In your last interview, in 2021, you talked about how SuperTroop had influenced your decision to study child and adult nursing and that you felt the experience helped you get onto the course.
I was working as an au pair in Australia in my gap year and the host mum suggested children’s nursing and that was kind of the catalyst for me. I thought “Yeah, I love working with kids, I love doing the SuperTroop holidays, imagine if this was my job everyday.”
And now you are fully qualified and working at Great Ormond Street Hospital!
I love it. It’s way better than I expected. Nursing is definitely for me! I work on a bit of a mixture of a ward, we are mainly surgical. Because it’s Great Ormond Street it's very different to where I trained at a local hospital. The majority have complex needs and although it’s not the same as SuperTroop, SuperTroop has helped a lot. Some kids communicate with Makaton and I know some Makaton from SuperTroop, and through working at Great Ormond Street I pick up things which can help me on the SuperTroop holiday.
You have been volunteering with SuperTroop since 2018. How does it feel to have been involved with SuperTroop for eight years?
It’s pretty special! Seeing the holidaymakers grow and looking back on photos from 2018, some of them have grown up and matured so much. I started as a helper then became a group leader and now I’m on the senior team so it’s great to have transitioned through all the roles and have a bit more responsibility with the planning.
And what is your role now, on the senior team?
I am on the senior team as diabetes coordinator. We have one holidaymaker with diabetes and I speak with them and their parent in the few months leading up to the holiday. I organise the diabetes training, the risk assessments, care plans and I deliver diabetes care on the holiday. I also help the main medical team on the holiday with medications and I am a first aider.
As part of the senior team I have other responsibilities as well. I take part in planning meetings where we make decisions together on how the holiday will look and how to deliver it.
From your perspective, as someone who has been on the SuperTroop holiday for quite awhile, what is the impact for our holidaymakers?
Some of the kids, for weeks and months, will keep flipping back through their scrapbooks and talking about SuperTroop. Last year all of our holidaymakers were on the 2024 holiday, so it was so nice that we all knew each other really well, there was a familiarity.
Within the holidaymakers you get some friendships forming. On the first day when they arrive these holidaymakers that haven’t seen their friends since last year will run up to each other and start playing together. It’s so nice to see. I really do think it’s something special and a lot of these kids won’t have the opportunity otherwise to have holidays like this.
From what you have seen, what is the impact on the families of SuperTroop holidaymakers?
It’s amazing. There's one parent whose child has been on the holiday since the start and they’re so appreciative every year of what we do. At the end of the holiday we’re all in tears seeing them reunite.
Some of our holidaymakers have never spent a night away from their parents, so we are giving so much to the parents who haven’t been on holiday or haven’t done something for themselves because their sole focus is their child. We have heard in the past from parents saying their child has grown in confidence during the SuperTroop week.
What sort of things might you hear a few months on about the impact SuperTroop has had?
They might say “Our child keeps pointing at his suitcase and saying ‘SuperTroop!’” and wanting to go back. Even though they’re back with their family and they’re enjoying it, they’ve got those great memories and it makes the parents really happy to see how much their child is flourishing.
We have one holidaymaker who has struggled socially but has a really, really good friend in SuperTroop. So we know that SuperTroop has brought them out of their shell and it can hopefully continue to help them spread their wings.
Is there anything else you would like to share about your experience with SuperTroop?
I’m grinning, I love it. It’s nice how much of a solid group we are. It’s great how there’s so much planning that goes into it, then it's such a busy, hectic, sleep deprived week, but it is so fun. We have a holiday, it’s not just the kids! It’s a special thing that not many people could relate to or understand unless you’re in that bubble. You’ve got to be a certain type of person to do those things so it’s great that we’ve got that close-knit SuperTroop family.