Oxford Charity Speaks About Royal Support

By Catherine Tarr, 6th February 2012, 06:00

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A month after the Duchess of Cambridge chose a small charity in Oxford that helps troubled children, Heart's found out 5 times as many people are visiting their website every day.

The Art Room in Oxford say they got almost 7 thousand hits the week Catherine was announced as their Royal patron. Since then they have been getting around a 100 hits a day, up from 20 before the announcement.

The Art Room uses art therapy to help children who are out of mainstream education or withdrawn and have been identified as needing special time away from school.

The charity is one of four Catherine will support. The others are Action on Addiction, the National Portrait Gallery and East Anglia's Children's Hospices, St James's Palace said.

The organisations have been personally chosen by the Duchess and reflect her interests and issues she wants to highlight.

Juli Beattie started the charity and says they've been inundated with offers of support since the announcement in January.

"We've had a lot of interest from other schools, from academies, from young offenders' institutes, people wanting to volunteer. We've had offers of paper and help from local businesses.

"The most important for us I have to say, in order to be able to offer this to children, is that we need this. We need people to support us but ultimately the publicity has brought awareness to what we do and what a difference we make and ultimately we want to reach many more children."

Social media seems to be the most immediate way to see an increase in interest with 400 followers on their new Twitter account and 'likes' on their Facebook page going up from 4 to more than 200.

The Duchess of Cambridge is expected to see therapy in action at The Art Room in the next few weeks.