Forces in Mind Trust future insights workshop report
Forces in Mind Trust (FiMT) partnered with Patrick Harris and James Alexander from Future Agenda to deliver a workshop to explore the key societal challenges and opportunities most likely to affect the Armed Forces community in the future and the freedoms and constraints impacting the environment of their support. The workshop built on the Lifting Our Sights: Beyond 2030 foresight report, which examined the impact of future trends on Service personnel and their families as they transition out of the military over the next ten years and beyond. The purpose of the event was to enable participants, and the organisations they represent, to recognise and explore their role and required potential action, to better deliver support for the Armed Forces community in the future. The intended outcomes included: • To have explored and identified the needs of the Armed Forces community in 2030 and beyond • To understand other’s and alternative perspectives • To identify specific areas of opportunity, challenge and action • To identify the implications of this exploration for attendee’s organisations The event bought together representatives from a range of sectors including central government, the devolved administrations, the Armed Forces, academia and the charity sector. This report provides a summary of the key findings from the day.
Abstract: This research set out to investigate the experiences of ‘grown up’ children from armed forces families, to gather their reflections on childhood and education, and to seek their advice to inform the current armed forces community, policy-makers and practitioners. The Service Children’s Progression Alliance (SCiP) defines a child from an armed forces family as “a person whose parent or carer serves in the Regular Armed Forces, or as a Reservist, or has done at any point during the first 25 years of that person’s life” (SCiP, 2017: para 2) and the Office for Students refers to this definition in their documentation relating to student characteristics (OfS n.d. para 8, see also OfS, 2020: para 11). In this research we use the term ‘grown up’ to indicate individuals over the age of 18 recognised to have reached the legal age of adulthood in the UK. This group of individuals are currently overlooked in research, policy and practice as the focus continues to be on serving members of the armed forces, veterans, and families, including school-aged children.