The Armed Forces Family Programme uses sport and physical activity to support children and young people from Armed Forces families across Somerset, helping them to build confidence, resilience and wellbeing.
Through one-to-one mentoring, group activities and support in schools, the programme is making a real difference to young people and their families. Here, they share their experiences of the programme and the impact it has had.
1:1 Sessions
Aaron has been such a huge help in mentoring my children over the past couple of months. Due to our decision to commute to their school 50 mins away (rather than the disruption of moving schools) they have been unable to continue most of their after school clubs. Aaron has not only provided them with fun and exciting sporting activities each week, he has managed to talk them about resilience, coping strategies and real life links using sport. They thoroughly enjoy their sessions and hugely appreciate his time with them. They attend a small rural primary school as the only military children, and have not been supported at all due to lack of funding and understanding. Aaron not only understands how they feel when times have been particularly difficult due to their father being deployed often and at short notice, he knows how to help them get through these periods of stress.
"Thank you again for today, we are really grateful for the work that you do. (he) doesn’t get to go on trips with school much anymore and has to stay back when his peers get to go to exciting places. I know from my own experiences that will resonate with him as he grows older. It makes me sad that he misses out, but there’s nothing I alone can do to provide those experiences. Being able to go on your trips gives him pride, independence, and memories to hold on to, helping him develop his own character. Thank you."
Club Sessions
Our boys have loved attending the multisports club at Norton Manor this term.
They said “We enjoy playing proper football matches on a big pitch, but it’s also fun to do lots of different sports like climbing. We like that it’s a small group of people. We like getting stamps on our cards each week.”
For me, the club has been a wonderful opportunity for the boys to meet other forces children (not living on the patch or near where my RN husband works means they don’t often socialise with forces children) and even though they probably don’t talk openly about their lives, it’s still beneficial for them to have these social connections. They enjoyed watching helicopters circling one week when we arrived early - a part of military life that they don’t often see.
It’s also respite for me, as a weekending family, to have one hour of free childcare guaranteed each week.
The stamp cards are a great way for us to talk about what they did each week and reflect on what they’ve learnt.
School Sessions
One of the Pupils I Keywork, that struggles to access his education within the learning environment has been taking part in mentoring through the SASP programme, prior to this he was often truant from lessons, he viewed himself as not capable enough to access some of his lessons which then added up to then getting into low level disruptions and led to sanctions. The student also finds it hard to build relationships that are positive.
The school reached out to SASP to do some focused Sport mentoring as the pupil has a passion for Rugby and we thought that a link to 'School - SASP – Rugby Club' would be beneficial for the Pupil.
Since Aaron McGough from SASP has been working with myself and the pupil, we have seen a vast improvement on all fronts for this pupil, AM built a positive relationship with the pupil very quickly and had the pupil engaged from the first session – this in itself was a big win!!
Meeting Weekly with the pupil Aaron has engaged the pupil using his sporting passion of rugby, activities they do include rugby football to then help the pupil transfer the skills into the classroom setting
The improvements include a huge improvement in attendance in lessons, a happier pupil whilst at school and a willingness to get involved with this programme/intervention - at first the pupil was hesitant to meet with SASP – but now the pupil looks forward to these sessions and has built up a great relationship with Aaron. The pupil's overall confidence has improved - as shown by his effort in lessons and work completed
Some quotes from Pupil:
“I look forward to my sessions with Aaron, I like him (he’s a nice guy) and enjoy the activities we do.”
“I would like to continue to do these weekly sessions after summer”
I have witnessed the pupil taking huge leaps forward since working with Aaron from SASP and can't thank Aaron enough for the work he has done with me and the pupil.
Thank you from myself, pupil and school.
I look forward to hopefully continuing this intervention in the new year.