Greenwich Hospital has awarded £18,000 to RMA – The Royal Marines Charity to support the pilot delivery of Native; a digital family discovery and planning app being tested with Royal Navy and Royal Marines families.
Frequent deployments and relocations can disrupt routines, social connections, and access to activities for children and young people. Native is designed to reduce the mental effort involved in finding suitable things to do with children. It brings together structured local activity information, family context, filtering, and personalised recommendations to help families find activities, events, clubs, and opportunities that better fit their child, their location, and the realities of the day, making it easier to settle into new service communities.
Developed by Native App Ltd, founded by a Royal Navy wife and mother with lived experience of service family life, the pilot accords with recommendations from the recently published Meeting the Needs of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines Community report to improve communication, family support, and outcomes for service children.
The Native App combines a publicly accessible pathway offering general local opportunities with a dedicated military-focused pathway surfacing Service-relevant provision, charity-supported activities, and local opportunities for eligible Royal Navy and Royal Marines families.
The 12-month pilot will include development, testing, roll-out, and evaluation of the dedicated military pathway within the app. Greenwich Hospital’s funding contributes to an existing Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust grant, enabling a multi-organisational contribution to ensure its successful roll-out.
This funding initiative demonstrates Greenwich Hospital’s ongoing dedication to improving health and wellbeing and to ensuring better outcomes for children and young people across the Royal Navy, Royal Marines and Royal Fleet Auxiliary communities through fast access to vital support.
Native App is scheduled to launch at the end of September.
