300 and also a day in January for 56 children at Chelsea Football Club. Looking into 2012 we have a Pop Academy in Aldershot coming up with Same Difference from X Factor and a weekend event in Bordon with The British Army Orienteering Club in June plus many more events and workshops being confirmed for the months ahead. This enabled three British Army children to escape All the comments and feedback we receive from from the stress and worry of their dads being parents and children who have come to our events deployed on active service in Afghanistan. Following has made it all worthwhile and 2012 looks set to be the success of this event, the ‘My Daddy is a Soldier’ a busy year for us! We are always looking for people team realized that many other British Army children to run events and workshops for us and anyone who could benefit from such activities. Our aim is to feels they have a skill or talent or service that would provide easily accessible activities via the web and enhance our offering we would love to hear from various activity workshops and events, bookable them! This project has the potential to become a online, for all British Army children with a parent fundamental resource for British Army children and serving away from the family home to attend, families and we need to utilise all the resources offering a distraction to the child at this difficult available to do this. The AFF, HIVE and The time. We see a time in the future when British Army Directorate of Children and Young People have been Children will benefit from various nationwide so supportive as have many units and regiments workshops and activities covering many different across the British Army, we can't wait to meet lots interests, run by My Daddy is a Solider Adventures more Little Troopers at an event near you soon! and appointed regional co-ordinators. In time these would spread worldwide to wherever the British Follow us on Twitter: @daddyisasoldier Army serve and their families live. Our children will Facebook: My Daddy is a Soldier Adventures be able to have a positive experience with our Email us at: [email protected] events with children in a similar situation. Our Donate or set up a donation page for an event at: ultimate goal is to open a residential adventure BT MyDonate centre available to all British Army Children with a Read our blog: parent away providing a retreat with planned http://mydaddyisasoldieradventures.blogspot.com activities offering respite in a community Our website: environment. The objects of the Charity are to www.mydaddyisasoldieradventures.org SCSN Research Conference 2012 Later this year SCSN will host its first Research Inspirational Women Conference and the event will bring together academics and professionals working in this Of the Year 2012 important area. We aim to create a positive and collegial atmosphere and will provide opportunities One of the (only?) perks of being the Editor of this for participants to be able to meet, talk and illustrious publication is that from time to time I get socialise. to slip in a piece at the last minute that Joy doesn’t know about! This is one of those occasions I have to take such a liberty because I know she would never A Call for Papers blow her own trumpet! Joy, our extremely hardworking Founder and Chair Papers are invited from participants working within was selected as a finalist in the 2012 Daily Mail & the fields of education, psychology, health and social Wellbeing of Women ‘Inspirational Women of the care and childhood studies, carrying out research Year Awards’.