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Stories of veteran service and sacrifice straight from the people driving today’s most important veterans causes and veterans organizations around the world. The show shines a spotlight on their inspiring projects making a real difference for veterans and their families, and along the way we'll hear the stories that drive them to do their best every day as they work to support veterans and their memory.
00:00:05:11 - 00:00:26:06
Speaker 1
Hey, it's Matthew Cudmore and welcome to Story Behind the Stone. Today we're joined by Louise Fat again of Little Troupers to talk about the unique challenges faced by military families and their children in the United Kingdom. We explore how her lived experience as a military parent inspired a national movement, and how Little Troopers is helping thousands of children feel seen, supported and connected.
00:00:26:08 - 00:00:33:06
Speaker 1
Louise, thanks for the work you're doing to build belonging and resilience in military families in the UK. And to our listeners, thanks for tuning in.
00:00:39:07 - 00:00:57:08
Speaker 1
Welcome to Story Behind the Stone, a show where we talk service, sacrifice and story. Connecting you to veterans causes in commemoration of the people. Changing the way the world remembers and supports our veterans. My name is Matthew Cudmore. I'm so pleased to welcome to the show today, Louise Fat again, founder of Little Troupers in the United Kingdom. Louise, thank you so much for coming on the show today.
00:00:57:09 - 00:00:58:18
Speaker 2
Thank you for having May.
00:00:58:18 - 00:01:10:06
Speaker 1
Louise would love to just get started with what inspired you to get started with Little Troupers and a little bit about your service and your family's service, and really what a military child's upbringing looks like.
00:01:10:06 - 00:01:35:22
Speaker 2
Little three pairs, is 15 years old this year. It's a military children's charity and we support children with one or both parents serving in the British Armed Forces regular or reserve. So yeah, I guess kind of rewind. I joined the military when I was a teenager. I met my husband, we had our daughter, and then we had it suddenly had a seven year old.
00:01:36:02 - 00:02:02:21
Speaker 2
It was a tough time. She's 22 now. So going back to when she was seven, my husband was backwards and forwards from sort of Iraq and Afghanistan, multiple times back to back. It was really difficult over there at that time. And she was really, really struggling. And I just knew that she needed some specific support and it just it didn't seem to exist.
00:02:02:23 - 00:02:30:21
Speaker 2
Here I found lots of, sort of initiatives and things happening in America, and there was nothing here. And I remember actually, we went to America, we were in Disneyland, Florida, and my husband was meant to be with us, and he couldn't because he had to go to Afghanistan. And we were at SeaWorld, and they just asked everyone to stand up who was military or who had someone deployed at the moment.
00:02:30:23 - 00:02:54:02
Speaker 2
And my daughter stood up and she just got really upset because suddenly she felt seen and recognized. And that was sort of validated for her. And I just thought I just had this swell of passion that she deserved better, that she hadn't joined the military. Me and my husband had both chosen to serve our country, but she hadn't made that choice yet.
00:02:54:02 - 00:03:31:16
Speaker 2
She was really feeling it, and it was really difficult and nobody would help her. Every charity that I went to over here was kind of like, yeah, she's a military child. She's kind of got to suck it up. And I just really didn't agree with that. And I felt if my daughter Madison is feeling that, then how many other thousands of children in the UK are also struggling with deployment and life as a military child and not feeling recognized or validated for their life and the challenges, the unique challenges that they do face.
00:03:31:17 - 00:04:00:08
Speaker 2
So I kind of embarked on this journey, got out the military myself, and embarked on this journey to found a charity with no previous charitable experience. It's every day is a school day. I'm learning. Still 15 years on. And yeah, I guess that's how the charity came to be. There's over about over 100,000 military children.
00:04:00:08 - 00:04:10:14
Speaker 2
And on average, now, 15 years on, we're supporting about 25 to 27,000 of those every year. So that's how little troopers came to Bay and was born. And I suppose.
