 Gweld i'n ifarn i'n cwmno, a gwoedda i ysgolwm Mhewn Cymru. Felly, gwaith fy ngyfliadau wrth gwrs. Felly, rydyn i, dyna hwnnw i'r gofyn Menau bod я'n wych yn gofynig ar y craff iawn ydy ysgolwm mewn ffonto sy'n gweithio bod os ydych chi'n gwyllion fywodol yr ysgolwyd yr ysgolwyd. Fyny'n Nicola Feir, Eisteddfoddmarfwnydd Daerol Cymru. Felly, dyna yw'n gweithio ysgolwyd yn gyfwyng Arlynydd Edydd Cymru a'r ddechrau Llywodraeth Cymru. Rwy'n gyrsfaith yma ar y cwrs 16. Mae'r ddweud yn fawr i gweithio ar y gyrsfaith a gweithio o'r cyfrifoedd, gweithio a'r ddechrau, ac rwy'n gweithio'n gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio. Rwy'n gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r panel a'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio. Yn y cwrs yma ar y gweithio'r gweithio? Felly, mynd i gyfaint eraill щa pob ddy jegl i swyddfa ar eich cwrs siaradau a'r ailf sometimeur ac rwy'n gweithio'r panell. felly Cardiff yma ar y cyfrif Feel. Mae'nmanship o see mates yma ar chatterfedd ac iddyn nhw eich cyfrif annun, ac mae'r r anclŵr Tamart ceroed yr amser o dylen. Bydderei'r amyem材. Mae'r ffordd a'r ffordd, ac yn fawr, mae'n gofynig o'r ffordd arall. Mae'r byw ychydig o ddim gweithio a'r gweithio, ac mae'n gweithio i'w ddim gweithio i'w ddim gweithio i'r ddweud o'r ddweud a'r ddweud o'r ddweud o'r ddweud, ac mae'n ddweud ar y ddweud o'r ddweud o'r ddweud o'r ddweud. Y ngyfrydd yma o un o ffordd ac mae angen i ei engh إchydig, ac mae'n gwychenni so eich holl codes yma, ac mae roi pob penderdoedd wedi bofi, a'r hollad invitationadau byddweud chi'n gwneud â roit 不 pennaith, i os ymddiried по'u amlaed yn gwneud ramweith. Rym ni wedi newid i brifesbawd Llyifiadol immunity i hynny ymwysig Carr �dach yw efforts helpu arabaith eich alkohol a'u holl станneid o'r Seabodd Menedig, a hefyd yn dweud, drwy gynghwyd, o'r Cyfrifydde, unrhyw o gwneudio'r Cyfrifydde yne. Feithio. Mae fawr, Nicola. Mynd eu cyfrifydde, ac byddwn i'n ddim yn ddechrau gweld y Cyfrifydde a'r cyfrifydde ar yr Cyfrifydde. Ond, oedd erbyn o umdangosu hwnna? Rwy'n meddwl i wneud uchelach i amddangos Nicola, Win Boan a Daniel Cremon i'ch trefnio'r gweithio rhai bod hynny mewn gweithiau gweithio ddim yn y gynedd. Felly, y greu Ffyrdd mewn ysbarchfyniad hwn yn cael ei addysg â'r dweud eich cy méfyrdd. Mae'n gweithio eu parod i'r will yng Nghaeth yr wych i gwasoedddiadwyr wna gref i'r Ffyrdd mewn gweithio i'r gweithio i'r ffarfyn a'r dweud eich meddwl i'r drwng. A beth sy'n drwng wir yn garderwyr y senglo, the Armed Forces forego some of the rights enjoyed by the rest of society. And the Covenant is thus a pledge that society acknowledges and understands that members of the armed forces community should be treated with fairness and respect by the society that they serve. So why might this be important? Well the Armed Forces Covenant first really entered public consciousness at the turn of the 21 ymydd. Rydyn ni'n cael y cyfnod y brifysgol y Brifysgol a'r Brifysgol yn ymgyrch gwell. Rydyn ni'n cael y brifysgol wedi'u cyfnod y brifysgol i'r sêl, i'r sêl o'r llyfr yn ymgyrch a'r llyfr yn ymgyrch. Francis Quarles, y sêl o'r sêl o'r Sifol Unig, rwyf yn ymgyrch i'r sêl. Oesgar a elef yn ymgyrch hyflwygo效EL Cadur, when the danger is passed and all things righted, God is forgotten and the soldier slited. So, these attitudes persisted for many years, and varies politically. These attitudes persisted for many years and dadw jego beol er o Graph o Hern Th Ton yng Ici. 20th century marks a real revolution in these attitudes with the foundation of the British Legion in the aftermath of the First World War and the Legion is actually celebrating its centenary this very year. The Royal British Legion has worked consistently over the century to remind the public of the debt owed to service men and women. Felly, mae'n meddwl i'r llwys i'r holl sydd yn gweithio'r Llywodraeth Cymru. Felly, mae Llywodraeth Cymru yn gallu bod yn gweithio fod yn modern ac yn i ffordd iawn yn gweithio'r Llywodraeth Cymru, ac yna'r Llywodraeth Cymru yn ystod yn gweithio i'r Llywodraeth Cymru. Y Llywodraeth Cymru yn gweithio i'r Llywodraeth Cymru, community, to have the same access to government services and other services as any other citizen. This includes access to having a home, access to health care, financial assistance, starting a new career and education. And that pledge is now fulfilled by many different organisations and groups that are committed to making a difference for the armed forces community. syniadwyr yn cael ei ddweud o ymddangos a'r llwysoedd yn ymddangos, ymddangos, ymddangos, a'r ddweud o'r ddweud. Yn ymddangos, mae ymddangos wedi bod yn cael ei ddweud, ond mae'n gweithio'r ddeud yn ymddangos. Mae'r gwaith yw'r ffordd o'r cyfnodd ymlaen i'r cyfnodd. Mae'r cyfnodd yn siaradau o'r cyfnodd. Mae'r cyfnodd yn ymlaen i'r cyfnodd a'u gweithio'r cyfnodd a'u gweithio'r cyfnodd. A dyna, mae'r cyfnodd yn ymweld i gael cyfan o'r cyfnodd, ac mae'r gweithio cyfan o'r cyfan o'r cyfnodd yn ymlaen gyfnodd, mewn helpeth chaos額dd ein wirioneddach yn cytud subwayio ac mae'r gweithio. Mae'r