HEAT’s involvement in a new Toolkit being developed for working with Service Children

As you will know, the Office for Students (OfS) has recently highlighted groups of students or potential students who face inequalities of opportunity in accessing and/or succeeding in higher education. Those students and the risks they face are detailed in the Equality of Opportunities Risk Register (EORR). One such group is those children or young people with parents who have served or are serving in the Armed Forces.

Background

Currently, the SCiP Alliance and the Naval Children’s Charity are working with ACCESS to better understand the experiences and needs of students from Armed Forces families in higher education. The aim of the project is to develop an evidence-based toolkit that will enhance support for students from Armed Forces families across UK universities.

Help develop the Toolkit

In the second phase of the project, ACCESS will work with the SCiP Alliance and Naval Children’s Charity to develop and test the Toolkit. They are seeking students and staff to actively engage in this phase, helping to shape and refine the Toolkit.

If you’re interested in being involved directly in either phase of the project, you can contact them directly to learn more.

How is HEAT supporting members working with Service Children?

There are a number of ways that HEAT can support work with Service Children.

Using the HEAT database to record participants as having Service Children status

Firstly, for those members who are planning interventions with Service Children, do remember that the HEAT database allows you to mark whether or not a student is from an Armed Forces family or not. In the Student record, the Personal tab includes a specific ‘Service Children – Unknown/Yes/No’ field.

Targeting Service Children using the HEAT Institution Record

On your behalf, HEAT requests data directly from the Department for Education (DfE) on the number of Service Children enrolled at individual Schools or Colleges. This number is then recorded as ‘Number of Service Children’ on HEAT Institution records. Members can use this to specifically target Schools or Colleges with a high proportion of learners identified as Service Children.

Linking HEAT users with Service Children researchers in their own institution

When we met with ACCESS, it transpired that a number of HEAT member institutions are already working with the SCiP Alliance. However, the individuals involved in this research may not be the same members of staff as those who use the database on a day to day basis. HEAT has committed to assisting in any inter-institution introductions that can be made between interested parties to ensure that, where appropriate, Service Children interventions are planned, recorded and evaluated using the system.

Baseline data

We will be investigating some headline figures about the number of Service Children currently recorded on the HEAT database. We will share this with ACCESS in aggregate form, but no member will be named, nor will details of individual Service Children or the individual activities they have taken part in be shared. The exercise will allow us to gauge the volume and scale of the recording of Service Children and activities at the present time.