News & Views

The SCiP Alliance Management Group is delighted to share the SCiP Alliance Community Consultation report.

The report draws together the findings from an extensive consultation process, exploring the views and priorities of practitioners working with children and young people from Armed Forces families to understand the progress of the Alliance since the previous stakeholder consultation undertaken in 2018 and identify areas of opportunity to inform the future role of the Alliance, which will guide the SCiP Alliance’s future strategy.

The Consultation, which has been delivered by Tiller Consulting on behalf of the Alliance, included an online questionnaire, semi-structured interviews and a stakeholder workshop day in which participants representing the variety of perspectives in the SCiP Alliance community discussed the emerging themes, providing additional depth and breadth of insight to ensure robust conclusions, and explored implications for the forthcoming SCiP Alliance strategy 2022-26.

Consultation findings

The 2018 consultation had identified that people wanted to be better connected: with each other, with evidence and with support. The findings of the 2022 consultation have demonstrated that the Alliance has made considerable progress in realising these aims and has had a positive impact both on individual practice and on the community of professionals.

The key findings of the consultation were:

• Overall, stakeholders feel that the SCiP Alliance has had a positive impact on professional practice relating to children and young people from Armed Forces families. The greatest impact has been felt by university respondents to the consultation;
• Overall, practitioners familiar with the Alliance view it as having a positive impact on the lives of Armed Forces children. There is considerable opportunity to further enhance this impact by raising awareness of the Alliance, and the resources available;
• The Alliance’s development of evidence-based good practice, and research to build the evidence base relating to children and young people from Armed Forces families, is highly valued;
• Practitioners value the opportunities to network with others made possible by the Alliance;
• Significant progress has been made in relation to the research and practice elements of the Alliance’s theory of change. This provides a strong foundation from which to influence policy in future work.

2022-26 Strategy

This report is part of a year-long SCiP Alliance Community Consultation project. The research findings and recommendations are now being translated into priorities which will inform the 2022-26 strategy.

With thanks

We are very grateful to all those in the SCiP Alliance community who have generously contributed their time to the consultation process.

The Community Consultation project has been generously funded by Annington. Helen Liddell, Chair of Annington, reflects that:

‘Funding this foundational consultation allows Annington to play its part in supporting the community supporting Armed Forces children and young people. We are delighted to see the clear demonstration of the Alliance’s impact on these remarkable young people and on the professionals who support them, as well as the value the community places on the SCiP Alliance’s role connecting people with each other and with evidence-based resources such as the Thriving Lives Toolkit for schools.’

SCiP Alliance Community Consultation Report 2022