cyfnodd yn ymlaen i d coll randomly, i Gymru own이adio ni ddim ar Bronwyn Gw helig, ahowch gan gyhoedd Fyeld, ein effnin sukwkywch yn색wch�u i 1845, ych 173 gyfle. Apefniad y cyfnodd gwy ingwaleis frymian yndoiliadau challenged the formation of the War Studies Department, which will celebrate its 60th anniversary next year. And through the Defence Studies Department, Kings possesses a unique academic military partnership in professional military education. The Kings Centre for Military Health Research, the Conflict and Research Group, and the Department of Military Mental Health yn ddod i'r enghraifft ar gyfer cyfnod cyfnod, sydd wedi cael cysylltu'r cyfnod cyfnod i gael cyfnod cyfnod i gael gyda mynd i'r ddimen chi. Ond oedd o'r gyfnod cyfnodau i gael cyfnod i gael cyfnod cyfnod o'r cyfnod cyfnod cyfnod. Ac, oherwydd Nicola wedi amdano, o'r gilydd cyflym y ddechrau cyfnod cyfnod cyfnod cyfnod, gallwn i'n gweithio'r cyfnod cyfnod cyfnod, is that we have learned that King's has now been awarded a Bronze award in terms of the employer recognition scheme and that in a sense marks some of our ambition. The employer recognition scheme has bronze, silver and gold awards for organisations that pledge, demonstrate and then advocate support to the armed forces community. a ddweud yn sii'n gweithio'r Gwanaethol i'r awardau ybronzol, byddwn ni'n arweithio'r Gwanaethol i'r gwylo sy'n i'n gallu amgylch yn ymddangos y gweithio'r Gwanaethol i'r awardau deall. Mae'r gweithio'r Gwanaethol i'r gweithio'r cyffredinol, gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gwneud, a Make firm commitments on or leave commitments and enabling training opportunities for serving members reservists, and ensuring no armed forces people or their families are disadvantaged due to their service. Given King's long association with the armed forces a the college's powerful vision to work in the service of society, it's absolutely right to make these commitments. a we will now be working to turn that intent into reality. Thank you, and back to Nicola. Thank you. Well, thank you for that introduction to the Armed Forces Covenant and Kings, and I definitely learnt about the history of Kings there, so thank you for that. And yes, we're incredibly pleased and delighted to be awarded the Bronze Award by the Defence Employer Recognition Scheme, and as you've heard, we will be working further towards our silver and gold commitments over time. So now we're going to move on to our panellists. I've asked them each to kind of talk briefly about, for about five minutes, about their kind of experiences of being part of military and the Kings community. We're going to start off with Sean Taylor Burn, Bernie. I'm afraid we've got a few technical challenges, and Sean is currently unable to turn his camera on, but you'll be able to hear him even if you can't see him. So Sean is a serving captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps. He's actually been part of Kings since 2016, when he joined us as an honorary research fellow within the King Centre for Military Health Research and the Academic Department of Military Mental Health. And Sean is currently undertaking an MSc in mental health nursing here at Kings. So he's in a unique position with being an honorary staff member, a current student, and also a serving member of the Armed Forces. So Sean, over to you. Thanks, Nickrin, and hello everyone. Sorry about the camera. Nicol, that's right. I do have a bit of a vantage point on this from being a student and a staff member and a serving member all at the same time. And I suppose the first thing to say really is when I heard of the Armed Forces Covenant being signed, I was overjoyed. It was absolutely fantastic news. But I suppose like all good military planning and reflection, the next question you ask is, what is the so-what of that document? And I think that's maybe something just as an introductory comment I could reflect on. And really at the basic level for me from my experiences as a staff member and student and Armed Forces member is that we have to recognise, especially in London, that there is perhaps a slight stigma about serving in the Armed Forces. I think back when we were all going to work, we simply couldn't wear our uniform in our capital city to go up to Denmark Hill. It was just not unsafe to do so. I did once and I was heckled three times, I think, by members of the public before I even got to my first station. Now, of course, I haven't had anything like that from Kings, but it was a bit of a perspective change when I joined as a student because I noticed a bit of frostiness from my fellow students. They would say things like, well, look, Sean, you're a lovely person. We get on very well with you. But how could you with your positive outlook join an organisation like this we're totally morally opposed to? And only two weeks ago, there was, in our student WhatsApp group, someone asked me about military training for nurses. And before I could even answer, a student, probably joking to be honest, said just remember, quote, that the final stage