We have a responsibility to make sure parliamentarians understand the experiences of children and young people from armed forces and veteran families and that their views are represented in the development of policy and law.
We work hard to make sure we find the right opportunities to do this and there are two opportunities coming up that we believe would benefit from hearing from the children and young people we work with.
First up, Forces Children Scotland is drafting a response to a Scottish Government consultation, “Changes to residency criteria for access to financial support in Further and Higher Education”.
Although this opportunity focuses largely on implementing required changes following the Jasim v Scottish Ministers case, we will call for further consultation to consider amendments necessary to avoid disadvantage for other young people.
Specifically, we are hoping to address how residency criteria affects children and young people from forces families and how this affects their funding for Higher Education.
After this, we will also respond to a Scottish Parliamentary Inquiry called “Addressing child poverty through parental employment”.
We believe the Social Justice and Social Security Committee in Scottish Parliament should consider the unique experiences facing families from the armed forces community especially their experience of childcare and its impact on parental employment.
Aside from the preparation of written evidence to the above opportunities, Forces Children Scotland will also be directly engaging with parliamentarians.
We plan to make sure the rights of children and young people from forces families are understood and protected by parliamentarians, helping to bridge the gap between the children and young people we work with and those with the responsibility to represent them.
All of this activity is testing out our newly developing, co-produced approach to influencing change. You can find out more about this at Putting lived experience first in influencing – Forces Children Scotland.
Watch this space for our full responses to these important influencing opportunities.
Contact our Policy Team