QLine IT has worked within the children’s home sector, providing IT support for over 10 years. We are constantly updating and improving our IT solutions.
Due to the rapid advance of IT used by Young Persons, such as gaming consoles, smart TVs, etc, we receive constant requests to help care staff with their duty of care for the children they look after.
Below is a case study in which we resolved several Wi-Fi issues by simply implementing specific software and hardware.
Children’s Home Requirement
A children’s home has three Young People of varying ages. The house is quite large, and the Wi-Fi is relatively slow. It is hard to access in some regions of the house, but it is not restricted in any way. The staff had specific criteria they wished to accomplish.
Each Young Person to have their own Wi-Fi.
The staff wanted to be able to turn off a specific Wi-Fi if needed.
Timed Internet access was required for individual Young Persons.
One Young Person was not allowed to access social media.
Wi-Fi should be available throughout the property.
All devices, including TVs and gaming consoles, should be unable to view age-sensitive material.
The above is a sizeable list of requirements, but we supply solutions for other children’s homes weekly.
Our IT Solution
The first solution is to increase the Wi-Fi range to the whole property. This was done using powerful access points that are hardwired directly back to a network switch. In practice, this means mounting an access point to the ceiling, in this case, one on each level. Using fire safety-approved ethernet cable (low smoke), the cables are run back to the house office and into a switch cabinet. The power for the access points is provided via the switch, so no additional power needs to be connected to the access points.
We can set up different Wi-Fi networks (SSID) using a specific router, one for each Young Person and one for the staff. We then set the required restrictions on each SSID, including time limitations, access to specific sites, the ability to block or enable social media, etc.
For any site requirements, which may include staff restrictions, we set a DNS filtering solution, ensuring that any search requests not allowed on the site would be blocked. This might be for pornography, gun or drug-purchasing sites. Specific URLs can also be added to safeguard Young Persons.
In addition to the above requirements, our experience tells us that Young People will try to circumvent our solutions. The most common method is to log into the home Wi-Fi, “forget” the network on their devices, and then rejoin the Wi-Fi network. This procedure allows mobile phones and other devices to issue a different MAC address when connecting. (A MAC address is a unique identifier assigned to a network device.) The router will see the new MAC address and not apply the restrictions. Our unique solution prevents this from happening. In addition, if a Young Person smuggles a mobile phone into the house and gets the Wi-Fi code, as the router does not recognise the MAC address, he cannot access the internet.
QLine IT Costs
The most expensive part of our solution is the labour to install the access points (AP). Ordinarily, it takes around one hour to install and cable an AP.
Finding a route from the switch cabinet to the AP location and hiding the cable also takes time. The access points cost around £130 each, and our brand-specific router costs around £150.
For the above Client, the one-off costs were around £600.00, with a monthly charge of £12.00 for DNS monitoring and filtering.
Summary
After setting up each Young Person with a Wi-Fi (SSID), we assigned their specific restrictions, set up the site DNS to include staff restrictions and showed the manager how to log into the router and make changes when needed. The patchy Wi-Fi signal was now replaced with complete coverage throughout the house. The access points were hardwired with most of the cable hidden, taken through the loft space and a false ceiling.
For a small monthly fee, QLine IT now monitors the DNS traffic, access points, and router, providing remote assistance when needed. We’re delighted the Client has now asked us to roll out this solution in one of their other homes too.
If you have a children’s home, nursery, or school and require filtered internet or have similar requirements as our client above, please get in touch with QLine IT today.
