We welcomed over 150 guests to Portsmouth’s Historic Dockyard to celebrate our work over the past 18 months, and to look ahead to the coming year
The past 18 months have been a challenging, yet rewarding period for the Naval Children’s Charity. We’ve been able to deliver targeted support to Naval families in difficult times, while also expanding our scope of resources and campaigns to offer opportunities to every young person in our network.
We want to do more. A big part of that push is informing the Naval family at large of our work, growing our influence and articulating our plans going forward.
On the 11th of October, we welcomed over 150 guests to Portsmouth’s Historic Dockyard to celebrate the past year and a half, while also announcing new initiatives for the immediate future. The guestlist featured a broad cross section of our cause, with serving and veteran personnel, former and current beneficiaries, as well as supporters and fundraisers all coming together under one roof.
It was a joy to be under one roof, something that would have seemed impossible over the past couple of years. We hope we can do it again in the future, and visit other areas of the country where the commitment to our cause is just as strong.
The day sped by in a blur. The contributions made by our supporters and beneficiaries were fantastic, while the opening display by the Royal Marines Corps of Drums brought a vibrant energy that continued throughout the day.
Here’s a summary of the day, the year just gone, and a sneak peek of what we’re planning in the immediate future.
You can watch a video with testimonies from guests and speakers below.
Our support in numbers
The presentations kicked off with some topline stats. Here’s a summary of our spending efforts in 2021/22, with a particular focus on the direct support given to both veteran and serving families.
Education grants
Security Grants
Research and resources
2021/22 was a very busy period for the launch of new proprietary research commissioned by NCC.
In May 2021, we launched ‘The Impact of Service Life on the Military Child: The Overlooked Casualties of Conflict – Update and Reviews Report’ – a follow-up to our research from 2009. Our partners at the Veterans’ Family Institute at the Anglia Ruskin University investigated how the stressors on serving families have changed over the past decade.
The report flagged one key development for Naval families – the use of social media and instant internet-based messaging services. We therefore commissioned the VFI to explore this topic in more detail. In June this year, we launched ‘Dropping In and Out’, a report based on the testimonies of Naval families, detailing their use of social media, and the effects this is having on serving parents, and their loved ones at home.
We’ve put greater emphasis on adding more resources to our website over the past 12 months, to supplement our long-standing favourites. Our children’s books Henry and the Time Penguin, and Zoe and the Time Rabbit continue to be popular with younger children while mummy and daddy are on deployment, while our Naval Baby welcome kits have been well received by the new parents in our community.
This year we’ve launched two new resources – and partnered with another organisation – to help children manage some of life’s more difficult topics.
Naval families have twelve months free access to Thinkably, a bank of e-books and other learning materials, which helps children come to terms with topics including mental health, long-term illness and the on-going fallout from the pandemic.
The Wisdom While You Work notebook for children aged 10 – 25 years old, helps develop the values and skills children will need to thrive in adulthood. Produced in collaboration with children’s author Libbla Kelly, this interactive notebook has proved very popular with Naval teenagers, and is still available for free for all children in our community.
Finally, our Navigating Grief booklets are designed to help children process the grief of losing a parent, and also help surviving parents and carers support their kids through bereavement. Made in collaboration with Child Bereavement UK, the booklets feature moving testimony from bereaved Naval children, who are now entering young adulthood.
Guest speakers
We welcomed three of our contributors to Navigating Grief to speak at the annual meeting. Ella Baragwanath and Holly Arkle gave very moving accounts of their experience in losing a parent, while Sophie Cartwright from Child Bereavement UK gave context to the creation of the booklets, and the methodology in supporting children through grief.
Andy Gleave spoke beautifully about his experience with cancer. We’ve supported Andy during his treatment over the past few years, and it was such a welcome sight to see him in good spirits.
Future initiatives
Four of our Young Ambassadors. From left to right: Hannah Taylor, Ella Baragwanath, Bruno Tomo Friere and Holly Arkle
Ella and Holly will continue to help their younger counterparts through our new Young Ambassador scheme. This network of former beneficiaries of NCC will work as volunteers alongside the charity going forward. They will be joined by Hannah Taylor, Bruno Tomo Friere and Sian Smith: we look forward to telling you more about this in the next few months.
This year we launched a partnership with Tall Ships Youth Trust. We subsisdised two voyages for Naval children. Onboard the iconic 72-ft Challenger Yacht, our adventurers sailed around the coast of Scotland, gaining both technical knowledge and valuable, transferable life skills like leadership, teamwork and problem solving.
We’re so happy that we will continue to work with TYST to provide Naval children these once-in-a-lifetime experiences. A commitment that will feed our work in 2022/23 and beyond.
We want to facilitate ‘Life Chances’, that will help young people transition into adulthood, and ensure they ‘Thrive, Not Just Survive’ in the modern world.
Most importantly, we want to ‘Focus on All Naval Children’, making sure they’re as proud to be a part of this community, as we are to have them in it.
Here’s to the year ahead
We’d like to thank every volunteer, supporter and fundraiser for their outstanding work in 2021/22. It has given us the opportunity to provide tailored support for those most in need, while also giving our wider community the chances to explore, to grow and to look ahead to a better future.
We’re feeling energised, and raring to go for 2022/23. We hope you’re ready to join us on the voyage ahead.
