A case study exploring the impact of parental deployment on the wellbeing of British Army children in the pre-school year

This thesis explores the wellbeing of three to four-year-old British Army children experiencing a parental deployment during their pre-school year. Despite a recent increase in interest of the deployment-related experiences of school-aged service children, the deployment-related wellbeing of pre-school children has been under researched in the British context and they remain overlooked in terms of educational, social and Armed Forces policy.This study also seeks to clarify the use of the conceptually vague term wellbeing in the context of service children’s research through a consideration of the multiple discourses of wellbeing and an exploration of the component domains of wellbeing. Drawing upon both the bioecological model of development and cultural historical theory, the study explored how individual, social and environmental factors impact upon the different domains of pre-school children’s wellbeing during a parental deployment. A case study design focusing on ten children experiencing a parental deployment was employed within an Army Garrison in England.In each case, the deployed parent was the father.Interviews were conducted with the ten non-deployed mothers and fourteen pre-school practitioners working with the children. Six of the pre-school children also took part in the study via participatory research methods and interviews. Analysis of the data identified four distinct but interlinked domains of wellbeing that were impacted by the father’s deployment; psychological, physical, social and cognitive. These are discussed in relation to how they are influenced by factors of the individual child, their social relationships and factors relating to their environments. The thesis concludes by discussing the implications of this research for British educational, social and Armed Forces policy and practice in terms of supporting the wellbeing of pre-school children during times of a parental deployment