Supporting Service Families

In July 2022 Northern Federation signed the Armed Forces Covenant, pledging our support to service families. We were honoured to be joined by Lieutenant Commander B J Smith The Commanding Officer of HMS VICTORY, who signed our pledge. In March 2023 Northern Federation recieved the Bronze award from the Defence Employer Recognition Scheme (ERS) recognising our ongoing committment to support Service families and veterans.

In school we support our children with regular ELSA support. In the infant school we focus on what it means to be part of the services community, offering group or 1:1 support through deployment as needed, through stories and craft. In the junior school we continue to reflect on the unique community they belong to, exploring emotions linked to deployment (short or long) and developing ways to support children to cope with this in an age appropriate way. 

We celebrated Month of the Military Child in April by wearing purple. Some of our Forces Crew made a video all about being a forces family to share with the school.

For our parents, we know there is lots of support available in both Portsmouth and Hampshire. We hope you also find these following links useful to you;

Living in our shoes - Full Report

Making Sense of the Emotional Cycle of Deployment

Aggies also offer support via their Community Waves pastoral support. More information can be found here.

Hampshire County Council have put together a resource for schools and families which focusses specifically on supporting pupils from service families. Please click here for the document.