The Wildlife Trusts
The Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire is a charitable organisation that manages more than 3,300 hectares of land, across 125 individual locations. Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire are one of 47 Trusts that make up the UK’s largest people-powered environmental organisation working for nature’s recovery on land and at sea.
Each year, the Trust engages with thousands of children through their education and community teams, providing opportunities to enjoy and connect with wildlife every year. Amongst their work, they organise training workshops and advise landowners on how to manage land for wildlife. These tasks often take them to far and wide locations, interacting with a range of people, often alone. Most of the time, they conduct their work without incident, however, on some occasions, staff have been known to have been threatened and faced intimidation.
Back as far as 2009, Su Jenkins, Human Resources Manager for The Wildlife Trusts for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire had identified that employees out in remote locations faced an increased risk to their safety and well-being. Lone workers are exposed to a wide range of dangers including verbal and physical confrontation, sudden illness or accidents. As a responsible employer, Su was entrusted to look for a personal safety device that enabled staff to call for help quickly, easily and discreetly in any emergency.
At this time, Peoplesafe had already been working with police forces across the UK protecting domestic violence victims, kidnap targets and those in witness protection programmes. Peoplesafe’s reputation was steadily growing as a personal safety service that could be entrusted with the safeguarding of society’s most vulnerable adults.
With this proven endorsement, other organisations and industries began looking at Peoplesafe to help fulfill a moral and legal Duty of Care to protect their staff. By issuing small, palm-sized personal safety alarms, help is never far away. With the press of one button, the user’s details are transmitted to Peoplesafe’s Alarm Receiving Centre – a 24-hour manned, UK-based control room where trained Alarm Controllers exclusively handle Peoplesafe user’s alarms. With two-way audio communications and GPS tracking, they can summon the right response, fast!
Upon successfully trialing the devices to ensure they worked in remote locations, The Trust signed up to Peoplesafe… and has been a customer ever since. Su explains why:
“We employ staff who travel a lot and work on nature reserves in a range of rural and urban settings. They interact with the public who use those reserves and whilst the vast majority of these meetings are very positive, some can be difficult.”
The Trust was also impressed that the service allows for ‘multiple pooling’ of staff members per device. Users can be re-assigned to each personal safety device via the online portal. Changes are made in real-time using a simple drag and drop interface.
Su added, “the service we get from Peoplesafe is excellent. Not only did the price suit our organisation, the devices met our needs; they’re compact yet robust.”
All 47 Wildlife Trusts regularly meet to discuss ideas and since Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire Wildlife Trust have been using Peoplesafe, Su has recommended rolling out the devices across the whole of the UK.
“Since using Peoplesafe, I have recommended them to other Wildlife Trusts and conservation organisations because of the service and the suitability of the unit.” Su summarises, “we’re staying with Peoplesafe, because they are so easy to work with.”
