When we asked the armed forces community about the areas we should focus on in our grantmaking strategy, which runs until March 2027, the message was clear: reducing stress and challenge for armed forces families was a crucial component.

It reflected much of the feedback and findings of the original Living in our Shoes research for the Ministry of Defence. The mental challenges of forces life – and its impacts at home – can be complex for all members of a family, notwithstanding the huge opportunities and positives it can bring too.

It’s why MOD created its Armed Forces Families Strategy and Fund, and asked us to distribute annual grants from it: enabling charities, early years settings and schools to deliver outcomes for young people from the armed forces community, and for the partners of serving personnel.

Those mental challenges are particularly felt by the partners of those who serve. In the 2024-25 year of the Supporting Partners programme, our trustees made an award to enable Solent Mind to expand an existing emotional wellbeing service for partners of those in the Royal Navy and Royal Marines.

The charity wanted to go further, reaching across to offer similar support to partners of RAF and Army personnel too.

The Anchoring Minds pilot had tested the concept, and secured three years of funding from the Royal Navy and Royal Marines Charity as a result. Now, with help from MOD’s Supporting Partners funding, it will develop the same national triage role for partners across the three services.

Wherever they live and whatever mental health challenges they might be facing, the grant aims to link them with sources of help and information which are targeted to their circumstances, through a role which doesn't just bring deep understanding of life for armed forces families, but also the opportunity to continue growing awareness and understanding of the unique mix of factors which interact with mental health for partners in a forces family.

‘Mainstreaming’ that understanding, through partnerships like this with charities which also serve the civilian population and have connective tissue, like the wider national Mind network does, is so important in the spirit of the Armed Forces Covenant.

Crucially, this sort of signposting activity doesn’t ‘do the work’ for partners: it empowers them with information they can use to make choices about how and from whom they seek the right support, now and in the future.

I served in the Royal Navy myself; I was also a naval partner; I’ve advocated for forces families for many years in my roles as a champion for the support which families need. Of course, no life is without challenges, but I've been able to see all sides of the gnarly issue which is mental health when you’re in a forces family.

It’s with grants like this, which seek to greenhouse a concept from a seedling which has really taken root, to a thriving adult plant, that we can really establish the garden of support that needs to grow up around forces’ families.

Some of the plants in that garden might be forces-specific. Others might work for anyone navigating challenging times and stresses in their life – but need to be pointed out by an expert gardener for the balm they might bring.

That this project will be cultivated alongside Mind’s wider work is an important opportunity and I look forward to seeing it bloom.

For more information about Military Minds, visit solentmind.org.uk/support-for-you/our-services/military-minds/