Friendship Children’s Center Uses ACS for Child Safety
The Friendship Children’s Center is responsible for the safety and well-being of more than 100 children, parents, and teachers, along with many visitors and other care providers who need to access the two sites to drop off and pick up children. While the school’s original location had a legacy IEI system that worked fine, as the school’s enrollment has grown, so have the school’s security needs and the old system could not keep up with demands.
The old system worked on PIN numbers for access and such numbers could be transferred from person to person, with little control. “We could change the PIN of course,” said Executive Director Lisa Danahy, “but that involved sending out a notice to everyone and still did not alleviate the control problem. Care providers, friends, and relatives of the families, who on occasion were asked to pick up a child, could have access at any time. While we never had any problems, other than inconvenience, it is our job to provide safety for our students and to assure parents of a secure environment, so we needed the best technology.”
Right-One recommended and installed Brivo ACS at both buildings and Danahy has been impressed. “I can control parent access and print personal ID cards for staff. I wanted a system that is controllable for both locations, and one that I can manage from a single account. Brivo gives me that management control and flexibility and is very user friendly. In fact, the Brivo inside sales staff gave me an online 10-minute tutorial and when the Right-One staff finished putting in the system, they wanted to train me. The installer had to laugh because I showed him I already knew everything I needed to know to run the system.”
Ease-of-use, single account management, and improved access control and flexibility all combine to create a much safer environment and a satisfied end user. Friendship’s Danahy also uses the system’s notifications feature to send an alert to her cell phone in the event of unauthorized attempted access, a pulled door, a door left open, and more.
The benefits for the end user don’t stop there. “The Brivo system has certainly given us and our parents exceptional peace of mind. The system enables me to track employees and assess operations; for example, I can monitor busy periods, like parent pick-ups, and then staff accordingly. It’s becoming clear that I can use the system in many ways to improve security and our service to our customers.”
“We are excited about the success we are having in the education and now childcare markets,” commented Bob Mosler, Brivo Executive VP for Sales and Marketing. “Friendship is also a good example of how access control data can be used for non-security applications to cut costs, improve productivity, and even raise revenues.”
