Month of the Military Child: The Voices of forces children in Wee People, Big Feelings, Helensburgh

How do we protect children’s rights when they come up against matters of national security? This can be the reality for babies, children and young people in forces families, and it’s something I think about a lot as we work with forces families and early years settings through our Wee People, Big Feelings project in Helensburgh. 

Article 3 of the UNCRC emphasises that the best interests of the child should be a primary consideration in all decisions and actions affecting them, and Article 9 addresses the right of the child to be together with their parents: but forces families experience a variety of forms of separation including when a parent deploys, and these separations can bring emotional challenges. Babies and young children may not have the words to tell us how they feel, but the emotional cycle of deployment model helps us understand the impact of family separation through changes in behaviour.  

Children’s rights are at the heart of everything Starcatchers does, and our research around the Voice of the Baby helps us understand how arts experiences can help babies and young children realise their rights, particularly in terms of how their views, needs and interests are heard and included (article 12). As an arts organisation, we obviously have no sway over the ways forces families experience separation, but with Wee People, Big Feelings we’re using the arts and creative experiences to listen to young children from forces families, and together we develop fun, creative ways to support them to navigate those transitions. Starcatchers has developed a collection of online resources that forces families and the institutions who support them can access for free at any time here. 

Forces families’ experiences are not homogenous  – rather than try to develop a one size fits all approach, Wee People, Big Feelings focuses on creative approaches that help develop emotional literacy every day, whether in early years settings or at home. Funding from the Armed Forces Covenant fund has given us the opportunity to develop these resources by working directly with wee ones from forces families in Helensburgh, and we use our Voice of the Baby research to ensure the needs and interests of these children are key to developing the ideas we share. 

The voices of young children from forces families are key to Wee People, Big Feelings – they may not be able to fill in a questionnaire or have the vocabularly to express how they feel (yet!) – but their needs and interests are the golden thread that runs through our Wee People, Big Feelings resources. We literally couldn’t have developed this work without them. You can check out our latest resources around Creative Flow and Emotional Literacy here. 

With thanks to the staff, families and wee ones from Colgrain Primary Nursery, St.Joseph’s Primary Nursery, and John Logie Baird Primary Nursery, who have worked with our artists Pearl Kinnear, Amy Hall Gibson and Charlotte Allan through Phase One of our work in Helensburgh.  

Special thanks to Home Start Lomond, Forces Children Scotland and the Naval families of Helensburgh who have been so helpful in developing our emerging understanding of the experiences of forces families during this project. For a more in-depth look at the UNCRC for forces children, check out Forces Children Scotland. 

You can read more about the original Wee People, Big Feelings project with Starcatchers artist Skye Reynolds and the staff, families and wee ones at Scots Corner ELC in Penicuik here.