00:04:10:16 - 00:04:18:21
Speaker 1
It's a massive impact that you're having with little troopers in the United Kingdom. Can you share a little bit more about, the programs that you're running and kind of what's on the horizon for you?
00:04:18:22 - 00:04:43:23
Speaker 2
So as a charity, it's really important for me that military children at every stage of their childhood, get support for those unique challenges. So primarily, we're supporting deployment separation, whether that's an exercise or a course or, you know, whether it's nine months away on a naval ship, whether it's you know, away with any, you know, we're try service.
00:04:43:23 - 00:05:12:22
Speaker 2
So we support British Army, Royal Naval and Royal Air Force, and we try to help them through every stage from naught to 18. So predominantly our work is split into three strands. So we have at home, which is really for me about empowering the parent. I wanted to be empowered when my daughter was seven. I just wanted to have tangible resources at my fingertips that I could utilize to support her.
00:05:13:00 - 00:05:41:16
Speaker 2
So that's a lot of what that at home strand of work is. It's lots of tangible resources. But also we have a therapy program that awards military children 1 to 1 therapy. Specifically for those military challenges around belonging and identity and moving home and school and friendship. So that kind of thing we have all together, which is where we literally bring military children all together in lots of different ways.
00:05:41:17 - 00:06:05:00
Speaker 2
We have family reconnection camps where we bring families together pre or post a deployment to spend time together, kayaking, coasteering, that kind of thing online all together, which is we've got Dinosaur Workshop this Saturday, we've got dogs, we've got we've got science. So that's online. So all the kids that have got parents deployed can log in to that.
00:06:05:01 - 00:06:33:10
Speaker 2
We've got a physical newspaper where all the military children write their articles in to us about their school or something. I call that they live or whatever it may be. And then we create a newspaper twice a year, for that. And yeah, so at home is lots of empowering resources and initiatives to support military children. And then we have at school, which we launched in 2018.
00:06:33:14 - 00:07:05:09
Speaker 2
And that's a national Educate the Educator program. So it's about really helping education settings to understand what those unique challenges are. Not every head teacher or teaching assistant or whatever it may be has got military experience. So it's about helping them to understand the challenges that military children face. And then providing resources to help them support military children in education.
00:07:05:09 - 00:07:39:08
Speaker 2
It's not unusual in this country for military children to be moving schools every two years. My daughter went to nine different schools, because we just moved around all the time and she couldn't take a foreign language GCSE because she'd done French, then German, then a year of Spanish, then back to French. Like she just wasn't at the stage to be doing an exam in a foreign language, say at school is really sort of educating the educator, helping schools to better support military children in their education settings.
00:07:39:14 - 00:08:08:17
Speaker 2
And then, final strand of work is in health care. So that is where we work with various children's hospitals or doctor's surgeries or in the community. So with health care professionals who are, supporting military children who might be poorly or had an accident, but who are also going through deployment because a parent's away or they're just about to move home or their friends move from school.
00:08:08:17 - 00:08:13:07
Speaker 2
So that is predominantly, breadth of work.
00:08:13:07 - 00:08:20:06
Speaker 1
What are the most common things that these children are saying? What are they experiencing when when their family are on deployment?
00:08:20:07 - 00:08:38:20
Speaker 2
There is no one size fits all. Some children will struggle with one thing, and then some other children will find that particular scenario quite easy. So I think the main things that children and obviously a lot of this I was personally going through it so I could see it. So I think a lot of it is belonging and identity.
00:08:38:22 - 00:09:05:15
Speaker 2
And there really is lots of work that we do around belonging and identity. So I always say if I'm ever giving keynote speech or whatever, I always say, don't ever ask a military child, oh, where are you from? Because they will not be able to answer you. Like my daughter was born in Germany, has lived in three countries, has been to nine schools, has lived all over the UK.
