Royal Caledonian Education TrustLaunch | Engage | Amplify
About Your Mind Matters
The Royal Caledonian Education Trust has received generous funding from the Armed Forces Covenant Trust to deliver the Your Mind Matters Project to work directly with children and young people, from serving personnel and veteran families across Scotland, to co-produce new mental health and wellbeing services for peers and wider family. The project is about putting the unique experiences of children and young people from forces families first, when it comes to mental health and wellbeing, and working together to better understand how these experiences can impact relationships with others, an ability to focus on important aspects in life and future pathways in life. Therefore, nobody is better placed as an effective force for change than the children and young people we support, who will work with our team at the Royal Caledonian Education Trust to co-produce a bespoke digital platform of resources as well as face-to-face, small group and peer mental health and wellbeing support services.
Why this Project Matters
Your Mind Matters has launched in response to a consultation with more than 600 young people from Armed Forces families across Scotland, where over 80% per cent of respondents told the Royal Caledonian Education Trust they faced considerable challenges to mental health and wellbeing. Many of the challenges expressed by children and young people, as part of the consultation, related directly to unique experiences of life within an Armed Forces family, which included deployment of loved ones, regular relocations and the subsequent disruption of education and friendships. The consultation uncovered additional complexities which can significantly impact mental health and wellbeing of children and young people living with serving personnel and veterans, such as residing with or caring for a family member living with physical or psychological wounds.
Our timeline (below) shows how we plan to deliver our co-produced bespoke digital platform to provide mental health and wellbeing support to children and young people of service personnel and veteran families across Scotland.
Launch
Our launch phase is about raising awareness about Your Mind Matters, as well as encouraging children and young people of serving personnel and veteran families across Scotland to get involved. There are a number of ways to get involved; from sharing experiences about mental health and wellbeing to thoughts and opinions about how our service should be delivered. There’s also plenty of opportunities to get creative by designing our project logo and developing social media posts, blogs, webpages and social media channels.
Get involved
Engage
The next phase of Your Mind Matters is about providing children and young people from serving personnel and veteran families across Scotland a platform to engage with our project team to share their unique experiences, thoughts and opinions as well as creativity to develop two specific strands of our new support service, which includes a bespoke digital platform of resources as well as face-to-face one-to-one, small group and peer mental health and wellbeing support services.
Amplify
Our final phase will focus on the delivery of our new services and the amplification of the unique experiences, voice and creativity gathered from Armed Forces children and young people as part of our co-production process. Our Amplify phase will also provide Armed Forces children and young people a platform to develop in confidence, speak up and promote Your Mind Matters to peers from across Scotland to start a new discussion about mental health and positive wellbeing, which is aligned and tuned-in to their own frequency.
Your Mind Matters has launched! Get Involved
Now that Your Mind Matters has launched we’re looking for children and young people from serving personnel and veteran families across Scotland to get involved in our Engage phase. Parents and guardians, as well as those working with Armed Forces children across Scotland, you also have a very important role to play! Help us raise awareness of Your Mind Matters and encourage more children and young people to get involved to develop our brand new mental health an wellbeing support service.
Armed Forces Children & Young People
Your experience matters
Your unique experiences, creativity and voice matters!
Armed Forces Parents & Guardians
Your experience matters
Your unique experiences and opinions as part of the wider family matters!
Working with Armed Forces Children & Young People?
Your support matters.
Your expertise, guidance and support matters!
Funding
Armed Forces Covenant Trust
We are eternally grateful to the Armed Forces Covenant Trust for generously funding our Your Mind Matters Project.
Recent posts
- Mental Health Project Highlights Unique Experiences of Armed Forces Young PeopleHeather is a member of our Your Mind Matters core working group, who has highlighted the importance of developing a mental health service to better understand the unique challenges faced… Read more >
- Armed Forces Young People Urged to Support Mental Health ProjectHope is a member of our core working group, who has called on more young people, from serving personnel and veteran families across Scotland to get involved in our Your… Read more >
- Hope Calls for More Armed Forces Young People to Get Involved in Your Mind MattersThe Royal Caledonian Education Trust has received generous funding from the Armed Forces Covenant Trust to deliver the Your Mind Matters Project to work directly with children and young people,… Read more >