The Armed Forces Families Fund: Early Years Programme

Support for projects which help Armed Forces families access good quality early years childcare

The Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust (The Trust) are delighted to announce the latest round of The Armed Forces Families Fund: Early Years Programme. Under this programme the Trust will award grants of between £5,000 and £80,000 for projects which help enhance early childhood education and childcare settings to ensure they meet the needs of young children from Armed Forces families.

What’s the aim of the programme?

The Trust want to help Armed Forces families access good quality early childhood education and childcare provision that is located close to where they live or serve.

The Early Years Programme aims to address specific needs that early childhood educators have identified, such as funding to increase capacity for settings or funding to support training and development of staff so that more Armed Forces families have access to high quality childcare.

Samaritans Veterans app

The Samaritans Veterans app​ provides UK military Service Leavers and Veterans with emotional health and wellbeing information, guidance and resources. 

Samaritans Veterans is designed to give you the tools to identify and navigate the emotional health challenges that can be experienced when transitioning out of the military and in your life beyond the Forces.

When life is difficult, Samaritans are here – day or night, 365 days a year. You can call us free on 116 123 (within the UK or Ireland) or email us at jo@samaritans.org. 

Whoever you are and whatever you’re facing, we won’t judge you or tell you what to do. We’re here to listen so you don’t have to face it alone. www.samaritans.org.​

Defence creates an information sheet for Family Courts about Service life

Defence has updated and shared information with Family Courts to help demonstrate that Service and family life is compatible. The Army Families Federation informed Defence of anecdotal feedback from some families of potential misunderstandings about the nature of Service life when going through the Family Court system.

As a result of this feedback, Defence worked with stakeholders across the Family Court systems to produce an information sheet for Family Court workers.

The information sheet aims to increase understanding about the working and living arrangements of Service personnel, and how their families are impacted. The document also shows the support available for Armed Forces families to build and maintain a stable life at home.

Independent Doctoral Thesis Research Invitation for Veterans

Please note that this research is independent and neither affiliated to, nor endorsed by, the MOD.

International HIVE (iHIVE) - Launch of New Blog

The brand new iHIVE Blog has been launched today!

This platform hosts worldwide location information, including Overseas Location Guides, to enable Service personnel and their families find out more about a potential or current overseas assignment.

Our iHIVE HIVE Information Support Officer can also answer any questions that you may have, including regarding supportability for any specific in-country family requirements.

For more information please visit: https://internationalhive.blogspot.com/​

Army Social Fitness Campaign

 

Tom Harrison House Liverpool - Female Veterans Project

 

National Careers Service - help with your exam results

Whether you got the grades you expected or not, there are lots of options available to you.

Find out how you can get the jump on your next steps with the National Careers Service

Togetherall - setting yourself up for success

Sometimes we can all feel stuck, whether in work, relationships or just everyday life itself. However, there are things we can do to understand these feelings to become more productive and motivated.

With Togetherall, you can try journallling, setting goals or taking a course to keep yourself on track and feeling good.

Togetherall is FREE to UK Military, Veterans and family members 16+ join at Togetherall​

Please click the link to watch Togetherall's information video or click the image above:
​​​Setting yourself up for success 

NHS MMR Vaccine

Parents and carers of children are being reminded of the importance of routine vaccinations, with hundreds of thousands of texts, emails and letters being sent from this week encouraging families to book their child in for an MMR vaccine.

The NHS is contacting parents and carers of around 740,000 children aged between one and six who have not yet had one or both doses of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine, encouraging them to make an appointment with their child's GP practice.

One in ten children are not currently up to date with their MMR vaccinations – despite general practices continuing to offer routine immunisations.

Measles, mumps and rubella are highly infectious illnesses that can easily spread between unvaccinated people. Complications from these diseases can be potentially life changing.

Armed Forces Pay Award - Non-UK National Personnel

 

SSAFA Forces Additional Needs & Disability Newsletter - Biennial Conference Edition

The latest Newsletter from FANDF with a focus on the biennial conference is now available.

For more details visit www.ssafa.org.uk/fandf or contact your nearest HIVE for details.

Dept for Work and Pensions weekly update

Information regarding the move from Tax Credits to Universal Credits (UC) is now available online.

Employers that have signed up to the Disability Confident scheme

This document lists the employers that have signed up to the Disability Confident scheme, and their status (committed, employer or leader) to end of July 2023.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is reminding bereaved parents to check their eligibility for financial support. In February 2023 the government extended eligibility for Bereavement Support Payment and Widowed Parent’s Allowance to cohabiting parents with dependent children. The benefits are designed to help with the financial impact of losing a partner.

Previously these benefits were only available to eligible bereaved parents who were married or in a civil partnership, but the law was changed to make it fairer to children.

