Children's charity launches free wellbeing toolkit to help military kids cope with service life
A military children's charity has released a free psychological toolkit to help kids of those who serve navigate the difficult challenges that come with service life, such as separation and mobility.
The Naval Children's Charity is encouraging the military community to embrace their new initiative – called Doing Distance – a collection of activities to help parents and guardians look after the wellbeing of children from all three branches of the Armed Forces.
Military children often experience separation from their loved ones, whether it's due to deployments, weekend duty, or regularly moving to new countries and these experiences can trigger a range of emotions that might be difficult to cope with.
Frankie Stride, a triage case worker at the Naval Children's Charity, who is also a naval child and partner, said: "We can really see how [the toolkits are] going to benefit children who are experiencing being in a military family and how they can... support through separation.
"It's a really niche experience and having resources that fit that niche will be so valuable to those families."
The comprehensive toolkit has been created with the help of Bear Us In Mind, a group with more than 30 years of experience working directly with families around separation and loss.
These free tools will help military children and young people better deal with the challenges they face and enable them to hold on to special memories.
Julie Stokes, a clinical psychologist and the founder of child bereavement charity, Winston's Wish and Bear Us In Mind, said: "I am really excited and pleased that the Naval Children's Charity has offered to not only take and develop some resources that we worked on in recent years, particularly for children, helping them to deal with separation, loss and bereavement."
The toolkit is separated into sections to help people find the right resources suitable for their needs – balancing memories, friendship rainbow, we are family, growing around separation, little box of big thoughts and this is me.
While talking about upsetting memories can be difficult for some children, the charity is keen for parents and guardians to encourage kids to express themselves and not shy away from their emotions.
The Balancing Memories activity will help guide a parent or guardian support a child as they think and talk about different types of memories.
The activities in We Are Family use soft toys to encourage children to talk openly about how they feel as well as bring them comfort and help them to feel safe.
Soft toys can become trusted companions to children, helping them to manage fear and separation anxiety and to feel connected to people they care about.
The Little Box Of Big Thoughts activity is designed to encourage conversation about difficult feelings and to shine a light on thoughts some children are worried about sharing such as concerns about how their parent is coping.
This resource is a collection of sentence starters such as:
- I hope that you...
- When times get tough...
- A favourite memory I will always have is...
- Being separated will not break...
Independent of the Royal Navy, the Naval Children's Charity helps about 2,000 children directly each year and many thousands more through our resources and work with communities and other organisations.
Those who have benefited from its support are full of praise for the charity, with one person who wanted to remain anonymous, saying: "I cannot tell you how appreciative I am of all your help and support – it means the absolute world to me and my children.
"The charity have honestly changed our lives, they are amazing and the team are so empathic and supportive."
The charity's help doesn't end there. It has also teamed up with Naval Families Federation to provide children with books designed to help them navigate their way through military life such as The Invisible String, The Anxiety Survival Guide for teens and two specially commissioned books, Zoe and the Time Rabbit and Henry and the Time Penguin.
They offer a wellbeing box specifically designed for children between the ages of seven and 13.
In addition, they have partnered with Child Bereavement UK to create a booklet called Navigating Grief which is intended for parents, carers, and young people.
Lastly, they offer a free notebook called Wisdom While You Work for naval children aged from 10 up to 25 years old.
Clare Scherer MBE, from the Naval Children's Charity, said: "We could not be more grateful to Julie Stokes and the Bear Us In Mind team for their generosity in allowing us to adapt and use this amazing toolkit.
"We really think it will bring help and support to lots of our families as they deal with some of the challenges that come with life as a service family."
The Doing Distance toolkit can be found here and more details about
To donate or find out more about the charity visit navalchildrenscharity.org.uk
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