of army selection is to, quote, shoot an Afghan farmer in the head. Now, I'm not making a point here that I'm particularly offended by that. I think it was probably just a silly comment, but I think it does point to something quite interesting in the student body that there is a lot of misconceptions around about serving in the armed forces. And those really need to be dispelled. So for me, the very basic so what of the armed forces covenant is starting there. It's saying, actually very publicly, Kings corporately are very, very proud of their relationship with the armed forces past and present and future. And they want to publicise that support and show solidarity. And I think one of the things that I'd like to see is that this isn't just something that is known about in war studies departments or in case in HR where you have self-selected people who are very pro military. I would like to see from Kings a real buy-in and to say, yes, we are proud and use that as the armed forces covenant as a mechanism for that to start with before we even get into some of the more day-to-day things that it can be useful for. But I'm sure some people disagree with that. Some people agree. Maybe we could get into it later on in discussion. I'll stop there because I know you want to keep the time. Thanks very much. Thank you, Sean. Let's hope we can work on that video for maybe the panel discussion. So moving on to our second panellist this afternoon is Sarah George. Captain Sarah George completed a Masters in Conflict Resolution in Divided Societies here at Kings. Sarah's had some incredible experiences whilst being part of the army. I think the one that stood out to me was being the liaison officer for the military response to the Salisbury Novichop attacks. So Sarah, over to you. Hi, Nicola. I'm afraid I'm also going to keep my video off purely because we're being recorded this time, but hopefully I'll be able to get the message out OK via voice. So, yeah, as you mentioned, I commissioned actually into the army reserves in 2017, and today is reserves day. So it's really great to be able to talk about what people can do for the army and the armed forces in terms of support. So really appreciate that we're having this discussion. Due to this increased flexibility when it comes to career plans for reserves and regulars, I have actually spent three years full time in full time service. And you mentioned one of my experiences, Down in Salisbury, which was fascinating. But in terms of my experience at King's, so I'm sure that many, many of the King's staff and students know that it's almost a, it goes hand in hand with saying that you have a commission that you also have some sort of degree from King's. And in fact, I too went to King's back in 2019 to study conflict resolution and divided societies. The links between King's College London and the armed forces are absolutely exceptional. Everyone, everyone there is aware of King's. They understand what you've been studying there. They understand the importance that your degree will bring back to the armed forces. And I was so glad to see so many regular students being paid by the army to do their masters there. So that was really encouraging. The conflict resolution masters, although now in the War States Department, was previously in the Department of Middle Eastern Studies. So it's slightly less linked to the armed forces community. However, through external speakers that we had on a weekly basis in, on a daily basis, I should really say, at KCL and also in my optional modules, I was really able to engage and bring together that sort of academic focus with that military focus. And one example that I really like is that we had someone who came from NATO who was working quite senior, I'll say. I won't mention the name, but it was for our module in arms control that Professor Winburin was one of the leads for. And he was talking about how one of the key sort of focuses for the next five, ten years was counter-Siberian capability. And as you know, I worked on the Salisbury Novichok case, but I also am a Siberian defence adviser trained, trained with the army. And so it was really good for me to be able to discuss with him the capability of the European NATO members, especially looking from my point of view at the UK, but just looking across at our capabilities and trying to understand how that fits in with the NATO vision that, you know, Siberia, counter-Siberian will be a focus. So having a conversation like that, which I can then take back and use either in the reserves or, you know, whatever full-time regular post I might be taking up, using that experience and understanding of the more strategic level point of view, which as a junior officer you don't often get was incredibly helpful and incredibly unique. And I could only have got that via either attending sort of external lectures or actually being able to speak to someone in a small classroom with any five or six people of students was amazing. In terms of King signing the armed forces covenant, while I was studying we had the horrible