News & Views

You can now book your place at the conference, which will be held in Glasgow on 26th November 2025. Take advantage of our early bird offer and secure your place today, click here to purchase tickets.

Whole person, whole journey is not just a slogan: it defines our shared goal and how – together – we will get there.

A whole person, whole journey approach is core to our vision, it is the rationale for our mission and it underpins the way we – the SCiP Alliance community – go about achieving our ambitions for the children of serving and ex-UK Armed Forces personnel.

Our vision of thriving lives for Service children begs the central question, “what does it mean to thrive?” Together, and most of all with children and young people themselves, we have developed a range of responses that add to an overall picture. A complete answer, however, must take account of and respond to thriving in every part of each individual’s life and at every point in their journey into adulthood.

The whole person includes children and young people’s formal education, as well as myriad learning opportunities in homes, youth settings and other environments. The whole person includes physical and mental health, wellbeing and a range of social and emotional skills and capacities. The whole person includes relationships with family, friends and supporters throughout the Armed Forces community and beyond. This broad and inclusive concept requires each of us to adopt a more complete, child-centred view, and to see our unique contribution alongside those of our partners helping Service children thrive.

The whole journey means thriving in the early years that set the foundations for everything that follows. The whole journey includes the move from solely family to formal learning settings (no matter how many primary schools you attend). The whole journey means the teenage years when young people navigate their developing identities and agency alongside a deeper understanding of the world around them. The whole journey means the transition into young adulthood and the changing family ties, opportunities and choices that come with it. In short, a whole journey approach requires each of us to collaborate with allies working in the stages before and after our work is done so that together it all adds up to a coherent and seamless programme of support.

A whole person, whole journey approach is, therefore, central to our vision. We cannot realise thriving lives for Service children without thinking and working together in coherent and complementary ways. And that is why the SCiP Alliance mission is fundamental: it is imperative that practitioners, researchers, policymakers and funders in diverse fields bridge divides between education, youth work, health and wellbeing, and between each stage in the life-course from birth to adulthood. Bridging divides to make smoother progress for Service children is the day-to-day of the Alliance community. The call to open collaboration and collective effort, therefore, means that whole person, whole journey also speaks to the values by which we operate. It requires us to think of our resource, skill and effort as part of a collective intent on behalf of a vision we share for a remarkable cohort of children and young people.

In 2025, the SCiP Alliance annual conference comes to Glasgow and will shine a spotlight on the unique context for our work in Scotland. The community there is long-standing, their work often pioneering, and their commitment to Service children second-to-none. The conference will share what’s best about this work, while – as always – facilitating cross-border learning and collaboration. A full programme of practical workshops will highlight practice from across the UK, leading researchers and policymakers will bring insights to move our thinking and activity on. In keeping with the conference theme, panel and keynote inputs will consider:

• What are the implications of a whole person, whole journey approach for collaboration?

• What are the needs and opportunities in practice, research, policy and funding to better support a whole person, whole journey approach?

• What does whole person, whole journey look like in local practice and at the system level?

Soon, the window will open for workshop proposals and we want this year to build on the hugely successful, high-quality contributions from 2024 in Cardiff. Start thinking about how your work fits with and furthers whole person, whole journey ambitions. Are you supporting previously underserved areas of Service children’s lives? What learning can you share about collaborations that mitigate the risks of siloed practice or improve impact? Does your research bring potentially disparate domains into a more complete view? Does your funding or policy work bridge gaps or support innovation across divides? Share your experience with the community and learn from each other.

Whole person, whole journey is a hugely personal mission for me. Since I first developed the concept 20 years ago, it has been a guiding motto for the what, why and how of the things I care about most. It feels like the right time for the SCiP Alliance community to reflect on a more holistic view of Service children’s lives. As we celebrate what is best about the UK wide Hub network, as the Thriving Lives Toolkit expands into early years and higher education, as step-change research and policy initiatives take flight, the 2025 SCiP Alliance annual conference in Glasgow represents an exciting and significant milestone for all of us. So, I look forward to seeing you in Glasgow and wish you well in all you do for children and young people in Armed Forces families this year.

Purchase conference tickets here.