00:09:05:17 - 00:09:36:12
Speaker 2
You know, she's not from anywhere. But just because you're not born and raised in exactly the same town for your whole life doesn't mean you have any less of an identity. It just means you're gaining identity from different areas. And we always we have lots of activities about the patchwork of military life, and making your patchwork and bringing your whole kind of military child journey into one place to really kind of give you that sense of belonging and identity.
00:09:36:12 - 00:09:59:04
Speaker 2
And a lot of the kids that we support really identify with being a little trooper. That's really important. And over the last 15 years we've really seen that. So I think belonging identity is really one of them. And it's about being happy to identify as a military child. And, you know, that patchwork of childhood that brings you to become, a great young person.
00:09:59:05 - 00:10:23:03
Speaker 2
Obviously deployment is difficult and lack of communication can be really difficult. You know, I think people think it's 20, 25, everyone's FaceTiming and it's so easy to stay connected. But you know, we all know with the military that's just not the case. So a lot of children, you know, if a parent on a submarine, for example, there's just no communication at all.
00:10:23:03 - 00:10:47:22
Speaker 2
And that's difficult. And so we really invest time and energy into helping children to stay connected even when separated by miles, because, you know, they might have to go long periods of time without speaking to a parent, without sharing those little things with that parent. Moving home and school, obviously is is the third one that we support the most in, you know, those friendships coming and going.
00:10:47:22 - 00:11:08:22
Speaker 2
And and we have lots of resources and initiatives to help enable maintain friendships, even if children may. So I think that said, belonging, identity, lack of communication when deployed and keeping that parental and child connection and then maintaining friendships. And, you know, even though moving home and school nurturing that, I.
00:11:08:22 - 00:11:16:09
Speaker 1
Can only imagine how many lives you've impacted. Was there a moment in early on where you felt, I'm on the right path, I'm doing the right thing here.
00:11:16:10 - 00:11:46:11
Speaker 2
So I would say the last 18 months have been the most amazing for the charity. And I was thinking, just this week, I think it was the on site. Blimey, this has been a really long slog. I can't put my hand on my heart and say that I cracked it until probably this year. And that's 15 years. I just, you know, in the early days I was really passionate about supporting my daughter.
00:11:46:13 - 00:12:17:20
Speaker 2
You know, my daughter was struggling visibly, physically. She was really impacted. My husband had done seven deployments by the time she was seven. So I guess in the early days I was really emotionally attached to it. It meant so much to me. I just felt I cried everything on everything. Any podcast, any interview, any time I spoke about the charity, I just cried because it meant so much and I felt so passionate about it.
00:12:17:20 - 00:12:45:06
Speaker 2
And I just wanted to make a difference for my daughter. So I guess in the early days it was just all a little bit clouded. And, you know, I was learning I'd never done any charitable leadership before. So I was learning on the job. And, you know, I definitely think in the last kind of 5 or 6 years, we've definitely I've known what I've wanted to kind of achieve and what I wanted to do.
00:12:45:06 - 00:13:05:13
Speaker 2
And then I guess there was a period of change. I lost my brother very suddenly three years ago. And I had nearly a year off work, and that just put everything in perspective. And the only thing I can think is I just when I came back to work after losing my brother, I just had this fire in my belly.
00:13:05:13 - 00:13:34:11
Speaker 2
I was just like, I am going to make this the best thing it could ever be for the many military children. I want to create a legacy. And yeah, I guess I just had like a real fire in my belly for the last kind of 18 months. And when I look back on what we've achieved in just this year, to be honest, some of the opportunities, some of the projects we've got funding for, I don't really think we've been able to exponentially grow in the last year.
00:13:34:15 - 00:13:41:09
Speaker 2
So in answer to your question, I think it's taken me 15 years really to reach the sweet spot.
00:13:41:10 - 00:13:48:02
Speaker 1
You have an exciting new project that's coming online this year. The Little Troopers Club. I'd love to share more about that.
