New app brings military families together at bedtime
Little Troopers Treasures – A new app is helping to keep our serving men and women connected with their families through the magic of stories while they are away from home. The app, which has been supported by Harper Collins Children’s Books and ABF The Soldier’s Charity, has now been launched to our Forces and their families nationwide.
“My little man was really missing his daddy, who’s in Iraq at the moment, even came out of school crying. When we got home he asked if he could have daddy read him one of ‘those new books’. It’s helped him so much this afternoon. I can’t thank you enough for this app, it’s just wonderful!!! Xxxx”
Available exclusively to military personnel, the app allows the serving person to choose a book for their child and record a video reading synchronised to the pages turning. The app features a range much-loved children’s ebooks including Judith Kerr’s Mog books, Michael Bond’s wonderful Paddington, adventures from Emma Chichester-Clark’s Blue Kangaroo as well as stories from Bing.
Little Troopers Treasures has been developed by the charity Little Troopers; which supports children of our British Armed Forces through the separation that is often part of military life. Little Troopers was ounded by Louise Fetigan who herself served in the British Army and who is also married to a serving soldier.
Louise said “I’m so pleased that we can offer this app to our British Armed Forces families. Night time is always hard when parents are away as the children often ask for Mummy or Daddy at bedtime. It will be so lovely for them to see a video and hear their voice through a special story. Our aim is to help families stay connected through time apart and this will truly help with that.”
Parents serving in the British Armed Forces can be away from home for up to nine months of the year, with many children experiencing repeated and sometimes concurrent separation. Access to communication can vary and often be sporadic, Skype and video calls cannot be replied upon. Little Troopers Treasures is a free, easy to use app that can make story time precious every day.
Executive Publisher of HarperCollins Children’s Books, Ann-Janine Murtagh said, “We are immensely proud to partner with Little Troopers on this wonderful project which will allow children to connect with their parents and to enjoy the magic of a story even when they are separated. To know that our servicemen and women can still read a story to their child, whilst doing such a vital job, is invaluable and we are delighted to play a part in that.”
You can find out more about Little Troopers Treasures by visiting
www.littletroopers.net/Treasures or the App store.
Ends
For further information please contact Cheryl Randeria on 07810 697957 or [email protected]. Case studies and videos of children watching their stories for the first time are available.
Photo Captions:
- Curtis Aitken, Engineering Technician in the Royal Navy who currently works away from home Monday to Friday recording a story for his son Zach.
- Zach Aitken enjoying his Dad’s story
- Little Troopers Treasures logo
Notes to Editor:
- Little Troopers Treasures will be available on Android in July 2017
- Little Troopers recently launched a Primary School resource pack for schools. Military children can move on average six times during their childhood; this can mean a new school every one – two years. The resource pack is to help schools understand the challenges of being in Military family, the emotions behind deployment and resources to ease transition between schools. It also has lesson plans, stories and fun games to introduce the concept of the Armed Forces.
- Little Troopers, formerly known, as My Daddy is a Soldier Adventures, is a charity that provides support to children and families who have a serving parent away from the family home. These children will quite often celebrate their birthday or Christmas without one or both of their parents and they count down to the day that they will come home. They can be away for one to nine months and often will be in a combat zone. To find out more visit www.littletroopers.net or see our founder’s blog http://littletroopersathome.blogspot.co.uk
- ABF The Soldiers’ Charity is the British Army’s National Charity
- Established in 1944 as the Army Benevolent Fund, it provides a lifetime of support to soldiers, veterans and their immediate families
- Last year, the Charity’s expenditure exceeded £9.2million, with some 18% of all grants going towards cases of need within the serving Army community. It provided assistance to more than 4,500 individuals, and made grants to 92 specialist charities and partner organisations, which delivered support on its collective behalf. Its work touched the lives of an estimated 75,000 people over the course of the year, spanning 59 countries worldwide.
HarperCollins Children’s Books,
Children’s Publisher of the Year 2014, 2015, 2016, aims to inspire and nurture a lifelong love of reading by publishing the best books for children of all ages. One of the leading publishers of children’s books, it is recognised for nurturing new talent as well as boasting a reputable list of established best-selling authors. Respected worldwide for its tradition of publishing quality, award-winning books for young readers, HarperCollins is home to many children’s classics, including The Chronicles of Narnia, Hello Kitty, the Paddington stories, The Cat in the Hat and The Tiger Who Came to Tea, and to some of the biggest names in children’s literature past and present, including J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Dr. Seuss, David Walliams, Derek Landy, Louise Rennison, Lauren Child, Judith Kerr, David Baddiel and Michael Morpurgo.
HarperCollins Publishers:
HarperCollins UK is a division of HarperCollins Publishers, the second largest consumer book publisher in the world, with operations in 18 countries. With two hundred years of history and more than 120 unique imprints around the world, HarperCollins publishes approximately 10,000 new books every year, in 17 languages, and has a print and digital catalogue of more than 200,000 titles. Writing across dozens of genres, HarperCollins authors include winners of the Nobel Prize, the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the Newbery and Caldecott Medals and the Man Booker Prize. HarperCollins UK has offices in London, Glasgow and Honley, and can be found online at www.harpercollins.co.uk. To explore HarperCollins’ 200 year history, including a list of 200 iconic titles, fascinating stories and artefacts from the archive, visit www.hc.com/200.
