TurnKey I.T Solutions Company Blog

If, before reading the title of this blog, you were asked to list five dangerous professions, what would you have said?

Fire-fighter?
Armed forces?
Roofer?
Lumberjack?
Police officer?

I would be highly surprised if you placed ‘social worker’ in this list. When, in fact, social work is one of the most hazardous occupations in the world – as any social worker will tell you.

Over the years, hundreds of social workers have been attacked, beaten, stabbed, and even killed by their clients whilst making home visits and going about their daily business.

In particular, there have been many cases where social workers have been attacked and killed by psychiatric patients. Philip Ellison was one such victim. Mr Ellison was repeatedly stabbed, twice in the heart, and killed when he visited the home of 52-year-old Robert Searle, who suffered from a severe depressive illness.

Other cases include Jenny Morrison, killed from over 100 stab wounds inflicted by a mental health patient who believed he was the ‘son of god’, and Gareth Dafydd, stabbed twice in the chest by voluntary mental health home patient Derek Wagg.

All of the above cases occurred when the social workers were working alone.

Other social workers have even been attacked by abusive parents and children during home visits.

Sadly, however, social work receives little to no sympathy from the press. Cases like these above have experienced little coverage, whilst the press have been quick to capitalise on issues such as the Baby P case – giving social workers somewhat of a bad name when in fact the majority of social workers are undeniably brave, courageous people who put themselves in the face of danger in pursuit of helping other people.

Now, at this point you may be wondering why an IT-related blog is covering the hazards of social work – but hear me out.

Incidents like these have been occurring for years, with nobody sufficiently addressing the issue and putting procedures in place to prevent these incidents occurring again.

Until now.

We have recently developed launched Staff Guardian which is designed to help public and third sector organisations to protect their staff and minimise the risk of attacks and violence being inflicted on them by clients.

Staff Guardian is a web based service, which allows managers and supervisors to monitor the status and location of every employee – when they arrive for home visits, and when they leave safely, without incident.

It truly is a safety net for those vulnerable employees who often work alone in dangerous environments.

If you want to hear more about how our new web service can help your organisation to develop a safer environment for your employees, please get in touch on 0844 811 2380, email contact@staffguardian.com or visitwww.StaffGuardian.com.

Due to the current severe weather conditions, wait times for Sales and Support will be increased today (Wednesday 6th Jan - Friday 8th Jan 10). We would advise if necessary to raise an incident with our support team via email to support@turnkeyit.co.uk, please be aware that there will also be an increase in time taken for support responses.

Thank you for understanding

Dear TurnKey I.T Solutions clients, suppliers & friends,

Thank you for all the support & suggestions throughout the year. We are really looking forward to an exciting 2010, with the launch of our new software & hardware products.

During the Christmas period we will be available for support up until Christmas Eve 1pm and then from the 4th January 2010. As always, support emails sent to us outside these hours will be responded to as quickly as possible.

Merry Christmas & A Happy New Year,

Warmest Regards,

Michael Turner and all of the TurnKey I.T Solutions team

Local entrepreneur, age 17, is shortlisted for prestigious award

Michael Turner, 17 year-old proprietor of Weston Super Mare-based TurnKey I.T Solutions, has been selected from some of Britain’s most talented young business people to be in with a chance of winning Shell Livewire’s Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award 2009.

The award, hosted by one of the UK’s longest-running youth enterprise schemes, offers young entrepreneurs, aged 16-30, the chance to win a cash prize of £10,000 and gain some great publicity.

Previous winners of this prestigious award, including Christian Arno of the hugely successful translation agency ‘Lingo24’ and James Murray-Wells of multi-million pound GlassesDirect.co.uk, have gone on to achieve phenomenal success in business.

Seventeen may seem, to most people, a very young age to be running a company, but Michael is already somewhat of a veteran to the business world. Aged just 11, he set his own web-development venture up, building websites for small businesses in the local area.

Five years on, and after running numerous other successful ventures throughout his school days, Michael left school at 16 and enrolled on a computing course at a local college.

After just two weeks, he quit the course to set his own IT-support company up, offering an IT helpdesk, web development, IT equipment, consultancy, and business voice over IP technology to SMEs and public sector clients across the country.

‘The things they were teaching us were already three years out-of-date’ Michael said. ‘With the rapidly changing nature of the IT industry, I knew that if I was going to get anywhere I needed to be at the forefront of any developments, not lagging behind. The only way I could see to do this, was to go out there and immerse myself in the industry, and set my own company up’.

In the 8 months that followed, Michael developed his business from nothing, to an enterprise turning over £60,000+ with 3 members of staff.

Thanks to this extraordinarily fast growth, Michael has already been recognised for his business acumen and entrepreneurial style amongst local media and the Shell Livewire community.

He now hopes that he can achieve even more recognition for his achievements, and be given the opportunity to expand his company even further, by winning the Shell Livewire Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award 2009.

‘It’s a great opportunity for me to further the success of my company’ Michael explained. ‘Being young is often looked upon as an obstacle in business and it’s great that organisations like Shell Livewire celebrate and support young entrepreneurs, and spur them on to do even greater things’.

Michael is one of just 8 young entrepreneurs from across the UK to have been shortlisted for The Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award 2009. He and seven others were selected from 29 finalists to attend the final in London at Shell HQ.

The winner will be announced and awarded on Tuesday the 27^th October at the Shell Livewire LIVE event.

TurnKey I.T Solutions:
TurnKey I.T Solutions, is a growing IT company, based in Weston-Super-Mare in Somerset. We provide IT Support, IT Consultancy and IT equipment, along with Web Development to SME’s and the public sector.  (www.turnkeyit.co.uk | 01934 440030)

Shell LiveWIRE:
Since its inception in 1982, Shell LiveWIRE has helped over 600,000 young people in the UK to explore starting their own business.
Shell LiveWIRE combines an online support service and awards programme for young entrepreneurs in the UK. (www.shell-livewire.org) 

Contact:
For more information or photographs, please call Michael Turner on 01934 440030 or email mike@turnkeyit.co.uk or visit www.turnkeyit.co.uk

Shell LiveWIRE: www.shell-livewire.org

www.turnkeyit.co.uk/PressRelease28-09-09.pdf 

TurnKey I.T Solutions provides remote support to Small Businesses and Registered Charities, which saves on both cost and the environment, enabling clients to expand their resources in other areas.

We provide clients with their own IT help desk, at a fraction of the cost.

Require support?  – Please click here to download the Remote Support Application

Interested in a Remote Support, or Outsourced Help Desk solution for your business? - Click here to contact us & find out more!