FEATURES Bears on Tour by Pam Brain, HIVE Information Officer, RAF Lossiemouth I
have been involved with running the Deployment Support Programme at RAF Lossiemouth for over eight years. In that
time I have seen many changes in RAF life including the frequency of deployments. This has resulted in many families experiencing long periods of separation on a very regular basis and in turn, placed extra pressures and stresses on families, especially the children.
And often, it is the children who are forgotten about and/or their needs are not considered when support is offered. When I looked at the support we had here at RAF Lossiemouth for families I felt there was a gap that needed to be filled. We already ran events and activities for young people and had colouring books, activity books and charts but nothing which told the children what was involved in a detachment and the role their parents were playing. As their parents work was anything but Monday to Friday 9 til 5 I felt this was important to do.
Other RAF stations have used teddy bears to build links with primary schools and it was this initiative that I decided to take up and develop. Teddy bears are adored by all ages, I am sure that most of you have had one at some stage when you were young and you either have fond memories of it or indeed you may still have it!
The Teddy Bear is the ideal resource to soften the often hard, business-like image of the RAF, and so FS Dexter Bear came to be stationed at RAF Lossiemouth as a member of the Deployment Support Team.
FS Dexter’s popularity grew very quickly amongst the families of deployed personnel here. He would go on trips, attend events and visit the children in the Childcare Centre while their parents were attending briefings. Along with his popularity, Dexter’s family grew too and now each Sqn has their own bear. 617 Sqn has Guy Bear, 12 Sqn has Foxy Bear, the Regiment has Rocky Bear and they have now been joined by Stanley Bear who regularly visits the Falkland Islands and Malcolm Bear who has been to Minhad, Al Udied and Mussanah. All the bears have passports and have experienced detachments first hand.
At RAF Lossiemouth the Deployment Support Team produce a fortnightly newsletter with the Sqn deployed and post it to all families. This newsletter is targeted at the adults and offered little to our young people, and so I took it upon myself to create The Pawprint. I wanted this newsletter to be for children to inform them about the detachment and to be educational.
The Bears send back photographs of the accommodation, shopping areas, cafes, gym,
local vicinity, work locations and much more. I then put these into the newsletter along with facts about the country and send it out to everyone with the adult’s newsletter. I feel it is important for our young people to realise that it is not all guns and bad people but that there are locals who live, work and play in these locations and that it is their home. And it is interesting to show comparisons between an Afghanistan child’s toys and schooling and those of a British child.
The feedback I have received about The Pawprint from both adults and young people has been very positive. The newsletters and the Sqn of bears has been a great asset to the deployment support we offer and now this support idea is being taken up by other Stations.
In conjunction with the RAF Association ‘Dexter’s Diary’ is due to be published soon. This is a story about Dexter and his brothers during a year where they deploy to many locations and how they each deal with the emotions and challenges involved. I hope that ‘Dexter’s Diary’ is just the start for my deployment bears and that they will continue to evolve and provide support to our forces children.
16
Envoy Autumn 2013
www.raf-ff.org.uk
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56