The Armed Forces Covenant Fund

Whether it’s for specific women’s health concerns such as miscarriage or menopause; or support with wider issues such as sexual trauma, domestic abuse or bullying and harassment, serving women and female veterans can face significant challenges in accessing the help they need. Awards through our Service Women: Seen & Heard programme opened doors to this support, connecting peers and prioritising wellbeing through the lens of military women. Projects are both preventative and tackling issues the community has raised in consultation. Their needs, their experiences, their voice. These are new and innovative projects which are extending the informal support networks women have sought when they have nowhere else to turn. 

Clear routes to support also underpinned our Free from Fear programme. These major projects will address domestic abuse through preventative measures or the provision of support routes for survivors in armed forces communities. Working alongside military welfare services, these projects use their knowledge and expertise to bring about positive change while empowering victims/survivors to speak out, deal with their trauma, and form connections that ultimately enable them to continue with their lives. This year, we looked to extend the reach of proven interventions. Following the success of Op Nova - which offers tailored support to veterans in the justice system - we made awards to The Forces Employment Charity to extend this work in Wales and Scotland. Many Op Nova clients are vulnerable adults with mental health challenges and a history of drug or alcohol misuse. Some are at risk of homelessness. Op Nova brings early intervention support to veterans in police custody and supports them to seek independence through employment.

Frequent relocation, changing job roles, managing childcare, being apart from family members: serving families face many challenges. Ensuring they feel confident, fully informed and supported is vital in ensuring the needs of military service feel fair and manageable.

This year, two of our Covenant Fund programmes focused on the issues of separation and mobility – with the two often going hand in hand. Both can lead to isolation; both can mean upheaval for the whole family. But both can also bring opportunities, with the right support.

These programmes focus on building resilience in families, providing opportunities to engage and feel confident in handling feelings of disconnection when families are separated. Modern military families come in all shapes and sizes, and it is important that support within the community reflects that. Not everyone can or wants to attend a coffee morning when their partner is deployed. Not everyone has children to take to a playgroup. Not everyone can make a social afternoon, due to work commitments. Support needs to modernise, to keep up with those who need it.

Consultation and research with the submariner community in Helensburgh, conducted in collaboration with Greenwich Hospital and the Royal Navy and Royal Marines Charity (RNRMC), saw us fund a ground-breaking place-based project there this year. This project responds to experiences of separation on another level: extended absences with little-to-no communication and limited support. We awarded a grant of £368,500 to RNRMC to support these families by improving community engagement, mental health support, and social connectivity. A dedicated team will coordinate partnerships to deliver tailored services and strengthen long-term resilience for families in the region.

Similarly, our Serving Families On The Move programme has supported early intervention as families relocate in the UK; helping them integrate into their new communities and build lasting friendships. This work focuses on improving information and its availability and recognises the importance of support networks when moving to a new area.

Projects focused on whole-family services, as well as more specific and practical assistance such as welfare matters including housing, debt and benefits advice. The effects of mobility can be profound on service children, and some projects are working to mitigate this with emotional support for families with young children, and early intervention for newly-relocated families, creating a welcoming space they can immediately access to build connections.

The challenges of mobility can be exacerbated when families are posted overseas. Our Serving Families Overseas programme has prioritised this cohort, supporting projects that will work with families in Spain, Belgium, Italy, Cyprus and beyond on everything from language integration and workshops to improve relationships under strain, to work which fosters a sense of community to help build resilience.

To further support these families, we awarded a grant of £500,000 to the Army Families Federation (AFF) to work with the Naval Families Federation and RAF Families Federation, to conduct in-depth research to identify and address hidden needs within the overseas community. They will focus on early engagement with families, ensuring clearer information is available prior to and on return from an overseas posting; and they will oversee the creation of an employment hub.

The experience of military service is unique for every individual – and some groups within the armed forces community need more specific support. In 2024/25 we have sought to highlight this reality, awarding funding to projects that will improve the quality of life for these cohorts. Our Fulfilling Futures projects include support for female veterans living with the effects of Military Sexual Trauma (MST); access to integrated and targeted support for LGBT+ veterans; recovery work for veterans with physical injuries and much more. 

Some groups within the armed forces community need specific support. This includes Wounded, Injured or Sick (WIS) service personnel and veterans, and their families, who often face a challenging transition to a new way of life. Our Family Focus projects will be heavily informed by their beneficiaries, co-designing activities where relevant. We’re excited that this work is exploratory – it will pilot new solutions to tackling the issues families face and build upon proven work. It’s vital for us that this funding leads to improved access to support, and that families feel their needs are being recognised and feel more resilient in a caring role. 

Veterans’ mental health and wellbeing continues to be a priority for the Covenant Fund and this year, our Embedding Prevention of Veteran Suicide programme, continued to build on previous efforts, awarding projects across the UK a share of support. This not only included supporting the mental health of vulnerable veterans but addressing the stigma surrounding this issue. We were also keen that projects support staff working with vulnerable veterans. Funded work ranged from peer mentoring, suicide prevention training and targeted support; to work which creates a culture of understanding, building effective support networks and connecting with local organisations. 

Also supporting mental health and wellbeing, our Hidden Voices projects are focused on delivering specific, accessible mental health and wellbeing support for those with seldom-heard needs. This includes work with Foreign & Commonwealth personnel in the North East, creating a safe space for dads and male carers - in the South East, a UK-wide project for parents experiencing child-to- parent violence and abuse, and a female veterans’ group in the West Midlands. 

Unlike the other themes in our framework, this theme is about taking the pulse of the armed forces community to understand emerging or particularly complex challenges, and to find what works. In 2024/25, we commissioned two projects. The first explores the impacts of service life on children, aside from educational attainment. We awarded Northumbria University £124,899 for their year-long ‘Military Children – promote, protect, prevent’ project, which seeks to understand the Social Determinants of Health (Health Care and access, Social Community, Neighbourhood and Environment, Education and Economic Stability) of military connected children and young people (MCCYP). The project looks at the ‘lived’ experience of the Social Determinants of Health (SDH) which surround MCCYP, from the perspectives of the young people, and develops an understanding of what ‘good’ looks like within the context of military service provision. Overall, this project looks to help reduce inequalities within the MCCYP population. 

“The project is built on the three pillars of public health - promote, protect and prevent - this means that if we can understand the lived experience of MCCYP, and truly understand their needs, then we can promote early service intervention and protect their overall health and wellbeing - in the hope of preventing poor outcomes for them, be that spiritually, socially, emotionally, physically or educationally.” - Dr Paul Watson, Lead Researcher.

Innovation through gaming 

The second targeted application explores the long-term growth and sustainability of gaming as an innovative and modern pathway to support for younger veterans. We awarded Company of Makers CIC £200,000 for a three-year project offering activities for younger veterans across the UK. Get in the Game (GITG) includes online content and face-to-face events designed to prevent social isolation and loneliness in younger tri-service veterans. It builds on the successes and lessons learned from the organisation’s ‘eGaming with veterans of Recent Conflicts’ project, which ran from May 2023. All participants receive ONS4 wellbeing surveys and the programme also provides one-to-one support to address wellbeing, mental health, and welfare issues. 

“Get in the Game is proving to be a fantastic way of engaging with younger veterans which is particularly important because younger veterans are less likely to seek help. With hundreds now participating in everything from Warhammer to F1, Get in the Game is going from strength- to-strength.” - Co-Founder, Rachel Owen