YMCA Fairthorne Group’s Trevor Fitzpatrick becomes Co-chair of the Armed Forces Champion Early Years Professional Network
YMCA Portsmouth Nursery is based on Whale Island, home of HMS Excellent, a Royal Navy training base. Due to this unique location, 80% of the children at our nursery are from an Armed Forces family, and often experience absence of a parent due to military deployment overseas for regular or extensive periods of time.
Our dedicated staff provide additional emotional and developmental support to these families during times of deployment. Trevor, who has 23 years’ experience as an Early Years Practitioner with YMCA, has played a leading role in delivering vital support. Trevor is the Early Childhood Armed Forces Champion and earlier this year, has taken on the role of Co-chair of the Armed Forces Early Years Professional Network alongside Debra Barton, Early Years Specialist Lead, MOD.
The role of an Early Childhood Armed Forces Champion is to create stability for the family and to be the point of contact between the deployed parent and their child. An Early Years provider can be a huge support for both the child and their family at this time and beyond. Alongside his colleagues, Trevor has seen some monumental successes in his new role.
Benjamin’s Story
In 2023, Trevor began offering this support to 2 year old Benjamin and his family during his dads’ deployment. Trevor took time to understand Commander Michael Hutchinson’s deployment schedule whilst overseas and worked on a plan with him to alleviate any challenges that his son may face. One wonderful example of how Trevor supported the family is by ensuring that they had identical dragon soft toys. When Benjamin’s toy ‘disappeared’, Trevor would facilitate communication between them and Michael would show Benjamin how the dragon had flown to visit him. This helped the whole family, putting a positive spin on Michael’s deployment.
This simple yet powerful gesture helped Benjamin cope with the long separation from his dad and Trevor would spend time reinforcing the idea that the dragon was a special link, this helped to bridge the emotional gap caused by his dad’s absence.
Why this network is essential
Debra Barton, Co-chair of the professional network alongside Trevor recognised that there was a gap in support for Early Years Armed Forces children. With 40 members already on board, Trevor and Debra have made significant progress in rolling out the initiative nationally, aiming to pave the way for all childcare providers to become part of the network. Speaking of this role, Debra said,
“The Ministry of Defence Education Team’s Armed Forces Champion Early Years Professional Network is a community of practice, where ideas can be shared, training and resources developed, and challenges solved”.
The Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust
Portsmouth City Council has also become involved through funding received from the Armed Forces Covenant Fund to develop a cluster project, which will employ the role of Naval Navigator. This person will develop a network of Armed Forces friendly settings, like YMCA Whale Island, within the city of Portsmouth. This person will share best practices to meet the needs of service children and become the link between the Navy and Early Years providers.
Hopes for the future
The Early Childhood Armed Forces Champion is an extremely valuable role, supporting families during challenging times and helping young children in their emotional regulation and development.
YMCA Fairthorne Groups CEO, Phillipa Spicer, spoke fondly of Trevor’s work.
“Trevor recently received our Long Service Award at the YMCA Fairthorne Star Awards, and he continues to be a shining example of dedication and compassion. His new role as Co-chair of the Early Childhood Armed Forces Champion perfectly reflects his commitment to supporting families and nurturing children. We’re incredibly proud to see him bring his experience and heart to such an important initiative.”
Trevor hopes to see this flourish across all Armed Forces communities and to lead as an example that there are improvements we can make to support deployed families with Early Years children. The aim is for all Early Years providers to have a champion who will support children through the emotions of having a parent who is deployed.
