Army Implementing Virtual Family Readiness

Army Implementing Virtual Family Readiness

GroupBy Margaret McKenzieAugust 8, 2005ALEXANDRIA, Va. (Army News Service, Aug. 8, 2005) -- The Army will start a program on the World Wide Web Oct. 1 to support and improve how information is passed to families when Soldiers are deployed.“The virtual Family Readiness Group is designed to replicate the major components of FRGs but in a virtual context,” said Jay M. Burcham, chief of Deployment and Mobilization Readiness Division for the Family Programs Directorate at the U.S. Army Community and Family Support Center, Alexandria, Va.“This Web System is not just a Web site. Soldiers down range in Iraq, Korea or wherever they are deployed will be able to communicate with families around the world by logging into this system. The virtual Family Readiness Group Web system will use technology to move today’s FRGs into the 21st Century to meet the demands of the Army’s Expeditionary Force.”The initiative began in June 2004 when CFSC in support of the 2nd Infantry Division in Korea created a virtual FRG to reach out to families of Soldiers who would be deployed.Most Soldiers deploy as individual replacements to Korea, which basically is a stable environment and communication with family members is routine, Burcham said. Prior to the vFRG, the families need for support was addressed by the "waiting families" program that Army Community Service operates. Families also received support from their previous unit’s physical FRG.With the War on Terrorism things changed though. Soldiers were being deployed from Korea to Iraq making communication with families difficult. Adding to that, families were reading and seeing stories on the news of bombs going off in areas where their Soldiers were located.“To ease the added stress placed on Soldier’s families, the 2nd Infantry Division provided up-to-date command information as well as the capability to download photos, send newsletters and organize families by location and unit,” Burcham said. “This was a new concept to take the physical FRGs and turn them into a virtual context.”The development and fielding of the vFRG for Korea and Iraq was completed in five weeks by DefenseWeb Technologies, Inc., San Diego, Calif.“The overall purpose of the vFRG supporting Soldiers deploying to Korea and Iraq was to provide a Web portal for official and unofficial information between the brigade, Soldiers, and families” said Tonya Bowers, Army program manager at DefenseWeb Technologies.”The brigade now had the means to communicate with the families of deployed Soldiers, Bowers added. Follow-on development built functions to automate the capabilities of today’s physical FRGs.These capabilities include instant messaging, forums and discussion groups, post cards, and file and document sharing.The final phase of the program broadens what was developed for the 2nd Infantry Division and provides training, outreach and support across all three components of the Army, active, Guard and Reserve.When released for use by units it will feature a unit vFRG locator, a kids and teens area, a phone tree organization chart, in case of emergency family plans, blogs, a training tracker and metrics for the unit commander to determine the state of family readiness, FRG leader forums content, and more.The site will also provide a single location for users to obtain news and updates relating to FRGs and their unit. Users will be able to make updates to the phone tree and e-mail distribution list for rear detachment commanders and FRG leaders to use for mass communication to Soldiers and families.Users of the site must first register at www.armyfrg.org and be authenticated by command level administrators. This feature is very important to unit commanders concerned with maintaining Operational Security of the information that they provide to families Burcham said.“After they have been authenticated, users can go into the system, join their unit’s virtual FRG, and update the information in their registration file especially if they are changing duty stations” Bowers said.“There are many benefits to using the vFRG system”, Burcham added. “Members of the Army Reserve and the National Guard see this as an answer to the communications issues they have to deal with because they are geographically dispersed. Families of mobilized Individual Ready Reservists will be able to join the vFRG of the unit their Soldier is deployed with.”Members of the National Guard emphasize that they see this as a great way to enhance family readiness, Burcham added. He said it gives them the capability to maintain an FRG and communicate with their FRG members on a year round basis, which frequently is only organized during deployments.“This vFRG allows them to stay organized throughout the year with a known place where people can login and communicate without the worry and expense of bringing families into Reserve or Guard headquarters which could be 100 miles away,” Burcham said.“It is not designed to replace the existing physical FRG, but to enhance them,” Burcham said.To support the upcoming start of the system, a waiting list area where units can sign up to establish a virtual FRG has been added to www.armyfrg.org.For more information e-mail armyvirtualfrg@cfsc.army.mil.(Editor’s note: Margaret McKenzie writes for the U.S. Army Community and Family Support Center Public Affairs.)