The Crime Reduction Initiatives (CRI), a national charity working to create safer and healthier communities, is using Lookout Call’s mobile-based lone worker safety system to help protect its Street Outreach Team.

The team was originally commissioned by Cambridge City Council in 2003 to specifically tackle rough sleeping, street-based drug and alcohol use, begging and sex working. When the project began there were more than 30 rough sleepers in central Cambridge. This figure is now below ten.

Why Lookout Call? The CRI originally deployed a manual “buddy type” system to protect its lone workers by using hostel staff from other services with a call system. However, it was considered unreliable as colleagues were often unable to answer the phone. Using an automated solution, such as Lookout Call, means that nothing is left to chance; an alarm is automatically raised if the system is not updated by the lone worker – significantly enhancing lone worker protection.

The nature of street outreach work means that team members are constantly moving to different locations. They use Lookout Call to keep colleagues in the office informed of their whereabouts, which is done very easily by pressing a single button on a mobile phone.

“Lookout Call is very unobtrusive, which is really important for us, as our success depends on us building relationships and trust with our clients,” says Rachel Everitt, Team Leader for the CRI.

The CRI Cambridge team has recently won an award for their excellent partnership working with the City Council and the Police, this was presented at the Communities and Local Government National Conference that took place in June this year.