Welfare

Residential Support Scheme - an Armed Forces exemption

The Residential Support Scheme provides help with the accommodation costs of learners aged 16 and over, who need to live away from home to study because their course is not available locally. The Department for Education and the Department of Business Innovation Skills, who fund the scheme, have recently included a specific exemption to the eligibility criteria for the Scheme to overcome a disadvantage to Service families living, or recently returned from overseas.

Date: 16 Jan 12

Current Issues

Information and updates about issues affecting Service children and young people:

£3M MoD Support Fund for Schools with Service Children 2011. For those who have been successful in their bid and who have provided their bank account deails, payments have been authorised and are being processed. 

Details of the 2012 bidding round are on the link at the bottom right of this page. Documents which make up the application pack are attached below and should be downloaded if you wish to make an application.

The revised School Admissions Code and School Admission Appeals Code came into force on 1 February. The link at the bottom right of this page accesses further information.

Date: 11 Jan 12

Financial Top Tips for Service Personnel

Service personnel can experience difficulty in accessing commercial products and services due to their mobility and time spent outside the UK. The MOD has worked with the financial sector to improve the ability of Armed Forces personnel to access financial products. The representative bodies for the financial sector are raising awareness within their membership of the need to avoid disadvantage for Service personnel and have worked with the MOD to produce Guidance Notes offering practical help for personnel applying for secured (mortgages) and unsecured loans (credit cards, motor finance, etc).

This Guidance highlights some of the common difficulties faced by the Services’ mobile population in acquiring credit and offers advice on how to overcome these.

Date: 4 Jan 12

Armed Forces Covenant Interim Report 2011

The report considers the effects of membership of the Services in the 15 areas within the scope of the Covenant such as housing, education, healthcare, family life, transition and support after Service.

The Annual Report on the Armed Forces Covenant becomes a legal requirement as part of the Armed Forces Act 2011 from next year. However, the interim report provides a useful baseline for the statutory reports that will follow.

Date: 20 Dec 11

Admission Codes

Admission Codes Update

The Department for Education (DfE) recently invited comments, during their consultation period, about the proposals to overhaul the schools admissions codes. The Ministry of Defence made representation to the DfE.

The current system was perceived by many to be complex, confusing and unfair for parents. Below are two of the key proposals to changes to the Admissions Codes:

• DfE will now allow infant classes to exceed the statutory limit where the 31st child is a twin or from multiple births, or of armed forces personnel.
• Local authorities will need to set out in their admission prospectuses, how they intend to remove disadvantage to Service children regarding all local admission arrangements.
  

The Admission Codes and draft regulations will be laid before Parliament in December 2011 in order to come into force in February 2012, affecting the allocation of places for children starting school in September 2013.

Please see the link on the right for more information

Date: 12 Oct 11

Christmas parcels - poster

Information poster

Date: 16 Sep 11

Children and Young People's Strategy and Improvement Plan 2010-2013

The improvements in outcomes for Service children and young people set out in this Plan are achieved by effective partnerships and co-operation between the various agencies which support children and young people who belong to Armed Forces community.

The Priority areas in the MOD Children and Young People's Strategy and Improvement Plan are:

Priority 1 - Mobility and Deployment

Priority 2 - Healthy Lifestyles

Priority 3 - Learning and Play

Priority 4 - Safeguarding

Priority 5 - Children and Young People have their voices heard

Priority 6 - Learning Pathways and the world of work


Please use the links on the right for detailed information

Date: 9 Aug 11

MOD Support Fund for Schools with Service Children - Grant Application Form

On the 16th May 2011 the Secretary of State for Defence announced, as part of the “Armed Forces Covenant: Today and Tomorrow,” a new fund to assist schools, with children whose parents are in the Armed Forces or the Reserved Forces, to help
mitigate the impact on these schools of increased mobility or the effects of Armed Forces deployments.

