Armed Forces Covenant Fund: Supporting Serving Families Overseas Programme

Overview

This programme offers grants of between £3,000 and £20,000 to support serving families stationed overseas. It aims to help overseas bases, or UK-based charities working with them, identify and address challenges impacting the wellbeing of partners, children and young people during overseas deployments.

Eligibility

They welcome applications from:

• An overseas Armed Forces unit, base or defence location
• a charity registered with one or more of the charity commissions for England and Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland working in partnership with an Armed Forces overseas unit, base or defence location. Charities should be constituted to deliver services overseas.

Charities that do not have substantial recent experience of working with the Armed Forces community can apply in partnership with an Armed Forces charity or Armed Forces unit. Planned partnerships must be agreed in principle prior to an application being submitted and the organisation named in the relevant section of the application form.

Substantial recent experience of supporting Armed Forces communities means that either the governing documents of your organisation state that you specifically work with people from Armed Forces communities, or that you can show that working with Veterans, Armed Forces families or serving personnel is a significant and regular part of your existing work.

For additional eligibility requirements see Guidance.

What’s available

You can apply for grant of between £3,000 and £20,000 towards a project being delivered over a period of up to 12 months.

Whilst projects should focus on activities that achieve one or more of the programme outcomes to support families on overseas bases and/or defence locations, they appreciate that it may be necessary to allocate a portion of the grant award for purchasing essential items that enable these activities to take place.

To ensure projects are impactful for Serving Families and focus on activities, these contributions to costs will be capped:

• For grants requests of up to and including £10K, up to 50% of the project budget may be allocated to purchase items that enable activities to take place, or to deliver your project.
• For grant requests of over £10K, up to 25% of the project may be allocated to purchase items that enable activities to take place, or to deliver your project.

Eligible costs

• Staff time
  • Staff time for this fixed-term project.
  • Direct project work or for admin or to manage volunteers that may be involved in your project.
  • Sessional staff or freelancers that you may need to run your project.
  • Appropriate clinical supervision for workers who are supporting vulnerable individuals.
• Travel costs
  • Reasonable travel costs
  • Fares or mileage for project staff, volunteers or beneficiaries to enable participation in the project.
• Items to support your project
  • Purchasing items that enable activities to take place.
  • Art materials; sports/games/outdoor equipment; supplies for breakfast or social hubs.
  • Purchasing items that will help you to deliver your project, such as additional telephones or laptops or IT equipment.
• Reasonable overheads
  • Reasonable costs for storing and transporting items, including wear and tear on private vehicles.
  • Reasonable overheads, which reflect the cost to your organisation of delivering this project, taking account of recent cost increases

Themes and priorities

They are looking to support projects which offer new forms of targeted support for families of serving personnel posted and living overseas to help them thrive in their new communities and build networks of support to improve wellbeing.

Your project will need to meet one or more of the following outcomes:

• Provide new forms of personalised and targeted support in location for partners, young people, and children and their wellbeing whilst posted overseas.
• Increase serving families’ knowledge of existing services and recreational provision.
• Reduce isolation and the impact of loneliness in country for partners, young people and children.

Applications will need to demonstrate that your project is needed and targeted, user-led, and has lasting impact.

They want to fund projects with sustainable benefits. This means that we are interested in what will happen in the long term, after your funded project has ended. The application form will ask questions about sustainability which are relevant to the individual grant programme.

It is anticipated that projects could include, but is not limited to:  

• delivery of employment training and wellbeing opportunities for the families of serving personnel posted overseas
• tailored assistance, which enables families to integrate into their new communities overseas, which could include meet and greet sessions on arrival
• bespoke activities, addressing the unique needs of children and young people from serving Armed Forces families who are living overseas, enabling them to have a positive experience
• family wellbeing support; recreational activities; orientation opportunities
• providing comprehensive support for serving families with disabilities that is readily accessible upon arrival overseas.