The early childhood specialist has just returned from three back-to-back conferences and workshops – in London, Lithuania and Georgia – where she gave a keynote address and met with research colleagues, health clinicians, military organisations and even serving personnel who appreciate the importance of the children’s storybooks she produces. Embedded with living experiences and steeped in research, they are important resources to support mental health and wellbeing and to help children build coping skills.
“Geopolitically, everything is moving in all the wrong directions,” she said. “In every country I visited, there were military personnel and heightened security everywhere. I could only imagine what the children are getting used to and that must be affecting them.
“We have to get better at supporting the children of military, veteran and first responders – and fast. People appreciate the value of our work and how much more it will be needed as war ratchets up a notch around the world. There will be a greater risk of parents being injured and/or working away from home, and more physical, psychological and moral injuries, which impact a family’s ability to cope.
“In the Ukraine, parents are returning from war, not only injured but to homes and communities that are now a war zone and will deliver further trauma.
“Receiving international encouragement and recognition and seeing what’s happening geopolitically has renewed my commitment to the work that we do. We are now considering ways we can pool our resources internationally to support the children of these families, the invisible victims in all these scenarios.”
Canadian partners have already adapted four of Marg’s team’s books for their families and are working on four more. On this trip, Marg met with collaborators from King’s College London and Combat Stress, discussed with the UK Department of Veterans’ Affairs and Forces Children Scotland how the Child and Family Resilience Programs’ books and modules might be adapted for UK children, and spent time at Ilia State University, in Georgia, conducting publication workshops for HDR students and creative arts workshops for educators.
She is also now looking to produce a book with a Lithuanian and German team for the children of Ukrainian personnel who won’t be coming home.
