RapidRedact is helping The Children's Society, a leading national charity committed to making childhood better for children in the UK. The Children’s Society was founded in 1881, when Sunday school teacher Edward Rudolf saw two of his pupils begging for food on London’s streets, and established the Church of England Central Home for Waifs and Strays.
The Post Adoption and Care Project started in 1993 to provide counselling, information, advice and intermediary service for people who were either adopted through or were in the care of The Children's Society.
Between 1881 and 1970, the Children’s Society ran a large number of children’s homes, and was one of the country’s leading adoption and fostering agencies until 2006.
In the Post Adoption and Care project, there are about 130,000 case records. The majority of the records have been transferred to microfilm and are being digitised, although the first 30,000 are held by the Records and Archives Centre as they were too fragile even to be microfilmed; the earliest records date back to 1882.
The Challenge
The Children's Society receives up to 100 enquiries each month from people all over the world, and RapidRedact redaction software was implemented to help manage the increasing case load. Most individuals who contact the project want information about their backgrounds and many go on to search in the hope of re-establishing contact with birth family members.
The Need
When individuals request their case files, there are often names of third parties, medical details and other information that needs to be redacted for data protection purposes. Prior to using RapidRedact, Records Managers had to print all relevant documents, and then manually redact sensitive information. They then had to photocopy those documents for release, often multiple times. This process was highly time-consuming, and wasted a great deal of paper.
Environmentally Friendly
In some cases, case files may be several hundred pages long, and could previously take days to redact, rather than several hours or less. One of the key benefits of RapidRedact is that records managers can select and redact the required pages for the case request, rather than printing out entire case files. Most of the case file requests are submitted via email, and with RapidRedact the Children’s Society also have the option of delivering case files electronically. The ability to create an audit copy in RapidRedact is also an important feature. The audit copy enables Records Managers to refer back to translucent redactions, so that they do not need to compare original and redacted documents side by side.
Better Service
The time saved in streamlining and automating the redaction process with RapidRedact has meant that the Children’s Society have been able to release case files far more quickly. Individuals can then embark on their journey of discovery, piecing together family histories and potentially reuniting with birth families.
www.childrenssociety.org.uk
www.redacta.co.uk
www.rapidredact.com
