This year marks the first in our partnership with Greenwich Hospital, and we’re proud to celebrate what we have accomplished with the participation of babies, children, and young people from Royal Navy and Royal Marine families.
Thanks to the core funding we received, we have been able to offer vital support, strengthen community connections, and improve mental health outcomes for children and young people in forces families.
Crucially, this partnership with Greenwich Hospital has provided us with the time, resources, and support needed put youth voice at the heart of our work. Through a commitment to co-production, young people have been directly involved in shaping our projects and strategies and been empowered speak up for their rights.
The creation of the Forces Children’s Rights Charter, developed by young people and launched at a Roundtable event, showed how transformative youth voice can be as the driving force behind change.
The flagship project from this period is the Forces Children’s Rights Charter. Work began in schools and community groups across Scotland, where children and young people discussed what matters to them in forces life and their rights.
A residential brought together 16 young people from tri-service families, including those whose parents no longer serve, to shape the Charter’s content and design, including the much-loved mascot, Maude.
After shaping the provisions of the Charter, young people designed its launch, resulting in a youth-led Roundtable during Month of the Military Child. They took on roles as MCs, table facilitators, presenters and social media hosts, writing and refining their own scripts.
The Roundtable was participation in action:
Click here for the full Charter Roundtable Evaluation.
Throughout the course of this project and our other school and community-based activities, we reached 234 children and young people from Navy families.
In total, we have been able to support 928 children, including over 450 one-on-one sessions supporting their mental health and wellbeing. Our mental health and wellbeing had a profound effect:
Here is one young person’s reflections on her experience co-producing the Forces Children’s Rights Charter:
Being part of the Charter work was a truly rewarding experience, and I’m still really excited from the impact it had. I genuinely believe it has the potential to make a real difference in people’s lives, bringing a bit more ease and helping them to know what they’re rights are and how these may affect their daily struggles. Seeing the actual outcomes and hearing the feedback from those it touched left me feeling uplifted, knowing that collective efforts like these can ripple out and improve circumstances, no matter how small the shift might seem.
Children and young people have gained much from the range of programmes we have been able to offer. In their own words:
We’re so happy with these results and grateful for the ongoing support from Greenwich Hospital, which will enable us to continue working with children and young people from the Royal Navy and Royal Marines community.
