HMS Oardacious joins forces with Huggable Heroes to bring comfort to children of submariners

The Royal Navy's official ocean rowing team HMS Oardacious is launching a new project designed to support children with a submariner parent. 

To mark April being the month of the military child, a time when the children of Armed Forces personnel are celebrated, HMS Oardacious' Submarine Service Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund is funding a pilot project to buy 250 Huggable Heroes vouchers for the children of submariners.

Huggable Heroes is a charity that hand-makes cuddly toys for military children, featuring a printed photograph of their serving parent, to help them better cope with the challenges of separation during deployments.

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The HMS Oardacious – Submarine Service Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund, supported by the Royal Navy and Royal Marines Charity, is committed to funding resources, projects and events that support the mental health and well-being of submariners and their families during the deployment cycle – a challenging period for everyone involved. 

In addition to the Huggable Hero project, there is also a short video (below) highlighting some of the challenges faced by children with a submariner parent. 

In the video, mum-of-two Sophie Fraser shares what it is like to be married to a submariner – her husband, Callum Fraser, rowed across the Atlantic in both the 2019 and 2022 HMS Oardacious teams. 

She also explains some of the ways HMS Oardacious works with other organisations and experts to advocate for the unique submariner community. 

Thanks to her role as Families Representative for the HMS Oardacious Management Committee, Mrs Fraser has been intrinsically involved in the project since it was created in 2018. 

She said: "Members of our organisation have each experienced many deployments and the impact these can have on Mental Health."

She added: "As such, the team are incredibly passionate about being ambassadors for mental health and wellbeing for both serving personnel and their families and that it is as important to support the families as it is the serving personnel within the Royal Navy. 

"One of the aims of the HMS Oardacious – Submarine Service Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund – is to dedicate to finding ways to support children of serving personnel who can have varying reactions to a deployment. 

"The Huggable Heroes toys represent their parents and give children a tangible reminder of [what] their parent looks like, so they can feel close to them even though in reality they're a long way away."

Commander Matthew Main, Marine Engineer Officer and Skipper of the HMS Oardacious 2023 Rowing Crew, explains the importance of supporting submariner families, saying: "We're trained for it. 

"When we deploy, we're with other submariners who are literally in the same boat… but our families haven't signed up for it necessarily, certainly the children haven't. 

"Charities and organisations like HMS Oardacious are there to help to look after your family and to support them through a difficult period." 

Mrs Fraser is joined in the film by Helen Mason, an occupational and EMDR therapist and co-founder of The Submarine Mermaid Postal Service Project, a first-of-its-kind initiative to support young children during submarine deployments.

The video highlights the importance of peer support and the resourcefulness of the submarine family's community.  

During the trial project, those eligible for a Huggable Hero will be contacted by the Royal Navy to provide more details on how to claim their voucher.