The Fund, which is separate and additional to the Pupil Premium, is being provided by the Ministry of Defence. A total of £3M is available for allocation each year from 2011/12 to 2014-15.

The Funding Panel for the £3M Support Fund for State Schools with Service Children sat on 27/10/11 to consider all bids against the £3m Fund.  300 bids were received from across the UK totalling nearly £8M, the Directorate Children and Young People are aiming to confirm funding allocations - in terms of who and how much - by the end of November at the latest.

All who submitted an application for the September 2011 bidding round for the £3M Support Fund for State Schools with Service Children should now have received an email informing them of the result of their application. If you have not received notification then please email LF-PSC-CYP-Mailbox@mod.uk with your school name and address and notification will be re-sent to the details provided on the bid application.

Date: 3 Aug 11

Roles and Responsibilities

The Directorate Children and Young People led by the Director, Mrs Lynda Fisher, has been up and running with its current team since March 2011.

The team all have specific roles and objectives which are underpinned by the Key Priorities set out in the Children and Young People's Strategy and Improvement Plan 2010-2013. 

Date: 3 Aug 11

Nomination Form for a Charity to receive MODCARE support

MODCARE application form.

Date: 29 Jul 11

MODCARE donation form

You can make a regular contribution from your salary by completing the MODCARE donation and gift aid declaration form.

Date: 6 Jul 11

Armed Forces Community Covenant

A Community Covenant is a voluntary statement of mutual support between a civilian community and its local Armed Forces Community. It is intended to complement, at local level, the Armed Forces Covenant, which outlines the moral obligation between the Nation, the Government and the Armed Forces. The aim of the Community Covenant is to encourage local communities to support the Service community in their area and promote understanding and awareness amongst the public of issues affecting the Armed Forces Community.

Many people have become involved in supporting the Service community through Service charities, or more recently by participating in Armed Forces Day. They have shown their support through fundraising, military celebrations and open days, attending homecoming parades and repatriation ceremonies and offering commercial discounts. Even simple demonstrations of support, such as displaying the Armed Forces Day window sticker in cars and businesses, have had a positive effect and boosted the morale of our Armed Forces community. The Community Covenant scheme aims to build on this local level of support.

The aims of the Armed Forces Community Covenant are to:

• encourage local communities to support the Armed Forces community in their areas
• nurture public understanding and awareness amongst the public of issues affecting the Armed Forces community
• recognise and remember the sacrifices faced by the Armed Forces Community
• encourage activities which help to integrate the Armed Forces Community into local life
• to encourage the Armed Forces Community to help and support the wider community, whether through participation in events and joint projects, or other forms of engagement

Local Authorities and the Armed Forces Commuity are encouraged to work together to establish a Community Covenant in their area.

Community Covenants may look quite different from one location to another. This is a scheme where one size does not fit all, and the nature of the support offered will be determined by both need and capacity. It is expected that most Community Covenants will be led at Local Authority level. However Unitary Authorities and individual towns may also wish to have a Community Covenant and this is equally welcome.

Guidance on the Community Covenant scheme is available to download below as is the Community Covenant Pledge template.

This pledge sets out what a Community Covenant seeks to achieve in a particular area and, where possible, will be signed by representatives from all parts of the Community. In most cases the lead signatories will be a senior representative from the Local Authority and one from the Services who will sign on behalf of the Armed Forces Community (although the pledge may also be signed by those representing veterans’ or families groups, especially in areas without a large Serving presence).

It is supported by the Community Covenant Grant Scheme which has been established to financially support projects, at the local level, which strengthen the ties or the mutual understanding between members of the Armed Forces Community and the wider community in which they live. See the related link for further information.

Date: 15 Jun 11

An evaluation of six Community Mental Health Pilots for Veterans of the Armed Forces

This is a University of Sheffield report evaluating the veterans mental health pilots that the Department of Health and the MOD set up.

Date: 17 Dec 10