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Armed Forces Covenant

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We support the Armed Forces Community and honour the Armed Forces Covenant.

The Armed Forces Covenant is a promise from the nation to those who serve. It says we will do all we can to ensure they are treated fairly and not disadvantaged in their day-to-day lives. This includes offering injured servicemen and women and bereaved families extra support where appropriate.

Armed Forces Covenant Employer Recognition Scheme Silver Award

The University has achieved the Armed Forces Covenant Gold Award, which acknowledges the amount of support we've demonstrated in supporting the needs of the military community.

Through their Covenant, the University will:

  • Support the employment of veterans, young and old through the Career Transition Partnership (CTP) and veterans association to advertise our vacancies.
  • Support our employees who choose to be members of the Reserve Forces, including accommodating their training and deployment where possible. Employees who are required to attend military training and annual deployment exercises will be granted 15 days with pay in addition to normal leave entitlement.
  • Offer a degree of flexibility in granting leave for service parents, spouses and partners before, during and after an operational deployment.
  • Recognise military skills and qualifications when recruiting.
  • Offer support to local cadet units, by encouraging employees to volunteer using their discretionary voluntary leave of up to 5 days.
  • Offer work experience and job shadowing opportunities for cadets at LSBU, managed through our Employability Service.
  • Provide an internal staff and student network for those who fall into the scope of the Armed Forces Community including families and spouses.
  • Aim to promote Armed Forces Week to employees and students through communications, events, and encourage members of the Reserve Forces to wear their uniform on Armed Forces and Reservist Day.
  • Invite representatives of the Armed Forces Community to Careers and Recruitment Fairs and events for employees and students such as Women’s Day and wellbeing events.
  • Hold a remembrance service annually on Armistice Day to honour members of the Armed Forces, who have died in the line of duty.
  • Provide sports facilities through LSBU Active by offering discounted health assessments, gym membership and referrals to The British School of Osteopathy for the Armed Forces Community, including families and spouses, employees, students and residents from the Boroughs of Southwark, Lambeth and Lewisham. Any health assessment completed where actions are arising, LSBU Active will offer a further 50% off the personal programme of support.
  • Provide discounted junior membership for Cadets to LSBU Active.
  • Support Armed Forces Community charities through events during Raising and Giving (RAG) week and Armed Forces Week.
  • Aid Armed Forces recruitment efforts by matching Armed Forces employment gaps to current LSBU undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, through recruitment events managed by the Employability Service.
  • Endeavour to work with the Armed Forces Community to offer teaching opportunities to our students across multiple disciplines and build on the work currently undertaken through our Occupational Health and Workplace Health Degrees.
  • Our Pro Vice-Chancellor is a member of the University of London Military Education Committee (MEC) and will be fully engaged in their activities to serve as a single point of contact to represent the views of MECs to the Ministry of Defence (MOD) and as a channel of information between the universities and the MOD.
  • Work closely with military families whose children attend LSBU’s associated FE colleges, local schools, sixth forms and University Technical College Years 10-12 to ensure we are providing them preferential access opportunities to Higher Education.
  • Honour Enhanced Learning Credits (ELCs) across a range of LSBU courses.
  • Commit to support the Armed Forces Community including Cadets, Spouses and families with developing their enterprise skills either through access to our internal entrepreneurship events or through our wider external enterprise partners including European funded initiatives.

For more information please contact studentife@lsbu.ac.uk.