Sunny Hills Children's Garden
Sunny Hills began its work in 1895 as an orphanage whose original charter stated the purpose for the home was "the care, support, and education of children ... including the teaching of trades and agriculture, maintaining, and conducting a farm." Now each year Sunny Hills Children's Garden offers a second chance at life to more than four hundred troubled children and to their families. These children range in age from infancy to eighteen years old, and Sunny Hills has a variety of programs tailored to their needs. Sunny Hills provides residential care for teens at its campus in San Anselmo and for younger children in six community-based group homes. Sunny Hills also has extensive academic facilities including the Marin Academic Center and the James R. Sylla School, the Braun Day Treatment and the Grant Grover centers, where specially trained teaching staff work with the children to provide them with the academic and life skills they will need to build a secure future.
Like most non-profit organizations, Sunny Hills must balance its resources in order to provide its full spectrum of programs while meeting the challenges of day-to-day administration-maintaining extensive records, providing a means of communication between staff and anyone outside of the agency-in other words functioning like any other organization in today's technology-based world.
For several years Sunny Hills relied on a variety of donated computers. These computers were generally incompatible with each other so there was no common file format and no network, which in turn meant no e-mail, no shared databases, and no ability for staff to communicate effectively other than though speech or written word. Although this state of affairs was undesirable and led to major difficulties, an inclusive budget and commitment for change was not yet realized. As Rosie Rabena, Information Technology Coordinator at Sunny Hills, says, "Our San Rafael office site didn't even have voice mail."
In 2001 Sunny Hills contracted with PlanIT Solutions to support their diverse and out-of-date computer systems. While many outsourcing vendors would have been very reluctant to take on responsibility for maintaining such a mish-mash of old equipment, PlanIT Solutions stepped up to the plate and immediately began to update and standardize software so that the computers would be more reliable and some basic file sharing could occur. As Jim Lewis, President of PlanIT Solutions says, "Sunny Hills Children's Garden does important work and we wanted to show how we could support that work better than anybody else. We liked the challenge of figuring out how they could best meet their operational goals without spending very much money, yet still have a computing infrastructure that was reliable, functional, and easy to work with."
Also in 2001 Sunny Hills began a year-long Strategic Planning process-formulating its "plan for the future." This Plan had to include the information systems infrastructure that would be needed to carry the organization forward, and PlanIT Solutions was asked to make recommendations that would take into account operational needs and budget constraints. As a result of this input, Sunny Hills was able to create a solid IT strategy that would permit them to take advantage of new technologies while keeping spending to a minimum.
To begin with, PlanIT Solutions provided guidelines to Sunny Hills which included minimum standards for donated equipment they should accept in order to move towards organization-wide IT compatibility. This was quite a departure for an organization accustomed to accepting anything and everything, but it made sense and cost nothing and was quickly implemented. Next, PlanIT Solutions was brought in to install a data LAN across the entire San Anselmo campus site in order to provide the platform for DSL internet access. They also installed a data network at the Agency's Marin Academic Center site in San Rafael shortly thereafter.
PlanIT Solutions then looked at the failure patterns and problem logs across the organization. With that valuable input, Sunny Hills chose to begin "small" in purchasing new computers by selecting to start the process at the San Rafael site where the number of new systems needed was relatively few. Utilizing the LAN PlanIT Solutions had installed, the staff was able to begin using e-mail to communicate with each other and with the outside world, and access common databases for key information. As a result of these and other modest changes, the Sunny Hills Children's Garden's San Rafael site became a model for the whole organization to copy.
PlanIT Solutions also implemented VDSL (very high speed digital subscriber link) over the existing voice cable infrastructure at Sunny Hills' San Anselmo campus to connect buildings across the campus to their data network and a WiFi LAN was used for intra-building wireless data connectivity. Now the organization boasts 60 interconnected computers on the San Anselmo campus and another 25 computers across its other locations. The process of networking the systems throughout their facilities is continuing still today, and as this migration unfolds more and more staff across the entire organization can communicate seamlessly with each other, sharing information and utilizing external resources. Most important of these external resources currently is an internet database system which stores a full spectrum of information regarding everything from detailed treatment and progress to school attendance. Because Sunny Hills is now a "wired campus" staff can use this external database system for all their record keeping rather than creating reams of paper reports that in turn would require endless photocopying and duplication of efforts.
Another change that provided immediate benefits yet actually reduced overall costs was when PlanIT Solutions implemented an ESI telephone system at its San Rafael site. Rosie comments, "We'd heard that most new telephone systems take weeks to implement and months for the users to become familiar and comfortable with the new features. But the ESI system PlanIT Solutions recommended is simple enough that it was implemented very quickly and within a week people were happy and productive."
Throughout the course of these initiatives Rosie was impressed by the way PlanIT Solutions never pushed her to buy unnecessary equipment or incur costs for which there was no immediate return. "PlanIT Solutions keeps on working with our old PCs until they're just too unreliable to continue. But they never pressure us to buy the latest and greatest. They just look for the lowest-cost solution that will meet our needs."
Sunny Hills utilizes one of PlanIT Solutions flexible Service Contracts. Once a week, a PlanIT Solutions technician is onsite at one or more of the Sunny Hills locations to maintain hardware and perform software upgrades, and work with new users to explain aspects of the system or provide training. Outside of these regularly scheduled onsite activities, the technicians access the Sunny Hills systems remotely from PlanIT Solutions' headquarters in Petaluma, and respond rapidly to any unforeseen emergencies the agency may have. And as part of its commitment to Sunny Hills, PlanIT Solutions is helping to formulate its future strategy for information and communication systems across the organization.
Commenting on PlanIT Solutions' responsiveness to her needs, Rosie says, "I tend to forget that PlanIT Solutions has other clients. It's as if they just work for us. And we get an incredible range of services-everything from technical assistance to CIO-type strategic advice. All for the cost of a monthly service contract that represents a fraction of our operating budget. So we can put most of the money we raise into looking after the kids, not into looking after the computers."