DIRECT SUPPORT

Emergency Essentials Grants. 

A large proportion of support falls into the Emergency Essentials Grant scheme.  For some children and young people their need is immediate and there is a need to respond quickly and directly to the family.  This could be for a bed, clean clothes or a hot meal.  The Emergency Essentials Grant helps those children who are living in desperate situations and where poverty is having an effect on their health and development.  All the families are struggling financially and many have been tipped into desperate circumstances through bereavement, injury, illness or disability.   These small grants of under £1000 are able to be dealt with immediately and quickly by the Director and Caseworkers and are then ratified by the Welfare Committee.

Some of the larger grants go to children with disabilities to obtain specialist help or equipment and to School Fees and Educational Support.  A significant percentage of our annual charitable expenditure goes on school fees/educational support. This includes children with special needs who require assessments, OT reports and, in some special circumstances, to receive education outside of that provided by the State.  Whether these special circumstances are down to a learning disability or to a family situation where it is safer or of significant benefit to the child is assessed and decided upon by our Welfare Trustees.   In all cases there is a need for support rather than just the ‘want’ of a private education.  Each case is considered independently by our Welfare Committee.  In every case we work with both the school, other charities and Local Authorities to spread the cost of support provided and in the main we contribute just part of the fees.  Some children are in receipt of CEA.  

INDIRECT SUPPORT

Respite and childcare given to children. 

 Childcare support is given in times of crisis and usually for a limited period.  The primary reasons tend to revolve around disability and illness of either the parent or a sibling requiring hospital stays.  Support includes travel for hospital or medical visits or family outings and holidays in times of crisis and distress.

INFLUENCE & SUPPORT

NCP Naval Community Projects.  The Trustees have identified that not all children in need require direct grants of financial support.  We now support (in partnership with TRMC and Aggie’s) the community centre at Poole and the Ark Community Centre in Plymouth. 

Resources.  We also have two publications, Knit the Family and Zoe and the Time Rabbit that are sent out free of charge to our families that request them.  Knit the Family is a resource to help families understand and cope with the cycle of deployment and the Operational Stress Reaction that can occur in varying degrees of intensity following deployment and active service, particularly in difficult and challenging zones of conflict around the world. 

Zoe and the Time Rabbit is a new publication launched in May 2018 which aims to provide a resource to families with young children to explore and understand the emotions of the children experiencing long separations.  When a child is young time is felt very differently and with deployments lasting up to 9 months this can have a detrimental effect on a child’s mental health.  The Children’s Fund have called this the Kid Years Effect, how time is experienced by a child compared to that of an adult.  To date we have sent out around 800 free copies, we have provided 1000 leaflets to RNRM Welfare to go in deployment packs and have carried out a targeted publicity and social media campaign to reach families around the UK.