February 2026 will mark one year since the launch of The RAF Association's Women's Wellbeing Network. Created to provide serving women in the RAF and Reserves with a safe and inclusive space where they can connect with others, strengthen resilience and wellbeing and alleviate stressors uniquely experienced by Service women, since its inception the network has hosted 11 online webinars and supported over 300 attendees from across the RAF community.
The webinars have covered a vast array of topics including women's health, sleep, work-life balance, team building and leadership and have been hosted by exceptional speakers such as Cpl Shona Brownlee MBE, Air Cdre Toria McPhaden, Helen Seymour and Kate Davies.
Caroline Paige served for 35 years as a navigator on fast jets and battlefield helicopters and is a proud member of the Women's Wellbeing Network. Here, she reflects on its successful first 12 months.
How did you first hear about the Women's Wellbeing Network and how have you been involved with it so far?
I first heard about it during a visit to Atlas House (RAF Association HQ) last year. In 2020, I co-founded a charity, Fighting with Pride, which was set up to support LGBT+ veteran and serving personnel and their families. As part of that work, we reached out to as many different service charities and organisations as we possibly could.
I have joined all the Women's Wellbeing Network webinars which have taken place so far and it has been brilliant to see such a wide variety of topics covered.
How important do you think it is that the network offers webinars which cover a wide array of topics?
There is a lot going on in the world today and there are many challenges that women face in the workplace so the variety of topics is important because these are all learning opportunities.
The network presents an opportunity for women to listen to topics they don't get the time to research in these busy days. Also, there is a lot of misinformation out there and knowing where to go to for the right kind of information is difficult.
Having that diversity within the topic areas of the webinars is really important because it allows people to get an understanding from a whole different range of lived experiences, challenges and achievements. Hopefully those will inform and inspire women who are connected to the Royal Air Force and beyond.
The network has helped to build up a strong sense of community – how important do you think it is that women within the network support each other?
Women are naturally good at supporting each other so I think having that opportunity to bring people together from around the world, as well as more locally, means the lived experiences are wide as well. The opportunity to bring women together allows them to see the achievements of others and maybe inspires them to do something. There's always strength in numbers.
It's that combined sort of power, it not only empowers people, it also gets things done. You can have lots of individual voices out there shouting for change and for action but if you've got a lot of people who come together, they can learn from each other and use that to take things forward.
Webinar attendees have included serving and veteran personnel, military spouses and RAF Association staff – how beneficial do you think it is that the network is stretching further than serving personnel?
It's an RAF family, it's not just about serving personnel. The Women's Wellbeing Network has attendees from across the RAF family who have experiences that are valid for serving personnel just as much as vice versa.
Everybody who is serving now will at one point become a veteran and they will be stepping out of that service life and environment so it's good for them to understand the challenges they may go on to face outside.
Those members of the RAF family who are connected to the world outside the military – wives, husbands, partners and people who work with the Armed Forces in civilian capacities – they all bring invaluable information and experience which will help support those in service in the future.
For those people who haven't yet attended a Women's Wellbeing Network webinar, what would you say to advise them to do so?
Women need to talk to encourage others to come and listen, but sometimes it is very difficult to find time to do that. It's about showing individuals there's an opportunity to take part in discussions within the webinar itself but there's also a library of recorded webinars that people can watch back.
Military personnel have this ethos where they're reluctant to reach out for support because traditionally and culturally it's always been seen as a weakness but it's not. The Women's Wellbeing Network has huge value and more attendees will mean more growth in its second year.