When DWP extended eligibility in February 2023, it opened a 12-month window for cohabiting parents to backdate their claims. This means parents whose partner died before 9 February 2023 have until 8 February 2024 to claim. After this, it will not be possible to claim Widowed Parent’s Allowance and parents will not get their full entitlement to a backdated payment of Bereavement Support Payment

Are you ready for Wraparound Childcare’s autumn 2023 updates? Updates and expansions to eligibility criteria

Join more than 5500 Service families who are currently benefiting from claiming up to £3,400 per child per year of before and after school childcare costs.

The Wraparound Childcare (WAC) scheme provides funding for up to 20 hours per week, per child, to eligible Service families with children aged 4 to 11 years old who are in school or being home schooled in the UK. Almost 8000 Service children's before and after school childcare is currently being funded by WAC.

Read more »

Service Leavers' Guide - July 2023 Edition

T​he updated version of the Service Leavers' Guide has now been published on gov.uk. Please see link: ​Service leavers' guide - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

HM Forces Veterans' ID Card

The Ministry of Defence and Office for Veterans' Affairs are​​ building an application process to support the HM Armed Forces Veteran Card rollout later this year. They want to hear your views on this.

If you are a veteran who served in HM Armed Forces, please complete the below survey to help the team:
https://ow.ly/PCt350PqHHf

The Ripple Pond - July Newsletter

July Newsletter ​

Armed Forces Covenant - Duty Toolkit

The Armed Forces Covenant website now hosts a Duty Toolkit, with reference documents, guides, resources and training material to help explain the legal Duty aspect of the Armed Forces Covenant. Please visit: Armed Forces Covenant Duty toolkit - Armed Forces Covenant​ for further information.

Civvy Street - August 2023 Edition

The August edition of Civvy Street magazine is available HERE​

Out of Hours Medical Care

 

Out of Hours Care

 If you need to be seen urgently, call Nightcare 

PLEASE call ahead, this can avoid lengthy waits. 

Henri Dunantstraat 5,

6419 PC

Heerlen

+31 (0)45 577 8844

When you have time, contact Healix so they are aware of your visit.

+44 208 481 7800

healthline@healix.com

Payment: If there are any payment issues at the hospital, call Healix and they should be able to sort out a guarantee of payment there and then. If you must pay, please email me and I can send a claim form. If you do receive an invoice to your home after a visit, please forward directly to me for action.

Medication: If you are prescribed medication from the out of hours service and receive the prescription from the pharmacy at the hospital – they will charge you – we do not have a cashless billing agreement with them. Keep all receipts and email if a claim form is required:

For invoices and JPA claims:   

UKStratCom-DMS-DPHC-EJSU-Fin@mod.gov.uk

General and clinical enquiries: 

UKStratCom-DMS-DPHC-EJSU-CEPGrp@mod.gov.uk

Little Troopers Gazette

Our Little Troopers Gazette is a newspaper written by military children for military children and we'd love your little troopers to write something for us over the holidays.

We are looking for articles for the next edition and we have templates for children 5yrs+ to write something; be it a book review, about their sport, where they live, their school, military life....there's many to choose from in our Press Pack area.

Full details can be found HERE​

Tri-service Reserves continuous attitude survey 2023

Please click here​ to read the tri-service results from the 2023 Reserves continuous attitude survey (RESCAS)

Department of Work & Pensions (DWP) Update

Thousands of parents to benefit from more work coach support

From 24 July 2023, parents of children aged 1 and 2 on Universal Credit will start to benefit from meeting more frequently with work coaches to help them prepare for work.

* Parents with a one-year-old will start to have a work-focused meeting with their work coach every three months instead of the current every six months.

* Parents with a two-year-old will start meeting with their work coach every month instead of the current every three months.

Army Multicultural Network Conference

The Army Multicultural Network will hold its biennial conference at Churchill Hall, Royal Military Academy Sandhurst on 20 September 2023, 0800-1700 hrs. The event is open to all Regular and Reserve personnel, Civil Servants and members of associated Employee Support Networks. The chain of command and unit welfare/diversity and inclusion advisors are equally encouraged to attend.

DCGS will present at an interactive day, sponsored by Commander Home Command, with Guest Speakers Prof David Olusoga and Dr Balissa Green. It aims to provide an informative, interactive, and inspiring forum that provides practical tools to individuals and the chain of command so that we can maximise the talent and potential of all under-represented cohorts, and ultimately make a more operationally effective army ready to fight and win wars on land.

The Conference, themed “Time to Act", intends to build on the significance of the recently published Army Race Action Plan; throughout there will be examples of putting words to action and methodology to close the gap between intent and outcome.
Follow this LINK to register for the Army Multicultural Network Conference 2023.

Get Safe Online - Do You Know What Your Children Are Doing On-line This Summer

The Summer Holidays are here. With your child spending so much time on a relatively unregulated internet, please take the time to help them recognise and avoid online harms - check out the Get Safe Online leaflet HERE​