In this article, find out more about what’s been happening in schools across the North, exciting new projects, the challenges faced by children and young people from these communities, and what’s next for Abigail.
If you had three words to describe the last three months, what would they be?
“Reflective, exciting, and visionary.”
Much of you work takes place in schools, can you tell us a little more?
“I’m currently working in Elgin Academy, Seafield Primary, St Gerardine Primary, and Kinloss Primary.
In Kinloss primary I’ve been working with a new forum group, getting to know the children and hearing about their experiences, beginning to look at some sessions around their emotions, rights and stories living in forces families.
We will then work on a project together within the school. In Seafield and St Gers we are looking at ‘Our Stories’, encouraging them to reflect on their experiences and share those with other young people around Scotland.
In Elgin Academy, I am working with the school to help begin a military lunchtime drop-in. I’m also doing some participation sessions with young people to understand their lived experience within their school and family life and what might improve this.
Nina (Children and Young People’s Youth Participation manager) and I are also going into Lossiemouth High for a Talking Mats session at the end of the month.”
What are some of the common challenges faced by this community?
“The young people I’m involved with are a mix of Army families from Kinloss/Forres/Elgin and RAF families living in Lossiemouth/Elgin.
One of the major challenges the Army families face is settling into a new area on a regular basis and figuring out changes around new schools/childcare/friendships and support. There is also great difficulties when a serving parent is deployed, both before they leave and during. It’s hard to maintain emotional regulation when there are various cycles of settling into new places and going through deployments etc.
For RAF families, there are some of the same challenges around moving and deployments, which can often be quite long for RAF families. This results in the same challenges around missing a deployed parent and even being concerned over their safety. This worry is sometimes compounded by what is going on in the news and wider world.”
What has proved the highlight(s) over the past months?
“I think one of the highlights in the past few months has been getting to know the wider Forces Children Scotland team better, as we’ve worked together towards recruiting a new CEO and planned in big picture terms around where we are as a charity in our individual roles and in the grand scheme of what we are looking to accomplish.
Another highlight has been a new staff member joining the charity, Faye, who is doing the same role as me in the West of Scotland. It’s been great to have another member in the participation team and be able to speak about sessions and shared experience around our work in the schools.”
What’s coming up on the horizon?
“We are continuing to work on the Talking Mats Project, and so in the next few months there are opportunities to do discovery sessions in some of the Moray schools, which we will continue into 2024 as the project progresses. I think this will prove to be a great resource for using within school settings for children and young people from armed forces communities.
Within some of the regular school sessions we are looking at ‘our stories’, exploring their experiences and asking the question as to what we can do together to support and improve that.”
We mentioned that you were on the staff panel to recruit our new CEO recently. How was the experience for you?
“Being on the staff panel for the recruitment of our new CEO was an interesting experience, which I’m thankful to have had. I felt well supported in the process, as we had discussed in depth as a staff team what we were looking for in a new CEO and questions that we felt would be helpful to ask.
It was also great getting to see the great questions the young people had come up with and to see how well they did in the process and the valuable insights they provided.”
Do you support children and young people from armed forces communities in the North of Scotland, and would like to know more?
Contact Abigail by clicking the button below.