Milly’s Fund urges parents to get ‘text savvy’
The parents of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler today launched a new campaign to help parents and children keep in touch.
Milly’s Fund was set up by Bob and Sally Dowler to raise awareness of personal safety among young people, and its latest initiative is to try and encourage parents to become ‘textperts’ so that they are better able to communicate with their kids.
Called ‘Teach UR Mum 2 Txt’, the scheme is accompanied by a leaflet that offers safety advice as well as helping parents get to grips with their mobile phones. Texting ‘clinics’ are also due to start across the country to emphasise how efficient and unobtrusive SMS messages are at helping parents and teenagers keep in touch.
Mr. and Mrs. Dowler thought up the initiative after Milly went missing, as a way of allowing their older daughter Gemma to retain her freedom while giving them peace of mind.
Mrs. Dowler explained: “We felt it important that Gemma was still able to go out and about, so we quickly learned to text as an easy and discreet way of keeping in touch without embarrassing Gemma by constantly calling. It gave us both a great sense of security and still does.”
The strategy has been launched to coincide with the start of National Personal Safety Week, run by the Suzy Lamplugh Trust, which was set up by Diana Lamplugh after the disappearance of her daughter in 1986.
Milly Dowler disappeared on her way home from school in Walton-on-Thames in Surrey, in March last year. Her remains were discovered in Hampshire six months later. No one has yet been charged with her murder.
