The second series of the SQUAD podcast shines a spotlight on adults who grew up as military children and have gone on to achieve inspiring careers. Interwoven throughout the series are the voices of military young people, sharing their honest reflections on the highs, challenges and unique experiences of military childhood.
SQUAD is the Little Troopers podcast, sharing the voices and experiences of military children and those who have grown up in Armed Forces families.
In Series 2, host Joel Mawhinney speaks to inspiring adults who grew up as military children and have gone on to build successful careers. Together they explore how military childhood shaped who they are today, the challenges they faced and the resilience they developed along the way.
Featuring Adam Handling MBE, Shelley Conn, Jas Kayser, Thom Smith and Karl Barnes, alongside the voices of military young people, the series celebrates the unique experiences of military childhood and aims to inspire the next generation.
Series 2 has been made possible thanks to funding from BAE Systems.
Anyone can listen to SQUAD, it is freely available whenever you usually get your podcasts. Just search: SQUAD by Little Troopers
Episode One features Adam Handling MBE, British chef and restaurateur, who shares insights into his culinary career alongside reflections on growing up in Germany with a father serving in the British Army.
Episode Two features Shelley Conn, actress known for roles in Bridgerton, Good Omens and the film Love Sarah. Shelley grew up in a military family overseas and shares a wonderfully positive perspective on service childhood and how the resilience and adaptability gained through that life carried into adulthood and acting.
In our third episode Thom Smith shares the lessons and experiences from his childhood in an RAF family and his journey in professional sport that have shaped the person he is today.
In our fourth episode Jas Kayser, talks about the emotional challenge of moving home and school due to her father serving in the military and also shares experiences from her journey as a professional drummer for global music icon Lenny Kravitz, composer and band leader.
Episode Five features former RAF serviceman Karl Barnes, who shares a fascinating insight into his life growing up as a military child, working in the RAF and his journey into a role at BAE Systems.
Little Troopers has launched a brand-new podcast called SQUAD featuring lots of military teenagers talking about growing up in the military community. Across eight episodes we speak to 15 teens who all have a different story to tell.
SQUAD is a podcast for military teenagers. It’s the first podcast of its kind to hand the microphone over to military children aged 13-18 and ask them to share their own views and experiences of military life.
Presented by TV & radio broadcaster and mental health ambassador, Katie Thistleton and rugby player and Little Troopers Ambassador, Thom Smith, each episode features a group of teenagers chatting about deployment, moving school, moving home, making friends and other things that are unique to forces life.
Anyone can listen to SQUAD because it’s freely available whenever you usually get your podcasts. Teenagers can listen to it at home or in school.
We visited Stonehenge School and saw how they use SQUAD in school with military teens, watch how to get the most out of SQUAD the podcast .
SQUAD is a free interactive resource that secondary schools can use to support service children in the classroom. It gives schools a reason to bring their service children together and explore some of the challenges that children might be experiencing that are unique to military life, such as deployment, separation, moving home and moving school. Each episode is only twenty minutes long, so you can listen to it as a group or ask children to listen to it in advance of the session.
Each episode also comes with an activity sheet that has been written by an Education Psychologist to help you facilitate classroom discussion and ensure that students get the most out of each session. All of the accompanying activity sheets are free to download.
SQUAD isn’t just useful for military teens, it also gives an invaluable insight into being a military teenager for both parents and teachers.
In episode eight of series one, we invited Educational Psychologist, Tamzin Messeter, onto the podcast to delve a little deeper into some of the conversations from the series and offer teachers and parents advice on how to support service children during more challenging times.
We have turned this episode into a series of bitesize video clips that you can watch independently or use as an education training resource.
