Contents
01 What we do
The Army Families Federation (AFF) is a strong independent voice for Service personnel and their families, and a trusted source of advice and guidance. See AFF’s Objectives.
We work to improve the quality of life for the Army family, wherever you are in the world.
AFF is independent of the Army and offers confidential advice. We will deal with your enquiry without revealing your identity.
AFF is often pivotal in achieving improvements for Army families such as changes to Government and military policy and changes to how things are provided for families. AFF does not do this by itself; our role is to highlight problems to the chain of command or service providers, and to work with them and other agencies to improve the support they provide to Service families.
AFF also provides a signposting service to help you find the right person to speak to, as well as providing useful information for Army families through its website and magazine, Army&You.
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02 How do we get things changed?
AFF works at a local level directly with families and local command. We’ll speak to Unit Welfare Officers and our specialists can help liaise with service providers with whom we have excellent contacts.
We also work with senior Army commanders and the Ministry of Defence to get policies changed. We provide evidence to Parliament and to government consultations, and to bodies like the Armed Forces Pay Review Body.
AFF collects evidence about issues that you raise with us. We use this data to inform the chain of command what families are concerned about.
Back to top03 What issues could you tell us about?
We will help with any issue you have as an Army family. Maybe you have come to a dead-end through your own efforts and are not satisfied with the answers you have been given or perhaps you want to highlight an issue so that AFF can work on it.
Some of the main areas we deal with are:-
Deployments
Back to top04 Why should you contact AFF?
If you want to get help with an issue affecting you or get something changed for the better – anything to do with your life as an Army family – tell us about it. We will liaise with command and Defence organisations, help explain your situation to external service providers and use your evidence to improve life for Army families.
Back to top05 How you can contact AFF?
AFF collects information by speaking to families either face-to-face, on the telephone, via emails, feedback on our website, and through social media.
To get in touch, visit the contact us page of this website.
Back to top06 History and structure
We were founded in the UK in 1982 as the Federation of Army Wives Clubs, which later became the Federation of Army Wives (FAW), and evolved Branches in Northern Ireland, Germany and Cyprus.
In May 1996, we were renamed the Army Families Federation, and became a worldwide organisation run from a Central Office in Andover, Hampshire.
AFF is a charitable incorporated organisation and operates under a constitution approved by the Charities Commission. We are funded by a combination of public and non-public funding as well as outside sponsorship raised for one-off events and projects. AFF represents all members of a serving person’s family.
Structure
AFF is structured into a number of teams who support different aspects of our activities: Communications & Marketing, Policy & Research, Business Support and the UK and Overseas teams, who provide support to families worldwide.