Research, Policy, campaigns & research
Forces in Mind Trust fund new research on support for Armed Forces Children and young people
News Release – Tuesday 4th October
Forces in Mind Trust has awarded £49,800 to the Directory of Social Change (DSC) for a new research project, exploring funding for support for Service children. The research will help the Service Children’s Progression Alliance to enhance the accessibility and quality of funding for Armed Forces children and young people’s educational success and progression.
The project is based on objectives from the SCiP Alliance Funders’ Forum’s action plan. It will establish the first ever account of the landscape of funding supporting Armed Forces children and young people’s success and translate existing knowledge and evidence into improvements in practice and policy in relation to funding. As part of the project, DSC will produce a scoping report on support for Armed Forces children and young people.
The research will take place over six months.
Tom McBarnet, Chief Executive (Acting) of Forces in Mind Trust, said
“We are pleased to be working again with the research team at DSC to fund this important project. We know that Service children can be at risk of disadvantage. The ‘Living in Our Shoes’ report led by Andrew Selous MP and published in late 2020 and the subsequent UK Armed Forces Families Strategy set out a series of recommendations and targets which the SCiP Alliance Funders’ Forum is keen to help address. This research will provide important evidence and guidance to enact some key SCiP Alliance objectives, which, in turn, should help to ensure that Service children are less likely to face disadvantage.”
Clare Scherer, CEO, Naval Children’s Charity, and Chair of the SCiP Alliance Funders’ Forum said
“The Naval Children’s Charity are hugely grateful to Forces in Mind Trust for their grant to DSC to explore the landscape of funding support to Armed Forces children across the UK. This addition to their definitive sector guides in the Focus On series will enable greater collaboration and partnership working from charities and organisations and help us to identify the needs of and further ways to support our children and young people. The relationship between DSC and FiMT on previous research gives a solid foundation to support this new piece of research.”
Chester Howarth, Senior Researcher, Directory of Social Change (DSC), said
“We at DSC firmly believe in the importance of establishing an evidence base to support policy and practice. At the present moment, there is much to learn about the organisations funding support for Armed Forces children and young people. With this new research, we can begin not only to map out the funding landscape but to connect funders. DSC are grateful to FiMT for their support and commitment to generating quality evidence, and we look forward to working with SCiP Alliance on this important work.”
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Notes to Editors
For more information or to interview spokespeople, please contact Genevieve Lazar, Communications Officer at FiMT on genevieve@fim-trust.org or 07305 149150.
About Forces in Mind Trust (FiMT):
Forces in Mind Trust was founded in 2011 with a £35 million endowment from the National Lottery Community Fund to improve transition to civilian life for Service leavers and their families. Our mission is to enable successful and sustainable transition to civilian life, and the Trust’s strategy is to provide an evidence base that will influence and underpin effective policy making and practice. By funding high quality, credible research where there is an identified gap in relevant understanding, and by then exploiting the findings, FiMT aims to effect positive change.
www.fim-trust.org | @FiMTrust
About the SCiP Alliance:
The Service Children’s Progression (SCiP) Alliance is a partnership of organisations focused on improving outcomes for children from Armed Forces families. It is hosted by the University of Winchester and supported by the Ministry of Defence (MoD).
www.scipalliance.org |@scipalliance
About Directory of Social Change (DSC):
Directory of Social Change (DSC) is an independent charity with a vision of an independent voluntary sector at the heart of social change. DSC exists to help charities, voluntary organisations, community groups and those who support them to achieve their goals. DSC is the leading provider of information and training for the voluntary sector and provides an extensive range of products and services covering subjects such as fundraising, management, communication, finance and law. Since 2014, DSC has been funded by Forces in Mind Trust to provide research and analysis on Armed Forces charities, which continues to inform and influence policy and practice.
Useful links
www.dsc.org.uk |@DSC_Charity