00:13:48:03 - 00:14:07:10
Speaker 2
I'm super excited about Little Troopers Clubs because again, it's something that I think, can really make a difference to thousands of military children. So the schools project, again was born out of personal experience. My daughter went to lots of schools. I would say out of the whole nine schools, one probably got the support for military children, right?
00:14:07:10 - 00:14:39:17
Speaker 2
So it was just evident that there was, what we call here, like a postcode lottery. So if she was in this school here, they could have great support for military children, and they've got it all sewn up. And those, they're really lucky. But then if you get a military posting and you have to leave that school and you go to a school and then the other side of the country, and they have no support for military children at all, this is real kind of peak and flow of support for military children.
00:14:39:19 - 00:15:01:11
Speaker 2
The Little Troopers Club has been born. It's taken me a really long time to kind of get the funding together, and kind of get that project all together. But we are launching. I'm super excited. I'm super passionate about it. And the whole ethos of this project is really to advocate that every school starts a little. Troopers club.
00:15:01:15 - 00:15:27:13
Speaker 2
We're providing everything to the schools to do that, all the session plans or the resources they need, everything to set up their club. My objective, my aim is to really bring a national benchmark so it doesn't it doesn't have to be weekly. It might be timely or it might be monthly, but that as many schools as possible in the country have a little troopers club.
00:15:27:15 - 00:16:02:15
Speaker 2
So when a child has to move and everything around them in their life is changing, their bedroom, the park they play on, their friends, what their house looks like, what their garden looks like, their teachers, everything can. That child's life is changing, but they are leaving a little troopers club in their school and they will be able to start their Little Troopers club in their new school that it can bring a real thread of continuity that doesn't break with that transition of that moving, and that really is what I'm trying to achieve with that project.
00:16:02:18 - 00:16:09:06
Speaker 1
How can parents, how can teachers, administrators kind of get involved with with this? As you're rolling this out.
00:16:09:06 - 00:16:32:04
Speaker 2
Our website is Little Troopers Dot net. And on our website we've got an at school area. And in that area there's a little troopers clubs area and it's free. It's fully funded. Schools can just sign up on the website. We then post them a pack, but then there is also lots of downloadable resources. So it's just super easy, non labor intensive.
00:16:32:04 - 00:16:53:15
Speaker 2
There's no financial cost involved. It does just need a bit of love, a bit of passion, a bit of drive for change for those military children in those education settings. For someone to kind of own that they will start the club and run it every couple of months to give that safe space to those military children.
00:16:53:15 - 00:16:59:15
Speaker 1
What are your goals with with the club? It's it's belonging. It's the identity. Are there kind of targets you're trying to hit as well.
00:16:59:16 - 00:17:32:13
Speaker 2
So belonging, identity, having somewhere specific, to share if they've got a parent deployed at that time that they know that in that hour they can go to that teacher with their military child life and it's understood and it's heard and it's validated, I think also to be with others, that are in a similar situation. We often hear that, you know, in a class there might be five military children, but none of them known that they're all military children.
00:17:32:14 - 00:18:05:10
Speaker 2
So I think having that dedicated club in school, inviting those military children, bringing them all together, identifies those children to each other. So even outside of the club, maybe in the playground or whatever it may be. Oh, is your dad, is your dad okay? Is he come back now or are you moving soon or you know, do you want to hang out at the military base event or whatever it is, but just identifying those kids to each other to bring that shared, understood, shared experience?
00:18:05:10 - 00:18:14:09
Speaker 1
When I think about this program launching, I think about your daughter. What is she saying to you about the impact that you're having across so many lives across the country?
00:18:14:11 - 00:18:44:03
Speaker 2
She's my biggest cheerleader. So my daughter is now 22. And she is a nurse. As she went to university and studying nursing, graduated last year. So she's been a nurse, in a hospital over here for a year now and doesn't live at home anymore. And I think she's seen the whole journey and part of it. I have always said I have a slight guilt because she would go through a scenario and I'd be like, we need a project for that.
