While making no explicit reference to children from forces communities, all its provisions apply to them as a group who experience a greater risk of their rights not being promoted.
Following the incorporation of UNCRC, we published our children’s rights report, titled, ‘It’s not just their job, it’s our whole lives’.
The report outlines how the rights of children and young people from armed forces communities are affected across the three categories of protection, provision, and participation.
In this second article, we take a look at provision rights.
These rights include:
Article 18 of the UNCRC recognises that parents have the primary responsibility for the upbringing and development of their child(ren).
The Scottish Government has committed to a transformational agenda to deliver family support in ways families need, when and where they need this, however, forces families are not named as a priority group to receive support.
Forces children and young people and their families tell us that it can be difficult to access the right support at the right times. They are reluctant to access services provided by the Ministry of Defence, such as welfare services, as they feel it may adversely affect the serving parent’s career to do so.
Another important aspect of support for families enshrined in Article 18 is the provision of childcare. The lack of childcare, particularly before and after school and during school holidays, can result in the non-serving parent experiencing challenges when it comes to maintaining employment or obtaining the respite necessary during deployments.
Under Article 24 of the UNCRC, children have the right to enjoy the highest attainable standards of health and access to services and facilities for the treatment of illness and promotion of health.
Frequent moves mean that children and young people may end up at the bottom of waiting lists each time they move, resulting in delays in seeking medical advice or delays in receiving treatments for already identified health conditions.
While the duties under the Armed Forces Covenant should mitigate this, it is not the experience for many families.
The additional stressors of life in an armed forces family may lead to some children and young people having poorer mental health and they require the right support at the right time.
There is a clear need for mental health and wellbeing services that understand this group’s unique challenges and experiences.
Article 27 outlines the right of every child to a standard of living adequate for their physical, mental, spiritual, moral and social development (1).
While the primary responsibility to secure this rests with parents, governments should provide material assistance and support programmes, particularly in regards to nutrition, clothing and housing, when there is the need (2).
57% of armed forces families live in service family accommodation (SFA). Children, young people and their families consistently raise concerns about the quality of this housing and the impact on them.
Substandard conditions, such as mould, pose a hazard to health but these faults are not dealt with quickly or properly.
Article 28 recognises the right of children to access education and Article 29 urges governments to ensure education develops the child’s personality, talents and mental and physical abilities to their fullest potential.
emerging research showing that service-related mobility has a negative effect on children’s academic potential, with children who experience more moves, or moves at key stages, being less likely to achieve higher grades in the senior phase (3).
Some families face difficult choices when seeking to provide their children with educational stability.
These choices include sending their children to boarding school, staying put as a family, with the serving parent travelling home when they can, or having extended family members care for the child while the rest of the family moves away.
Research is scarce on these choices in the context of military service and attainment.
Despite a lack of information about how many young people from forces families access higher and further education compared with non-forces children, it is acknowledged though that frequent moves across educational systems may impact on the likelihood of a young person from a forces family attending university (4).
Moreover, challenges can also arise for children and young people from forces families in accessing Additional Support for Learning (ASL). Sometimes, specific learning challenges such as dyslexia or autism are not identified early due to frequent school moves.
References:
(1) – UNICEF – Convention on the Rights of the Child
(2) – UNICEF – Convention on the Rights of the Child
(3) – Cotton (2024) ‘GSCE Attainment in Children from Military Families’, Forces in Mind Research Centre Conference, 13 May 2024, London.
(4) – Selous, Walker and Misch (2020) ‘Living in our Shoes; Understanding the Needs of UK Armed Forces Families’.
We call on the Scottish Government to strengthen implementation of the Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004 in relation to learners from forces families.
The UK Government and all devolved governments must work together to design and implement a robust information transfer system within education.
The UK and Scottish Governments must investigate the standard of housing provision across Scotland and work with the Ministry of Defence to make sure SFA is of a good standard for all children, young people and their families.
Find out more about protection rights, UNCRC as well as our rights report and recommendations via the following downloads.
Full report Executive summary Recommendation summary