Case Study: Helping Social Workers Better Monitor People with Disabilities (Part 1of 3)

According to the American Association of People with Disabilities (Washington, DC), the largest national nonprofit cross-disability member organization in the United States, there are some 56 million Americans with disabilities. The increased Federal, state and local government focus on efforts to help citizens with disabilities can be tracked back to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990.

However, the fact is that many who seek to live independently (as opposed to in an institutional setting) with physical or emotional disabilities further burden an already over-taxed social services structure in a given community.

This was the very dilemma in Green Bay, Wisconsin, in early 2006, before CMI became involved, and brought Alarm.com's solution to bear.

North Carolina-based CMI is a non-profit committed to flexible, accessible and family-centered supports and services that honor the dignity, respects the rights and maximizes the potential of each individual.

In Green Bay, like in so many communities across the USA, the challenge was to manage and monitor an ever-growing number of citizens who were moving into a community setting, from an institutional setting, in an effective and efficient manner.

The answer was deploying the GE Security "Simon" unit in each residential setting, which includes the Alarm.com radio unit knit seamlessly inside it. The GE Simon, which can sit on a table or counter, or can be attached to the wall, supports up to 23 wireless sensors such as door/window contact sensors, motion detectors, flood sensors, etc. The unit is plugged into the wall, but also has a battery that lasts up to 24 hours.

The wireless sensors can be affixed with double-sided tape or screwed down easily, and the entire install takes about 30 minutes.

The unit, unlike most security systems, requires no phone line-- all the data is sent via Alarm.com's nationwide radio network.

(this is Part 1 of 3; to be continued tomorrow)