00:18:44:08 - 00:19:16:23
Speaker 2
So I'd create the project by that point. She's out of that situation, so she's sort of never actually directly gained support for any of the, you know, the therapy program was born because that would have been really useful. But obviously she never got to utilize that program in the school's program. So she never. So I do always think, it's a shame because I created it because of, her, but she's actually never really managed to benefit from any of the programs because, she's kind of moved, before I've managed to launch it.
00:19:16:23 - 00:19:43:01
Speaker 2
But yeah, she's super proud and she's proud of both me and, you know, my husband, has recently left the forces after 24 years. All she ever knew was having two parents that had been in the military and living a military life. And I think, she's always my biggest cheerleader. She's always super supportive. Recently in September, we climbed Mount Snowdon in Wales.
00:19:43:03 - 00:20:00:10
Speaker 2
And she came along and supported. So, yeah, I love having a part of the Little Troopers family and all that she does now, some of the things she used to when she was little, she'd have to like, do the interviews with me or have the photos and all that kind of thing. But she did get to an age where she was like, I'm done.
00:20:00:10 - 00:20:07:15
Speaker 2
Like, no more little troopers photos or interviews. I don't want to be in magazines or on the radio or anything anymore.
00:20:07:16 - 00:20:12:11
Speaker 1
15 years ago, when you were just getting started, what kind of advice would you give yourself? 15 years.
00:20:12:11 - 00:20:43:08
Speaker 2
Ago? I think I would say to Louise 15 years ago, stick it out, it's going to be okay. Stay in your own lane. Don't listen to all the outside noise. Don't listen to everyone that's telling you this is a ridiculous idea and it's not needed. And, you know, just to stick it out and stay true to your gut instinct and believe in yourself, I think there's been so many times over the years where people have thought, I'm absolutely crazy.
00:20:43:10 - 00:21:07:14
Speaker 2
You know, that this is such a labor of love, and I hope I've proved everybody wrong. Now we're here. But yeah, I could have really done with like, a reassuring hug 15 years ago that stick with it. Stay in your lane. This is going to make you feel ready, fulfilled as a human being, which it does and has and continues to do.
00:21:07:14 - 00:21:12:17
Speaker 1
You get a chance to talk to many of the parents, and what are they saying about the programs?
00:21:12:23 - 00:21:40:18
Speaker 2
I do? And it's the best. It really is the best. So just this weekend just gone. We ran one of our family reconnection weekends. So that's where we bring families together again, fully funded. And we go to different areas in the country, and we bring those families who have just been deployed, not been separated by deployment, or they've got a deployment coming up and we do kayaking and coasteering and all those kind of things for a weekend.
00:21:40:18 - 00:22:04:21
Speaker 2
No screens, just you know, connection. Anyway, at the weekend just gone. A mum come up to me and she gave me a big hug and she went, you will never know the impact this has had on my family. She said. My husband's deploying for six months. Next week he's away for Christmas. He's not going to be back till April and to just sit back and watch him and my children are children together, bonding and connecting.
00:22:04:21 - 00:22:29:03
Speaker 2
And she said, you have no idea what you've done for my family. And I've always said, if we're running in a van and families are going to be there, I will be there. And the second I can't go to every event and meet every child and every family, then we've got to bag, It is getting slightly crazy that I rarely have any spare days in my diary, but that's what makes the fire in my belly.
00:22:29:03 - 00:22:52:23
Speaker 2
I gave that mum the biggest hug back and I said that means so much. I set up my work here is done. You know, this is what I needed as a military family and no one was able to provide it. So the fact that I have been able to take that personal lived experience and now create things that are supporting our military families is just so special.
00:22:53:03 - 00:22:58:20
Speaker 1
Looking towards Christmas, you do have a Christmas Smile Box program. Can you share a little bit more about that?
