The Philadelphia Children’s Alliance serves children and families all throughout Philadelphia, ensuring that justice is upheld and kids are protected from abuse and safe to grow and thrive. Building on their long-term partnership with iRecord solutions, they were excited to be one of the pilot agencies to adopt the new, next-level cloud platform: iRecord Nexus.
Meet the Philadelphia Children’s Alliance
Vickie Melvin is Associate Director of the Philadelphia Children’s Alliance (PCA), which has had a long-standing partnership not only with iRecord, but also the team at Business Electronics (BEI) based out of Wallingford, Connecticut. Their partnership with BEI has guided them through multiple technology upgrades, the latest being to the iRecord Nexus platform.
After making a move away from their server and finding that they lost the ability to review recordings at home on remote days, the PCA knew they needed a solution—fast. Fortunately, their contact at BEI had just the answer.
“We went back to Rich and said we don’t know what to do,” Melvin said. “He pulled us in with Nexus to have a conversation to improve that ability.”
Melvin explained that “hindsight was 20/20” and that talking with BEI along with their IT company should have been the first step. But all’s well that ends well. The PCA had been using iRecord products for 11+ years and regularly updated their iRecord solutions throughout that time, so it was only natural to have the group serve as an early adopter of the Nexus platform.
“We were offered the opportunity to move to the Nexus system, which allowed us to view interviews remotely and move away from DVDs,” Melvin said.
For their work schedule, it’s been a game changer for the Philadelphia Children’s Alliance. Now they never want to go back to the old way of doing things!
Improving the Hybrid Schedule
Technology That Solves the Problem
When they first moved away from their onsite servers, the PCA lost the ability to work remotely. This was devastating for their standard operating procedures and multidisciplinary teams’ responsibilities, because all of their staff and forensic interviewers are on a hybrid schedule. They are in the office three days a week and remote for two days, so flexibility with their technology is key.
“Usually we’re typing up written reports for interviews while at home, and also reviewing recordings in the system,” Melvin explained.
With network limitations, though, they had no way to review their content or make notes. What’s more, they never had the ability to monitor interviews live because of network limitations. But now they’re using Nexus for that—and it’s really improved their workflow and increased their efficiency. And all while minimizing their budget!
Streamlined Sharing with All Parties
Collaboration Made Easy with Nexus
One of the other key benefit of adopting the Nexus platform is that the Philadelphia Children’s Alliance now has the ability to share interviews with law enforcement and prosecutors instantly. They no longer have to share DVDs or thumb drives—it’s all securely shared via email, and everything is accurately tracked in an automatic chain of custody.
“On the law enforcement end, they really do appreciate this change,” Melvin said. “They had moved during the pandemic to an electronic system and we had to take our DVDs to upload. The link sharing makes it much quicker.”
The links go out faster than someone having to sit and download or burn the content to mail. Now it’s all working through secure links, which improves access and makes the process far more efficient.
The Ability to Store Interviews Indefinitely
Secure Storage in the Cloud and Onsite
The Philadelphia Children’s Alliance is somewhat unique in that they save their forensic interviews for perpetuity. Once again, Nexus is helping them get the job done. The archive storage in Nexus allows them to store audio video content indefinitely. What’s more, they don’t need to be concerned with storage costs because unlimited archives storage is included with their subscription.
Now they’re able to operate with full redundancy in the cloud. They still have their on-premise network-protected storage, but the cloud with Nexus makes it easy to keep all of their interviews and database safe and secure.
“What we tried to do with removal media was a burden,” Melvin said. “We moved to network attached storage to provide that on another means of long-term storage.”
Not only have they moved past the cumbersome nature of managing physical thumb drives and DVDs, Nexus also gets rid of the risk of DVDs getting misplaced and the concerns over who has access. That’s because the links have timers and restrictions on how long the user has access the content, which puts useful controls in place for security.
With 2,800 referrals in 2019 and now moving closer to 1,600 referrals in 2024, the PCA has plenty of content to keep organized. There’s a decrease in the amount of forensic interviews, but they are still keeping their existing content indefinitely. It’s a lot to keep on recordings and to store, so Nexus was a solution that could help with that storage and remote accessibility.