Early Support for Military-Connected Families: Evaluation of Services at NSPCC Military Site

Abstract: While military-connected children and their families share many challenges in common with other families, they also face unique circumstances that can cause additional stress and anxiety. Even during peacetime, recurring features of military life, such as separations due to deployment and training, stressors associated with the deployment cycle, and frequent relocation create circumstances that potentially undermine parenting and child wellbeing. While there are no accurate records of the number of military-connected children within the UK, over 67,000 children in England and Wales aged 0 to 15 were recorded during the last census as living in a household with a member of the armed forces. The NSPCC has two long-established service centres located within or near to army garrisons: Tidworth in Wiltshire and Catterick in North Yorkshire. This evaluation focused on three ‘early help’ services delivered from one or both sites: drop-in services for parents and children under five years, school lunch clubs and a group intervention for children with anxiety and emotional problems. ‘Early help’ services are designed to provide support and prevent problems within families before they become more difficult to reverse. While the drop-in services and group intervention are open to both military and civilian populations, the school lunch club is specifically for children from the military community. Service design and outcome measurement at the centres is informed by the Strengthening Families™ model, a theoretical framework designed to help services focus on increasing family strengths, enhancing child development and reducing the likelihood of child abuse and neglect. Services aim to build five protective factors: parental resilience; social connections; knowledge of parenting and child development; support in times of need; and the social and emotional competence of children. This evaluation of the services aimed to: 1. Identify the extent to which the NSPCC services are meeting desired outcomes that improve safeguarding and early help for military-connected families. 2. Provide learning that will benefit others working with militaryconnected families. Another intention was that the evaluation would also contribute to the further development of the services.