Welcome to the first in a new occasional series where we profile some of our very special SuperTroopers.
Name: Rosie Tile
SuperTroop role: Helper/Group Leader
What makes SuperTroop different is our focus on young people, both in terms of our holiday makers but also the team of young volunteers from Fettes College in Edinburgh who support them throughout the holiday week on a 1:1 basis.
For the majority of these young people, this is the first time they have ever taken up this type of caring responsibility. It’s fair to say that their experience at SuperTroop will shape their attitude to disability and the role of carers, for the rest of their lives.
Rosie Tile, now aged 19, volunteered on the very first SuperTroop holiday in 2018 and believes that without that experience she wouldn’t be where she is today. When we spoke to her she had just finished her first nursing placement at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary. She is a first year student in Adult and Children’s Nursing at Robert Gordon University.
Can you remember when you first heard about SuperTroop?
I was 17 and in my second last year at school at Fettes. I remember Sue (Sue Fletcher-Watson SuperTroop Founder) giving us a presentation about SuperTroop. She talked about her experience at the Oundle Mencap holiday and how she felt inspired to start a similar holiday scheme in Scotland.
What made you want to apply?
I didn’t have any experience of disability except for having spent some time with a family friend’s child who has autism but I’ve always liked to help others and I really love children, so I thought why not?
I was so pleased to get selected but as the holiday approached I got so, so, so, nervous. I kept thinking I shouldn’t have signed up, that maybe I’d made the wrong decision.
What sort of training did you get before the holiday?
We had lots of different training to prepare us. I remember at one of the sessions having to pair up and brush each other’s teeth or we had to try and persuade our partner to move off a piece of paper they were standing on – this was to help us to try and understand how to communicate with children and young people who can sometimes have quite rigid thought patterns.
A few weeks before the holiday we got a profile with lots of information about our ‘Bedtime Buddy’ who is the child/young person we would be sharing a room with during the holiday week. That was really helpful just to get myself prepared.
How was the holiday week for you?
It was incredible. I just loved it the whole time. My Bedtime Buddy was always singing and just so happy and because she was happy, I was happy. It was such a gorgeously sunny week and everything was so fun. I remember walking through Edinburgh with some of the other helpers and holiday makers. We had a speaker with us and were all singing along to High School Musical. Some people I went to school with walked past but I just didn’t care because I knew that we were making the children happy and that was all that mattered. I knew that we had given the children and young people a really great holiday and that felt so good. There was no doubt in my mind that I wanted to come back the following year in 2019.
The 2019 holiday took place just after you finished school for the final time. What were your plans for the future at that point?
I had always been a bit unsure about what I wanted to do when I left school. At one point I thought maybe a midwife but in the end I decided to apply to university to study subjects I enjoyed at school. I got a place at Newcastle University to study Spanish and History which I deferred until September 2020 so I could go on a gap year.
So how did you get from heading off on a gap year, to now being in Aberdeen and studying Adult and Children’s Nursing?
On my year out, I spent some time working as an au pair for a family just south of Sydney. One evening the mother of the family asked if I’d ever thought about being a children’s nurse. It was a total lightbulb moment. I immediately thought of SuperTroop and all the amazing times I had on the holidays. I suddenly knew that this was what I wanted to do and whenever I spoke to my family about it I just couldn’t stop smiling.
That was in December 2019 and I only had one month to reapply to universities for nursing. I had to do everything again including rewriting my personal statement on my UCAS form but I was able to use my experience at SuperTroop which was so helpful.
I was due to fly home from Australia in June, just in time for the 2020 SuperTroop holiday where I was to be a Group Leader for the first time. However I ended up having to come home in April because of the Covid 19 pandemic. The UK was in lockdown and there would be no SuperTroop holiday which was devastating.
How has life been since starting your nursing degree? Do you believe you’d be doing it without being involved in SuperTroop?
I started at Robert Gordon in Aberdeen in September 2020. Due to Covid, it’s been really tricky. I’ve had very few days on campus and most of the teaching has been online. I’ve been so grateful to have recently completed my first four week placement at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary on a Geriatric ward. It felt great just to be out in the world and helping people.
Most of my nursing peers knew for a long time that they wanted to do nursing and so have worked or volunteered in care homes or similar environments. Because I came to this path quite late on, I haven’t got that experience behind me but I do have SuperTroop. I wasn’t daunted by the prospect of personal care for patients as I had been well trained at SuperTroop. I don’t believe I would have got accepted onto the course without having had that experience. I believe 100 per cent that SuperTroop got me here.
Are you planning on continuing your involvement with SuperTroop?
I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the 2021 holiday will be able to take place and I’ll finally get to be a Group Leader. When I first met Sue (Fletcher-Watson) I always remember her saying her experience on the Oundle Mencap holiday had changed her life and that she’d been involved there for twenty years. That’s how I feel about SuperTroop. I want to still be with SuperTroop in twenty years’ time. That’s my plan anyway.