Enabling secure remote access and addressing security concerns with infrastructure refresh

Brighter Futures Foster Care is an Ofsted rated ‘Good’ Independent Fostering Agency. They offer supported housing and accommodation services, as well as outreach and support services. A team of carers and social workers are based across the Midlands, London and the South East, with care operations provided 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Due to the restrictive setup of their systems provided by the previous IT provider, Brighter Futures Foster Care were experiencing issues that needed to be addressed immediately. To rectify the issues, we configured and installed a replacement server and migrated them to Office 365.

Following a detailed consultation, e-mails and file data were migrated to Exchange and SharePoint Online (part of the Office 365 suite). This allowed remote social workers to securely access information from mobile devices with ease, removing the need to use paper-based documentation. Migrating to Office 365 also allowed Brighter Futures Foster Care to standardise versions of Office desktop applications.

With the sensitive nature of their work, Office 365 provided a perfect solution as all data is encrypted in transit and at rest, removing the risk of data loss particularly when working remotely. The result of the project was a hybrid solution providing the agility of the Cloud, coupled with the performance of an on-premise server for 3^rd party software.