Defence Children Services vision is to ensure all children, young people, and families within military communities overseas have access, wherever possible, to a well-coordinated good quality support systems that improve a family’s resilience and outcomes and prevents difficulties families may encounter from becoming too overwhelming. Effective and timely early intervention alongside high-quality universal services in our overseas locations are the foundation to ensure this vision transpires.  

Universal Services

Universal services are services that are available to everybody and can be accessed by anyone without additional support. All children have access to a range of ‘universal’ services depending on how old they are, their stage of development, their individual needs and availability in location.  

Universal services are provided by a number of different agencies in our overseas locations these may include health and education; teachers, health visitors, GPs and school nurses are all examples of universal services.

Early Help

Early help is not a service, it is a collaborative way of working that aims to support children and their families within the MOD overseas communities they live.

Parents’ consent to working within an early help framework, depending on age and understanding young people can also provide consent to obtaining support in their own right. ​

Effective early help requires professionals work in partnership with families to gather information using a strength-based model which identifies what is working well and, any additional support that might help the family overcome difficulties they are experiencing.

All services working with families recognise the importance of, and are committed to, building strong relationships across the whole system, as well as with our children, young people and families. 

All early help interventions are designed around achieving tangible improvements for young people. Delivering what needs to happen as a collaborative group of professionals around a child is at the heart of all early help support.

If you are a parent, the Parent Guide to Early Help will provide you more information and answer questions you have about accessing early help in MOD overseas locations.

Professionals can access information about early help, the documents, and guides on the Early Help Professionals page.

School Attendance

If you are worried about your child/ren’s school attendance you can access information regarding support available in overseas locations here on the Attendance page.