Christmas Gallery for Forces Children

Today, HomeFront Forces a website established to support the estimated 175,000 children in the UK with a parent in the Armed Forces, announced that during Christmas they would be hosting a Gallery where Forces Children could post pictures to a loved one.

Patron, Madison Fetigan aged 7 said,

"I think it will be great to draw a Christmas picture to parents in Afghanistan and make it a special Christmas for them too and make you and your parent happy at Christmas. Love HomeFront Forces Patron (MF)"

Anna Matthews one of the founders said ' We were overwhelmed when Plug and Play, a Southampton based Creative Web Design company came forward and volunteered to create the Gallery and upload it for free over the Christmas period. This will be a great way of demonstrating and raising awareness of the need for our website and service. It is sad that the site at the moment is not fully commissioned due to lack of funding, and an offer likes this that gives a hint of the usability of the site long term is very exciting.

Director of Plug & Play; Rhys Little says:

We recognised Homefrontforces.org as being a worthwhile and crucial organisation. We all know someone who has been touched by conflict in some way and having met the founders, we saw an opportunity to really delivery a unique platform that isn’t available today.

Social media applications, although useful in the public domain, fail to deliver the security, usability and accessibility required for service men and women and their families, due to the sensitive and confidential nature of serving in the armed forces

Currently, forces families have to depend on infrequent, erratic and brief telephone calls, as the main way they can communicate. This means children often miss out on speaking to absent parents and can't share with them the day to day ups and downs of family and school life. Homefrontforces.org will provide a child friendly, secure web portal, where families can create their own private web pages and can post pictures, video messages and all the little domestic details that help keep families in touch. The 'Your Family Page' will act like a virtual 'fridge door' of day to day messages that can literally be posted while tea is cooking.

Lorraine Bilton, Founder of Homefrontforces.org said

"As the wife of a Naval Petty Officer and mother of two I have spent many long and lonely months separated from my husband. Separation is a fact of life for service families and goes with the terrain but we can now improve how families keep in touch. Our website will enable service families to keep in contact in a more personal manner than the occasional phone call. Too often my husband has called and missed the kids as they were out playing with friends. Our site will allow him to post messages whenever he has a free moment and regardless of the time zone he is operating in. The kids will also be able to post pictures and messages at a time that suits them.
Contacts for the site are as follows

Anna Matthews 02380 238289
anna@homefrontforces.org
twitter @HomeFrontAnna

Lorraine Bilton 07889078570
lorraine@homfrontforces.org
twitter @HomeFrontLor