Finding Your North: New support for Forces children facing global uncertainty

For many children and young people in Armed Forces families, global conflict and instability don’t feel like distant issues. These headlines and events can have a very real effect on their mental health and wellbeing.

We’re grateful to have an opportunity to meet this need, thanks to generous funding from the Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust. Forces Children Scotland has been awarded £199,995 to deliver the Finding Your North programme.

Beginning in Cyprus, we’ll be working with the local Armed Forces community, in partnership with MacKillop Seasons and MOD Community Learning and Development (CLD) teams, to develop a programme for Forces children and young people affected by uncertainty and global conflict.

This project is now underway, and our Deputy CEO, Meg Thomas, will be visiting Cyprus in October to plan three weeks of programme delivery in early 2027. We’ll use our learning to co-produce Finding Your North with children and young people from Forces families across Scotland.

Why this programme?

The Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust is running this programme as part of their three-year strategy to reduce stress and challenge for Armed Forces families.

Finding Your North will help young people understand and manage their worries, navigate change, and strengthen their connections with their peers. Parents will feel confident in the support their children are receiving, and educators and youth workers will feel more equipped to deliver it.

By virtue of where they live, Armed Forces families based on or near UK sovereign bases overseas can be more directly affected by global pressures. The initial delivery of this programme will focus on Cyprus, with the learning shaping future delivery across the UK and overseas.

Our approach

We will be delivering this project the way we always work with young people: putting their voices, rights and lived experiences front and centre. Our partners have encouraged us to share this approach more widely, and we’re delighted to have an opportunity to do so.

Thank you to the Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust for this award, and to our partners at MacKillop Seasons and the MOD CLD teams.

Meg Thomas, Deputy CEO of Forces Children Scotland, said: 

“I’m delighted to be delivering this project, bringing evidence-based wellbeing support to children and young people from Armed Forces families as they cope with global uncertainty. Working in the local community alongside our partners, we’ll be shaping a model that reflects the lived experiences of children and young people from Armed Forces families.

Coming from a social work background, I look forward to combining my experience working with children and families, and our rights-based approach, with our partners’ expertise. Most crucially, the perspectives of young people will help build a programme that truly meets their needs. While this work will begin in Cyprus, this programme has the potential to support Forces children in communities worldwide for years to come.”

Anna Wright, CEO of the Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust, said:

“The agility to respond to the changing global situation—and the stress and challenge that brings for armed forces families based overseas—is such an important tenet of our overseas grants work. It’s so clear that the mental health impacts of the worry, change and separation experienced by young people in our community have wider impacts for their parents and carers too, perhaps especially in places like Cyprus this year. Enabling this project by Forces Children Scotland, to equip young people in the community to deal with these unique pressures— on top of all the other worries and experiences of growing up—is a really strategic way in which the Covenant Fund can help to reduce that disadvantage.”

Steven Sweeney, CEO of Forces Children Scotland, said: 

“The UK’s Armed Forces community is meeting this moment of global conflict with scenario and continuity planning, and we’re no different. For us, this means making sure that support is in place for the children and young people who may be affected.

Thank you to the Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust for recognising this need and giving us the opportunity to deliver this programme, alongside our partners, in Cyprus and Scotland.

There are further opportunities for funders to invest in the impact of Finding Your North. In 2027, we hope to extend co-production across the other home nations. In 2028, with a tried and trusted model in place, our aim is to expand the programme through partnership, reaching communities where it’s needed most.”