Harrow Community Link Up case study

 

Link Up logo

Link Up is a registered charity which supports and promotes friendships between people with a learning disability and others in the Harrow community. They aim for individual friendships and support them with group activities.

So what was the problem?

Link Up needed help with two IT issues:

  • Firstly, they had managed to network their small office of seven staff themselves and needed an expert eye to check their system and provide professional solutions for long term security
  • Secondly, the small contacts management database had grown tired and needed re-energising with extra features added

What help did they get?

Mike Coker of Link Up contacted iT4Communities looking for independent professional help. One of our project definers wrote up the details and soon after they were published on the website Mike was contacted by two volunteers keen to help.

Protection against business risks

Volunteer, Chris Pyne, took up the challenge of assessing Link Up's network needs. Chris used his 8 years of professional experience to prioritise virus control and backup solutions.

Mike says: Chris helped us devise the right software solution for our needs and within our budget. Getting to know our needs was essential for Chris and now he can work with us remotely in the future.

Link Up now has a secure anti virus system and a network that allows the staff to work with peace of mind. The business benefit is obvious to Mike: Our backups are working much better and we now have protection against vital business risks.

Better quality information

Robin Rai from Coventry volunteered to use his 20 years of database experience to enhance Link Up's tired contacts database. Robin worked from home communicating through email and telephone and created a new front end to the database making it more user-friendly and functional.

Mike was really pleased with Robin's work saying: Robin was very able to understand and sort out issues as they came up and was quick to respond.

Thanks to the professional expertise Link Up now has a greatly improved contacts database that in Mike's words provides: Better management of volunteers' and service users' records and gives us easier working practices and better quality information.

Focus on the front line

Thanks to the help of iT4Communities and volunteers Chris and Robin Link Up is now able to help more of the people who need their service.

With a clean and secure network and a greatly improved contacts database, Link Up can now focus on the people with learning disabilities in the Harrow community.