corona situation. It was obviously, as everyone knows, we've all been living it for a number of years now. But right when I was about to start writing my dissertation, we were pretty much all getting mobilised for op rescript, which was the military response to the coronavirus pandemic. And for a student, obviously at that point, the armed forces covenant hadn't been signed, but as a student understanding that King's College London has those incredible links with the armed forces and really supports the armed forces community, at no point did I ever feel very concerned that I might have to request to have my dissertation deadline postponed. I might have to put this back a whole year. This was never a concern of mine. I always knew that the university would 100% support me. And I think that signing the armed forces covenant, if anything, just really underlines that and any doubt that could ever be in a student's mind, hopefully would be allied by that. But in terms of the staff as well, I mean, I don't know how much of the staff at King's College London are serving members, but for them being able to understand that they have the support of their employer when it comes to going off and working in the reserves or taking some time off to deploy is incredible. It's a huge difference. And I've worked with a number of soldiers who've had their civilian employers put their foot down and say, no, we can't lose you. You can't deploy. Hopefully as you progress from bronze to silver to gold, making those moves into complete supporting of the employees and the students will be in just only a good thing. And then in terms of armed forces day, I mean, every soldier armed forces day usually means a little bit of extra work. So they're never too happy about it from the soldier point of view, but recognising the efforts that they do, I think is really important. And I don't know if King's currently does something for armed forces day, but having some sort of ceremony or recognition lunch or dinner or something like that, I think would be incredibly appreciated. And as my colleague before me mentioned, it is tough in London. It is scary walking around in uniform. We don't do it alone. We're discouraged for doing it. And it's incredible that in your own country and your own capital city, you can't do that. So any opportunity we have to gather as a team as a cohort and strengthen those links together and recognise what we've done is actually really appreciated. And I look forward to any questions that you might have. Apologies again about the camera. Thank you, Sarah. And I hope by asking you to attend today, we didn't give you extra works, but we really appreciate your contribution. So our third panellist this afternoon is Air Vice Marshal Rich Withnall. Rich is currently director of Defence Healthcare and he's also a professor of general practice and primary care. So what's Richard's connection with King's? So Rich undertook the advanced command and staff course back in 2007, 2008. And he also completed an MD at King's with myself and Professor Simon Wesley on the mental health of the joint helicopter force. Rich has got many strings to his bow. The one that and many roles that he plays and the one that jumped out at me from reading his bio was that he's on a resurgence to Her Majesty the Queen. So, yeah, I look forward to hearing about any operations that you've performed on the Queen. So Rich, over to you. Hi Nicola, good afternoon. Thanks very much. I'm afraid play clinical confidentiality on the last question I think. But good afternoon everybody. So yeah, my name's Rich Withnall. I'm very privileged to be the director of Defence Healthcare. I'm also a member of the Defence Medical Services senior leadership team. So what does that mean? It means I'm responsible for the delivery of safe and effective military healthcare. I also look after the healthcare optimization programme. That's our aim to improve clinical outcomes, deployability and better value for money. And quarter zone, which is going to be our new next generation military health informatics capability. I'm also really privileged to be responsible for the Defence Medical Rehab Centre at Stanford Hall. So what does all that mean in the context of my relationship with King's? Well, as Nicola said, I suppose on the dinosaur of the group so far in that I became a student at King's in 2007 when she said I was doing ACSC at Shrivnam. So with the support of both the War Studies Department, specifically Steve Griffin and with Nicola and Professor Simon and Lisa Tahala and others at KCMHR, we were able to unpack for the first time stress and resilience issues amongst members of the Joint Helicopter Force, so operational military aircrew. The experience that King's brought to bear and the ability to access a world-leading, longitudinal cobalt study database meant that that research went really well. I was very fortunate to win both the ACSC Defence Research Paper and the MA prizes, but more importantly than that, the research done through King's informed MOD operational stress management