Three new funding programmes will launch on 3 April 2023 aimed at improving the lives of armed forces communities.
- The Service Pupil Support Programme awards grants to schools to help address additional challenges that children from armed forces families may face;
- The Supporting Partners Innovation Fund provides support for partners of those who are serving;
- The Early Years Fund helps enhance learning for young children from serving armed forces families to ensure they have great places to learn and develop.
These are part of the MOD Armed Forces Families Fund, which was created to help implement parts of the UK Armed Forces Families Strategy following its launch in January 2022.
Last year’s round of funding supported 84 projects benefiting armed forces families, including a ‘Safe Space and Support’ scheme for the 86 service children at Somerset’s Stanchester Academy.
The supervised safe space is used as a meeting place, homework room, and dining area, as well as a location for an additional Emotional Literacy Support Assistant (ELSA) to provide one-to-one tutoring.
The project also allowed the academy to train a member of staff as a ‘Bounce Forward Armed Forces Resilience Champion’, providing resilience sessions and community events to improve the lives of service children and their families.
Teacher Rebecca Hendry, who applied for the grant, said: “We have a high number of pupils that transfer to our secondary school in later years or midway through the year.
“Many of our students experience having a parent deployed or based elsewhere and away during the week. By funding a specialist ELSA staff member and offering them extra tuition combined with a safe space, we can ensure that they have all the support needed to help them.”
The fund is administered by the Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust. Further details of the programmes, eligibility and the application process can be found at covenantfund.org.uk.