Naperville, Illinois – August 28, 2007- Worknet Inc., a provider of IT consulting and managed services, announced today that The Youth Campus, a private, not-for-profit agency serving children and families throughout the Chicagoland area, has gone live with a suite of outsourced IT services hosted from Worknet’s Data Center. Worknet provides The Youth Campus a reliable, stable computing environment to host its critical applications, improving its operating efficiency and laying the necessary foundation to realize their other technology visions that provide a direct benefit to the children and foster families.

 

With archaic systems, dated software versions, and servers located both in Park Ridge and Chicago, it was becoming increasingly difficult to maintain a reliable, stable computing environment. The current environment lacked an efficient way for employees to access the systems externally, which in turn made it difficult and cumbersome for caseworkers to input their data and case notes into the system. In addition to a deteriorating infrastructure in need of upgrade, The Youth Campus also wanted to take the opportunity to realize their vision of providing Internet connectivity to their foster families, the first program of its kind in Illinois.

 

At a crossroads with their infrastructure and primarily supported by state funding designated for the children, they were awarded desperately needed capital funding for technology. The Youth Campus had a decision to make. “We could spend the funding to get maybe another year down the road with our current environment, or we could take the opportunity to make a significant impact, which to us means utilizing Citrix^® and providing the ability for all of our staff to have external access to our computing environment,” said Patricia Wynn, Chief Financial Officer of The Youth Campus. “We decided to take this opportunity to transform our infrastructure, which will allow us not only to operate more efficiently but also accomplish our most important goal of providing Internet connectivity to 50 foster families.”

 

“Outsourcing our infrastructure was a radical idea to us, especially coming from an organization that embraces tradition and our 130 year history. However, Worknet helped us realize our technology initiatives and envision the possibilities while being there every step of the way from the initial planning phases through the conversion and implementation. Most exciting is the fact that we can provide a way for foster families to have not only the Internet for valuable research but also the ability to utilize Citrix^® for access to many Microsoft^® programs. Our initial test pilot will include 50 foster families, and eventually, through additional corporate underwriting, we will expand to all 185 of our foster families. None of this would have been possible with our previous in-house infrastructure,” said Patricia Wynn.  

 

“By taking advantage of Worknet’s reliable and secure infrastructure, technical expertise, and our ability to understand and deliver customized solutions to fit the needs of such a unique organization, The Youth Campus no longer has to worry about its computing environment, and they can remain fully devoted to their mission of caring for the needs of children and their families,” said Tim Kuhfuss, Vice President of Operations, Worknet Inc. 

 

 

The mission of The Youth Campus is to serve children and families in need by developing, implementing, and advocating for effective programs and supportive services. Profound caring, passion to serve, and commitment to innovate are generously provided and supported by the board of directors, donors, staff and volunteers. As an Illinois 501(c) 3 organization, it is growing private revenues to balance primary funding by the Department of Children and Family Services. For more information about The Youth Campus, visit www.theyouthcampus.org, or call 847-823-5161.

 

 

Worknet’s mission is solving real operating issues and mitigating business risks for midsized companies by designing, building, and managing information technology solutions so its clients can remain focused on their core business. Worknet provides IT consulting and managed services from the desk top to the data center. Worknet’s proprietary Data Centerconnects customers’ networks worldwide and is supported by a 24x7 help desk. For more information, please visit www.worknetinc.com, or call 888-536-0406.