policy and influenced operational flying patterns in Afghanistan. As Nicola said, that then grew into an MD, which is a clinical PhD, in psychological mentoring at King's that was awarded in 2013. I'm sure that that step with the support of King's is why I was able to become the RAS First Defence Professor of General Practice and then the first GP to become the medical director. Nicola, as you were my primary supervisor for both the MA and the MD, I'll always owe you a specific debt of gratitude, but that gratitude extends to King's more broadly, because I was absolutely thrilled when I heard that King's had signed the Covenant as a continuing sign of their commitment to work with the military, because as my experience shows, this isn't anything new, this has been happening for a very long time, but King's have now very kindly committed to continue to take consideration for the unique requirements of the armed forces. There's no touch on at the beginning, but the Covenant is a promise by the nation to support armed forces communities and 10 years on since the inception, it continues to put great emphasis on our people. My so-what of King's signing is that we know that the majority of colleagues who leave the armed forces transition really well into civilian life, but we also recognise that that isn't always the case and I think we must work in unison to continue to ensure that former service people who do face challenge receive the very best support and consideration that they need and that they deserve, and therefore I think that the mental health research, especially that King's undertakes, is really key to helping us as the military, but also our NHS colleagues to better understand the specific needs of current and former service personnel and their families. So why is Armed Forces Day so special to me? Well I think it's great that we can celebrate King's signing on Reserves Day and in the week of the Annual Armed Forces Day. It's important to me because our armed forces are world class and they help to protect the UK and that's been writ large in COVID. The Armed Forces, I believe, are valued members of society because we're professional, we're inclusive and we're diverse and reserves are absolutely central to our armed forces family. So in Armed Forces Week and on Reserves Day, I think events like this round table are really useful in connecting communities, including universities and other academic and educational bodies with the Armed Forces to help inform people about who we are, what we do and how we support the nation. So more broadly, in my view, I think King's is a stand out academic institution with whom I personally feel the Defence Medical Services are very proud to partner. Obviously you're ranked in the top 10 universities in the world and King's prolific military mental health outputs not only inform us as MOD but I know from first hand they influence NATO and they deliver world changing ideas and life changing impact. So Nicola, thank you very much to you and the wider King's team for the opportunity to speak to you this afternoon. I'm really grateful for our collaboration with you and I look forward to it continuing long into the future. Thanks very much indeed Nicola, back to you. Thank you and thank you for those kind words Rich. So our fourth speaker this afternoon is Major Giles Moon. Giles joined the Army back in 2010 and in 2012 he deployed to Afghanistan and was a mentor to the Afghan National Police in Helmand. He's since then completed a number of other tours to Afghanistan, Iraq, Jordan as well as holding down policy positions within main building in Whitehall. He was selected back in 2018 for the Army's academic external placement scheme and came to King's to read for an MA in international relations and we're delighted that he was able to take time out today to join us. So Giles over to you. Thanks very much Professor. So I should just set my background out. So I came the Army's of Generosity funding me on a full-time Army officer in the Army who generously funded me through what's known as the external placements academic scheme where we send a few people on master's degrees every year to help broaden, to give people a chance to think and to study to relate to our profession. And I was pretty lucky to be able to do that at KCL which is probably the best place to do that probably in the world really because some of the people you get exposed to some of the studying that goes on and some of the work that's happening. And in the unlikely event that anyone from my ear or the armed forces is watching this getting on to that program. A bit of a nose. I had a great year. I had a chance to study under, be supervised by Simon Anglin I think is on this call. So I'll say only nice things about him. But I studied the use of Russian conventional force and when Russia moves from the kind of grey space grey zone operations we see primarily into conventional operations. And now is a useful piece of work that's helped me to sort of think my way through some of the stuff we've seen recently operationally. And