Our Armed Forces Commitment
Are you a member of the Armed Forces, a Reservist, an Adult Cadet Volunteer, a Service Veteran or a member of a Service Family?
If the answer is yes to any of the above, then Canterbury Christ Church University is pleased to recognise and value the unique skills and attributes that you bring to our workplace.
To demonstrate the university commitment to you, our Vice Chancellor signed the Armed Forces Covenant in October 2016. This moral covenant identifies that the University will act to ensure that those who serve, whether Regular or Reserve, those who have served in the past (veterans), those who are service families and those who support young people into the Armed Forces Careers (Adult Cadet Volunteers) face no disadvantage compared to any other citizen in our organisation, and that special consideration will be given by the university to support this group in some areas.
In order to lead the organisations response to the introduction of the covenant, the university nominated a member of the Senior Management Team as the Armed Forces Lead, who worked directly with Reservists employed within the university during 2017, to develop insight into their experience in the organisation. As a result of this work, good practice was revealed:
"As a Reservist I am a Flight Lieutenant currently serving in the RAF Reserves with 600 City of London Sqn at RAF Northolt. My role is to organise, plan, deliver and quality assure all training that takes place. We have had many personnel who support the regular RAF and have been on operations including Afghanistan, so the commitment is extremely high. To date I have felt very well supported by Christ Church.
My line manager is extremely supportive and so are my peers who have covered for me as required when I have attended a variety of events. I live 101 miles from 600 Sqn so there have been a couple of occasions when I have needed to leave work a little earlier which has not been an issue as I am trusted to complete my work."
— Rich Little, Senior Lecturer at CCCU
The University was nominated for, and received the Defence Employer Recognition Scheme Silver Award in September 2017. Find out more about the award here.
The University has a long history of student engagement with the Armed Forces, which continues enriching the lives of our students through engagement with the Officer Training Corp, tuition with Military bands (link to Military band photos) and supporting career transitions. Building the support for our staff is equally important so this web page aims to highlight the support for the Armed Forces community here at Christ Church, to help managers and employees (new and established) as a visible expression of our continued commitment to you.
The University is exploring how it can support those leaving the Armed Forces, who are seeking employment in the organisation. At this point, our plans include:
- The offer of a mentor/buddy who has made a similar move to provide peer support for you during the first year within the organisation.
- Sign posting for family members to our UNITEMPS website, to support their employment at the same time as yours
The university also looks favourably on Armed Forces personnel wishing to transition into study in Higher Education, so please make sure this is clearly stated on your application form for any programme of study (*Admission Policy update 2017-18)
The university is currently exploring how it may support and recognises the unique circumstances created by a husband/wife/civil partner’s deployment or absence from the family environment through armed forces activities.
The university has an established policy to support the deployment into active service of volunteer and regular Reservists.
- This sets out the arrangements required for employee’s to be released to be deployed
- It also will enable those who are committing to support their country during times of conflict to be assured of their continued employment for a guaranteed time period.
The university recognises the value of and the skills developed during Reservist activities. In acknowledgement of this our plans will include;
- Developing links with the Armed Forces community across Kent and Medway to enable awareness raising of their role and the opportunities available to our staff.
- Support for employees who are Reservist’ to attend development opportunities provided by the Armed Forces community, which will demonstrate a positive contribution to your work in the university (for example; leadership and technical courses). These initiatives will be at no cost to the university.
- Support to enable active Reservists to attend the required Annual Camp / similar training commitments, without detriment to their or their families wellbeing.
The university recognises the benefit of leadership at all levels of the organisation.
Due to our commitment to the armed forces community, four places have been made available to CCCU staff for the next Sandhurst Leadership Challenge.
More information is available at www.serfca.org
If you believe you and/or your team would benefit from this please submit an expression of interest explaining how and why this is the case.
EOI’s should be submitted by 19th June 2018 directly to staff.development@canterbury.ac.uk. Forms can be downloaded via staff space.
Successful individuals or teams will be informed by end June, to allow arrangements to be put in place to support this development opportunity.
The date for the second Sandhurst Leadership Challenge is 28th September 2018
If you are a veteran, or a member of a family of a veteran in need of support you can find help
here.