Traditionally, special needs pupils are taught self travel by teachers who have to accompany them over an average eight-week period as they journey from their homes to school and then back again.
However, a pioneering partnership forged between the City of Edinburgh Council and Skyguard has realised the former becoming the first local authority in the UK to train a special needs pupil to use their own personal safety service.
Craig Nibloe (from the Pilrig Park School in Scotland’s second largest city) spent five weeks using Skyguard’s GEMshield GPS personal safety alarm when taking the bus from his home to school and back again.
He can now travel independently without the need for school transport, in turn affording him the opportunity to go to college and complete vital further education courses.
More commonly, Skyguard’s service is used by local councils and businesses to protect lone workers and ‘at-risk’ individuals. It’s also employed by police services (who issue the devices to the highly vulnerable, such as domestic violence victims).
Now, the success of this latest initiative could lead to other special needs schools in the UK using the service in conjunction with their local authority.
The Skyguard solution means the need for staff to accompany special needs pupils is eliminated and training is completed a lot quicker, with teachers able to train more pupils to boot.
How does the solution work?
With the given pupil carrying the pocket-sized GEMshield device, teachers are able to rely on Skyguard’s online customer portal to pinpoint the pupil’s exact location.
The device can also be used as a mobile phone, allowing pupil and teacher to call each other (for example if the bus happens to be running late).
An SOS button provides vital back-up in an emergency, allowing trained controllers based at Skyguard’s 24/7 Incident Management Centre to immediately locate the pupil, talk to him/her if it’s safe to do so and then follow their personalised escalation procedures (such as contacting the school, family members or the emergency services as appropriate).
The pupil’s relevant information, such as medical history and emergency contacts, can be updated in real-time on a 24/7 basis using the aforementioned online customer portal.
“I always wanted to catch the bus to school by myself, but wasn’t able to,” said young Craig Nibloe. “I’m really pleased I can now do that on my own and go to college.”
The Pilrig Park School’s head teacher Ellen Muir is equally full of praise for the Skyguard solution.
“Self travel training is always time-consuming for our staff,” Muir told SMT Online, “but this technology means we can concentrate on those pupils who need a higher level of support and train more children to gain more confidence and become independent.”
Muir added: “One of the biggest pluses is that students need to be able to self travel so they can attend college, so now we should have more people taking up further education with more career opportunities being opened up as a result.”
Isn’t that fantastic?
Embracing the opportunities afforded by new technology
Councillor Paul Edie, health and social care and housing leader for Edinburgh, said: “This council has really embraced the new technology, which is undoubtedly transforming people’s lives and making a real difference to them. There are hundreds of older people now living safely and independently in their homes thanks to Telecare.”
The City of Edinburgh Council has been pioneering Telecare technology in the housing and health and general social care arenas since 2006, with hundreds of vulnerable and older people benefiting right across the Capital.
The system allows those individuals to remain independent in their own homes, reducing the need for long term care or hospital admission and saving an estimated 3,000 hospital bed days and 3,000 care home days per year into the bargain.
Devices include sensors and trigger alarms around the home which alert care team members if a given person has a fall, leaves a cooker accidentally switched on or goes out of the home unannounced.
Edie continued: “Using the Skyguard technology to help pupils make their own way to and from school is a natural progression, and the amazing progress Craig has made shows how beneficial the system really is.”
Improving the lives of special needs pupils
Back in 2003, Skyguard began a three-year market research and technology design programme, sourcing the right devices and developing the best possible software for its requirements.
Following on from a GB pound 3 million investment in 2006, the service infrastructure was then developed.
Extensive field trials with the police and other organisations followed and, in 2008, a new management team and investors were engaged to take the company to the next level.
A further GB pound 2 million was invested in 2009 to create new devices and software, as well as allowing the construction of a dedicated state-of-the-art Incident Management Centre in Surrey.
Will Murray, the company’s marketing director, stated: “We’re delighted our service is being used by Edinburgh Council in such an innovative way. Not only does this improve the lives of special needs pupils by giving them greater independence, but it also allows councils to save valuable resources and use their budget more effectively in helping special needs children in the areas they need it most.”
He concluded: “We’ve received a huge amount of interest in this initiative from other councils, and are already working with a number of them to deploy similar schemes across the UK.”
For further information on Skyguard access the website (a dedicated link is provided on the right hand panel of this page)
