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Duty of care for 1 million UK charity employees & 14 million volunteers

Lone Worker Safety for Charity & Community Outreach

Protecting street outreach workers, home visitors, and community volunteers. Protect your teams for £39.50 per user, per year — smartphone-only, zero hardware, deploy in under an hour.

No hardware requiredLive in under one hourFounded 2019 • UK-based

The real risks Charity, Outreach & Voluntary Support lone workers face

Charity, Outreach & Voluntary Support staff regularly work alone — in the community, on client sites, or out of hours. These are the hazards your lone working policy must address.

Violence in Crisis

Aggression from members of the public or individuals in crisis during street outreach.

Outreach workers regularly cite violence and aggression from the public as a key safety concern.

Unverified Home Visits

Entering private homes alone to deliver befriending or support services.

Landmark case: Ashleigh Ewing (2006), a support worker killed during a lone home visit, led to her employer being fined under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 for failing to properly risk-assess the visit.

Night-Time Working

Isolation and poor visibility during early-morning or late-night outreach shifts.

Outreach work often falls outside standard daytime hours, when staff are more isolated.

Your legal duty

Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, Charity Commission Safeguarding & ERA 2025

Trustees are responsible for the safety of staff and volunteers under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, which covers the general risks of street outreach and lone home visits. Separately, from October 2026, the Employment Rights Act 2025 raises the bar on preventing sexual harassment, including by third parties such as service users, from "reasonable steps" to "all reasonable steps."

Explore the full UK compliance framework

Charity Commission

Commissioners and funders increasingly require documented lone-working systems as a condition of grant award.

How The Sentry maps to Charity, Outreach & Voluntary Support risks

Each Charity, Outreach & Voluntary Support hazard below is met by a specific Sentry feature — not generic safety software, but protection built for the way your teams work.

Sector risk

Aggressive street encounter

Sentry feature

Silent distress signal

Summon help during an outreach visit without escalating the situation.
Sector risk

Lone home visit safety

Sentry feature

Live location sharing

Coordinators can pinpoint a volunteer's location at an unverified address.
Sector risk

Safeguarding evidence

Sentry feature

Automatic video capture

Contemporaneous evidence for incident reporting and trustee oversight.

Built for the way Charity, Outreach & Voluntary Support teams work

The whole platform deploys on the smartphones your Charity, Outreach & Voluntary Support staff already carry — no devices to buy, charge, or replace.

Silent SOS for outreach

Discrete alerting for high-tension community encounters.

Automatic video capture

Secures evidence for safeguarding audits.

Private incident reporting

Whistleblowing-compliant channel for volunteer disclosures.

The complete platform

Every plan includes the full Sentry feature set

The same two-sided system — staff app plus manager portal — protects your Charity, Outreach & Voluntary Support teams. No hardware, no IT integration, live in under an hour.

Home-screen widget SOS

Exclusive to The Sentry: fire the alarm, share your location, and start recording straight from a home-screen widget — one touch, without opening the app. In a real emergency, the extra steps simply aren’t there.

Loud or silent panic alarm

One alarm, two modes. Loud mode sounds an audible siren; silent mode is completely discreet for confrontational situations. Both instantly share live location with your managers and Nearby Team.

Automatic video capture

Recording starts the moment an alarm triggers. Unalterable footage is saved to the cloud audit trail, emailed as a view/download link, and kept on the handset. (Loud mode records video only; silent mode also captures audio.)

Lone Worker Timer

Session-based timed check-ins: set your own interval and the app prompts you to check in during a session. If a check-in is missed, help is escalated. Added specifically for the wider lone worker sector.

Fake phone call

Defuse a tense situation with a simulated incoming call that uses your phone’s native ringtone and generates a fresh caller number each time — so it appears entirely genuine.

Live location sharing (user-led)

Real-time GPS — but only during a work session you choose to start. The Sentry never tracks passively or automatically, so your personal time stays private. Privacy by design.

Private incident reporting

A confidential, whistleblowing-aligned channel to report harassment — with the option to submit anonymously. Once sent, no trace is left on the device: no email confirmation, nothing stored locally. Satisfies EHRC Step 4.

Friends & Family licences

Every staff member gets three free personal licences, so their family can use the same safety technology — entirely separate from the employer’s account.

Manager portal — included on every account

  • Live dashboard of all active team sessions — worldwide map, unlimited users visible
  • Configurable incident-report routing per user or branch, with read-receipt tracking
  • Complete encrypted audit trail with unlimited history, plus PDF export of incident reports
  • ERA 2025 compliance documentation pack and downloadable, timestamped audit trails
  • Multi-branch / multi-site structuring on one account, and unlimited manager accounts

Why Charity, Outreach & Voluntary Support teams trust The Sentry

A UK-built, self-funded platform with the evidence trail regulators and procurement teams expect.

Safeguarding Aligned

Supports ERA 2025 Duties

Volunteer-Friendly

Unbeatable value. No lock-in.

Per-user-per-month pricing is too high for volunteers; our annual pricing and free F&F licences fit charity budgets.

The SentryBest value
£39.50/user/year + VAT
Safepoint
£120–150+/user/year (with ARC)
StaySafe
£114+/user/year + 36-month lock-in
Vatix
£71+/user/year + add-on fees
See full pricing & what’s included

Common questions from Charity, Outreach & Voluntary Support buyers

“Volunteers won't use it”

The app is easy to use and includes 3 free personal licences for their own families.

“We have no budget for devices”

The Sentry is smartphone-only, zero hardware capital or replacement costs.

Charity, Outreach & Voluntary Support lone worker safety FAQ

Is it UK GDPR secure?

Yes. We use enterprise-grade encryption and UK-based data residency.

Can it protect off-grid work?

The app handles signal drops by storing alerts to resend on reconnection.

Your people protected. Your business covered. Simple.

Get your team protected in under 60 minutes. No IT integration required.

No credit card required • Free 30-minute demo • Protect your team today