Date: Wednesday January 13, 2021 at 9:17am
Scotty’s
Little Soldiers, the charity for bereaved Forces children and young people, has
started 2021 by welcoming Lorna Vyse to the team, and she has lots of plans to
strengthen the support the charity already provides to children and young
people who have experienced the death of a parent who served in the Armed
Forces.
Scotty’s
Little Soldiers was founded in 2010 by war widow Nikki Scott, a year after her
husband, Corporal Lee Scott, was killed in action in Afghanistan. Nikki saw the
devastating impact on their two young children and she set up the charity to
help others in the same situation.
If unmitigated, the death of a parent can have a
serious long-term negative impact on a child’s self-confidence, relationships,
academic attainment and future life chances, and Forces families face
additional challenges such as displacement after the death of a serving parent.
Having recognised the need of bereaved Service families and providing a
wide range of activities to help support those needs, Lorna is joining the
Scotty's team to provide a framework which underpins the support provided
through the charity's Family Programmes, creating a measurable service with clearly
defined success criteria, which will evidence the significantly positive impact
the charity is having.
Lorna
brings a wealth of experience, having worked with children and young people in
a variety of settings for over 25 years. She spent over nine years working for
the Army Welfare Service as a Community Development Worker, offering front
line youth and community support to soldiers’ family programme. This
included creating programmes of activities for children, young people and their
families, especially around times of deployment. Lorna went on
to specialise in childhood bereavement and for the past ten
years she has worked for a Norfolk
based child bereavement charity, directly supporting children
and young people impacted by the death of a significant person
in their lives. Lorna has developed and led many innovative and creative
projects to help bereaved children and young people cope with their
grief.
Commenting
on joining Scotty’s, Lorna said: “I am really pleased to be joining the
Scotty’s team and hope that my specialist skills in childhood
bereavement and project development can help strengthen all the good work the
charity does supporting bereaved British Forces children and young
people.”
Nikki
Scott, Founder of Scotty’s Little Soldiers added: “We’ve known Lorna for quite
some time and she’s someone we have often gone to for bereavement advice. We
are so delighted that she is now part of our team. Lorna is extremely
knowledgeable in child bereavement, but she also has a military background, so
she couldn’t be more perfect for this role. She’s got so many exciting ideas
for ways we can further support bereaved military children and young people,
which we can’t wait to start working on.”
To
learn more about Scotty’s Little Soldiers visit: http://scottyslittlesoldiers.co.uk/