00:22:58:21 - 00:23:27:01
Speaker 2
Christmas is really, really difficult when you have someone deployed. My husband has done various Christmases, where we're separated. I remember one, I was the worst mom. I like, didn't want to put the Christmas tree up. I was like, no, Christmas isn't happening, which is so awful for my daughter. I think eventually she managed to persuade me to, put the Christmas tree up.
00:23:27:01 - 00:23:45:23
Speaker 2
And we kind of did have a Christmas dinner, the two of us, because often you don't live anywhere near your family. All the rest of it. So Christmas can look pretty bleak when you've got someone away from home, there's no guarantee they're going to be able to call on that day. It's just hard. It brings a really difficult layer.
00:23:46:00 - 00:24:07:23
Speaker 2
A good few years ago now, we created a project called Christmas Smiles, which does what it says on the tin, and it's just a big hug to those families, really. So we do lots of things under Christmas smiles. We work with a cinema company over here and in lots of different towns at the same day. At the same time, we show a Christmas film.
00:24:08:04 - 00:24:29:13
Speaker 2
We love a pantomime over here, so everyone gets pantomime tickets and we have lots of giveaways. But the most special thing. So three years ago I was like, I want to create a box, a box of stuff. So we did and this will be our third year of doing it. So it's called Little tree put Christmas smiles boxes.
00:24:29:15 - 00:25:03:23
Speaker 2
And we pack 2500 boxes in one day. So we get loads of people to volunteer and we have like a conveyor belt, around a room. We pack all 2500 boxes in November, and then they all get distributed to military children across the country who will have a parent deployed over Christmas. And those boxes have, books, resources to help them, through the deployments and postcards, they can color and maybe write to their parent and send them in the post.
00:25:04:01 - 00:25:30:13
Speaker 2
It's got some cost down charts so they can count to when mommy or daddy are coming home. Obviously it's got some really cute Christmas bits in there as well. So they all get, sort of shipped out, you know, all across the country to where military children have a parent away. We then get some just gorgeous photos and videos, of children getting their boxes and smiling, which is the whole point of the project.
00:25:30:13 - 00:25:55:15
Speaker 2
And then often we get the parent who's deployed emailing us or commenting on social media saying, I'm away, I'm on a naval ship, or I can't be there at Christmas. But you know, I've seen this photo of them opening this box and, you've made me smile as well as my child, so it's super worthwhile. You know, if one of those boxes is packed with so much love and it's a big thank you.
00:25:55:15 - 00:26:07:13
Speaker 2
You know, being away over Christmas is a huge sacrifice. And it's a sacrifice for the family that have someone away over Christmas. So it's a bit of a thank you as well. But it's really it's special.
00:26:07:15 - 00:26:11:22
Speaker 1
How can people support you? Keep in touch. Keep inspired for what you're doing.
00:26:11:23 - 00:26:31:12
Speaker 2
Little trip is that, is our website. It's got everything on there. Super easy to use. And then we're across social media, so come and find us. We're on Instagram, we're on Facebook, we're on X. You'll be able to find as little trip has really easy and yeah, come and join the community and see what we're getting up to.
00:26:31:12 - 00:26:35:09
Speaker 2
And if you're a military family, hopefully we can support you as well.
00:26:35:14 - 00:26:42:01
Speaker 1
I'm thrilled to see so many exciting things coming on the horizon for you and for the little troopers. Thank you so much for coming on the show today.
00:26:42:01 - 00:26:43:16
Speaker 2
Thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure.
00:26:49:13 - 00:27:08:23
Speaker 1
Thanks so much for tuning in. Story. Behind the Stone is available on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, and on the Rise Across America Radio Network on iHeartRadio. Audacity and tune in to search for wreath. We air every Thursday at 10 a.m. eastern on the Red Cross Radio Network. Thank you for tuning in.