in fact we are only a few hours past Russia saying that they have five warning shots sort of British ship in Black Sea which appears not to be true but is nevertheless shows how topical some of the work going on at KCL is. And I know I'm meant to be talking in some ways about how you know how great it is that King's has assigned the Armed Forces Covenant and what that means. But in many ways I think it's actually primarily there is a signal rather than anything particularly meaningful. It's great to show the intent of signing the Armed Forces Covenant but I think from my experience at King's I think KCL is already really good at supporting the Armed Forces and it does more than almost anyone else or any other organisation I've come across in terms of supporting and working with the Armed Forces. Clearly you have an entire defence studies department working down at Shrivenham helping the Armed Forces study and learn. But actually my experience at KCL was extremely positive. I was given time off routinely when I needed to go back into work. There's a period towards the end of my studies but rather than doing my dissertation I was deployed to Jordan slightly unhelpfully. And KCL were brilliant at letting me delay letting me take time to complete my dissertation and then helping me through that process thereafter. And actually I've also been invited generally invited back by by Simon Angliff since to help teach and help explain to some of the students about how military planning works to help them with some of their studies as well. So I think ultimately King's has already very good, very established links to the Armed Forces and what I think is brilliant to see the Armed Forces covered and signed as sort of symbolic value. But I think in many ways we're most of the way there in terms of the commitment to service personnel and the commitment to helping the Armed Forces be as good as they can be in the service of the nation. So no, I think thank you very much for your work on it and for everyone else who's done work in the background but I think overall KCL is in a brilliant place and it's just great to see that continue. Thank you Giles. Now I can't get my camera to work. Oh, yeah. Another IT challenge. So our fifth panellist this afternoon is Lance Corporal William Fletcher. He joined the Army Reserves in 2009. So happy Reserves Day, Will. And at the same time as joining the Army Reserves he also joined King's as an undergrad where he studied war studies. And from reading Will's bio he's actually been part of King's and part of the Reserves ever since. He stayed at King's and completed an NMA before moving to Defence Studies Department for his PhD. And in 2020 Will was appointed lecturer within the Defence Studies Department. So Will is now a member of staff but is also serving within the Reserves. So Will, over to you. Great, thank you very much Nicola. And yeah, great news about the award to King's and generally this event for recognising the military government and its importance and relationship with King's. As you mentioned, since 2009 I've sort of, from the moment I sort of left school until now I've always been involved in both the Army Reserves and King's, so very two major links both through sort of undergraduate and then postgraduate study and now as a member of staff at the staff college both those strands have been running for the last sort of 12 years. So it's been really, they've gone hand in hand for all of that time and number of different perspectives of how they think. Firstly, it's been good for me to have the sort of two careers really running side by side and the Army Reserves sort of allows that where some of my friends that went into the regular army obviously haven't been able to carry on as I have in sort of academia. So there's a major advantage of the Army Reserves and also for me personally working for King's it's been good to have exposure to military culture and going on different courses or going on different exercises with different units and building up contacts and just understanding the military culture has been really useful for me as a student and then as a member of staff to really have an insight into how the military works which some of my colleagues perhaps don't have as much so I think it's really interesting to be able to get an insight into the military as an academic. In terms of reflection on what sort of the Covenant means to me I think as Neil sort of started off at the beginning of the event I think I mean from a military historians perspective I very much feel that there's kind of always been a military Covenant or an agreement it's just been informal in the past and obviously society and the Armed Forces have always had a relationship and agreement but the Armed Forces Covenant now really actually formalises that and recognises that two-way commitment more in a formal way in a written way so I think that's really crucial and really helps Army reservists like me in terms of when it comes to needing extra leave etc or going away on courses as a student I was able to have time