Hearing Dogs for Deaf People is using a lone worker protection device for its regionally-based staff and those who work alone periodically. The charity trains dogs to alert deaf people to everyday household sounds and danger signals whether the home or in public.
A large number of the charityโs staff are home-based or often work in the field with deaf recipients, volunteers and fundraising. Aware of their duty of care to these lone workers and the need for lone worker protection, the charityโs head of human resources, Natasha Edward, looked into products that would enable support staff to raise the alarm if necessary.
After researching, Natasha decided to trial the SoloProtect product provided by Connexion2, who make the Identicom Lone Worker Device (LWD), and decided on it as the best option for the charity. SoloProtect includes the Identicom device, SIM card and inclusive airtime for the device, 24 hour manned monitoring, user training and customer support.
Natasha Edward says: โSoloProtect had been well received by those staff that are using the system and it satisfies our needs by providing us with a total solutions package. Whilst being trialled one of our staff had cause to press the red alert button on Identicom (a function that automates a direct call to a 24-7 monitoring centre where audio is recorded and events appropriately escalated) and said afterwards how much safer she felt knowing that support was just a touch away. It also gave us the opportunity to trial the service in a live situation.โ The charity uses the Identicom i750 devices besides an Identicom 1770 with mandown detection for use by any high risk visitors staying overnight at their training centre in Buckinghamshire. In the end the charity will be using about 45 Identicom devices through SoloProtect.
โWe have received extremely positive feed back from our staff, who have all stated that they feel so much safer knowing that they can open up a connection to the monitoring centre if they feel threatened and that they can respond to the situation, escalating it to a police response if necessary,โ added Natasha Edward.