off to spend two weeks doing a course and hopefully that may continue to be the case now that I'm a member of staff and sometimes needing perhaps extra time off which I know my Army Reserve Regiment for example is in the City of London and various friends of mine here in fairly big corporations in the city and them signing up to the Armed Forces Covenant has been really beneficial to them because their workplace has really recognised the importance of what they're doing in the Army Reserve but also given them extra time off to go and do extra courses which didn't exist before they'd signed the Military Covenant so they found it really useful Also I mean it's already been mentioned but I think King's is reputation in the Armed Forces is already very strong obviously here at the Staff College Defence Studies is a King's department and I think across the Army it's well recognised but signing the Covenant really means it's much more of a two-way process that not only is King's helping to educate the Army but people like myself that are in the Army as well and hopefully King's will sort of start to recognise the importance that military experience has and giving time off or recognising that is clearly very important and yeah I think just generally the links between the military and King's run deep there's a number of friends of mine that we all studied war studies as undergraduates together and many of them are studying the same Army Reserve Regiment I'm in out of the 16 of us in our small parts of the regiment and six of us are all war studies alumni so I think across the Army you know some similar patterns may emerge in terms of regular officers who know each other went through Santa's and so there's certainly a large sway of the people that are alumni of King's and perhaps more so than some other universities and that then go out into the military world and I think King's signalling that they're supporting that and supporting the armed forces is really important and signing the government is a major part of that those are just my thoughts and I'll hand back to you Nicola, thank you very much Thank you Will So our final panellist this afternoon well actually before I introduce our final panellist can I just say after Keisha has said a few words we will kind of be happy to take questions and comments from the audience so if you do have a question or a comment please do put it in the chat and we'll pick that up if it's directed at a particular panellist please you know indicate that but if it's for all panellists then we'll we'll ask accordingly So our final panellist this afternoon is Keisha Colton-Palmer someone else I need to say happy Reserves Day 2 So Keisha is a Reservist four years of service and she's currently a combat HR specialist but also whilst being a Reservist she is completing an MSc here at King's in the Institute of Psychiatry in war and psychiatry and you know I'm really grateful that Keisha has been able to join us this afternoon so Keisha, over to you Thank you very much So as Nicola said I'm currently a full-time student at KCL studying war and psychiatry and that course covers things like the history and development of psychology and psychiatry throughout the military and how civilians are affected by the military war natural disasters, the effects of natural disasters and also combat-related disorders So I decided to apply to King's because of their relationship with the armed forces and that's kind of what I want to go into so I have been serving as a Reservist for four years now As was said I'm a combat HR specialist which is just a fancy way of saying I'm a clerk I also deal with the G1 welfare side of things so I assist the welfare officer within the unit any situations that I can aware of you just pass it on and discuss it and my academic background is I studied an undergraduate in psychology and masters in psychology and I covered topics such as anxiety and stress clinical neuroscience and so on and I did all that because my aspiration is to become a clinical psychologist within the military which is kind of a grey area or at least assisting so as a civil service individual So once I qualify as a clinical psychologist hopefully in a few years then I'll look at hopefully commissioning through the PTO route and then seeing what happens there My experience with King's I joined King's in 2020 so I had a lot of face lessons before Covid came and everything went online so the social side not so much but the academic side so as I mentioned you've got KCMHs which is why King's was interesting to me also I'm lucky enough to have Nicola as my dissertation supervisor and she's been brilliant with networking so some of the other panellists on this call I've actually had the chance to discuss with them some things so that's been great and also the research opportunities especially within the armed forces it's endless because they do great work So my experience with King's is good but also limited because of the current situation but I think King's signing the AFC is a great step towards obviously we have the recognition already but a step towards development within civilian population and also the military and being able to come together and make things better for everybody for example it gives potential for the integration of service personnel or veterans into civilian population it eases that because you have sort of like resettlement programmes in position which has already been discussed and there are things there but I do know a lot of people do actually struggle coming from what a lot of people refer to as the simple life mainly in regular service to then come into civilian life and they find it difficult just to adapt especially not everybody there's so many people not everybody has that support network so making relationships such as what King's are doing with AFC it gives everybody a step closer to making that support network for people when they leave the armed forces and giving them the information they need to then move on and also be successful with the next steps they take in their life and for me the importance of armed forces day is it's quite important because it gives people the recognition it also shows the appreciation for what they do because they do work hard and in addition to that it's kind of like a morale boost and everybody needs that every now and then and also it pushes people to be proud of the work they've done and especially with the recent work that the armed forces have done with the op rescript and stepping up during COVID times they've shown a lot of great ability to adapt and that's what we should be known for the ability to support and adapt instead of the misconceptions that have been discussed previously by everybody but I'm really happy with the new relationship which is being put together Thank you Keisha so I'm going to hand over to Wynn Bowen to make a few closing remarks I'm sure most of you will know Wynn but Wynn is the head of school for security studies here at King so when the final few moments are all yours Well thanks Nicolae I think right you're handing the baton over to me to actually get the time all wrong and go over the hour which I'll never to be doing so many thanks Nicolae so good afternoon everybody it's been humbling this afternoon to listen to the personal reflections King's students and colleagues both past and present who are members of both the King's community and also the armed forces community as well and I'd like to say many thanks indeed to all of the panellists for taking the time out today to participate in this important event for King's people are very busy I know so we are very thankful and a huge thank you to Nicolae for chairing of course Sterling Job and to our comms team Lysian Asia for all the fantastic supporters ever it prides itself on being an organisation that's committed to being inclusive and the armed forces covenant and the commitments that it entails for King's I think fits squarely with that priority that we place on inclusion at King's in the end this is all about looking after our students looking after our colleagues and just it's about doing the right thing it's fantastic news that we've got a bronze award to come through today and that will clearly spur us on for the silver and the gold awards in due course three points actually stood out for me in the discussion this afternoon the first point that really stuck in my mind was the positive aspect around King's is doing alright already before we'd signed the covenant I think that's positive it's nice to hear but two other things that I think really struck me was this first this issue about the misperception of the armed forces in some parts of the student body I think that is the case I think that is correct absolutely and then the second aspect too was that London is a challenging place to be serving in the armed forces sometimes so I think these two issues are really important I think these are things that we can seek to look at and better understand and address in the armed forces steering group which Nicola and I share so I think those are the three sort of key takeaways that I've got from today along with other things too so we're very keen with the King's armed forces covenant steering group to hear from anyone who's interested in contributing to the implementation of the covenant of the King's so please do get in touch with Nicola or myself or other members of the steering group if you'd like to do that and just like this another activity is going forward of course and the more people we involve the more I think we will live up to and exceed the colleges commitments under the armed forces covenant we're particularly interested in bringing on board student representatives and we will put some communications out about that in due course so I will leave my comments there many thanks again to our speakers and to the chair of our comms team for helping to pull this all together it's been a really interesting event, very important and very insightful for me in terms of hearing the various comments from our panellists so I wish everyone a good remainder of the day and a restful evening