FAQs

Geco Connect is a purpose-built digital platform for organisations supporting children and young people in residential care and specialist education. It connects daily recording, case notes, outcomes, safeguarding, reporting and leadership oversight around one child-centred record, with AI-assisted tools available to help authorised staff make better use of information already recorded.

Geco is designed for frontline care teams, educators, managers and leaders responsible for children and young people. It can support a single residential home, a provider operating several homes, specialist education settings and organisations combining care and education, with permissions and functionality configured around each role.

No. Residential childcare is central to Geco, but the platform also includes education, safeguarding, outcomes, reporting and organisational oversight capabilities. This makes it relevant to organisations where a young person’s care and education need to be understood together rather than held in separate systems.

Yes. Geco can support specialist education through attendance and engagement recording, education planning, SMART targets, subject progress and wider achievement. Where the provider also delivers residential care, relevant care and education information can be connected around the same young person while access remains role-controlled.

Yes. This is one of Geco’s strongest use cases. A combined provider can connect the child’s care, wellbeing, safeguarding, outcomes and education picture while still controlling what different teams are authorised to see. The aim is a more coherent view of progress without removing professional boundaries.

Yes. A single home can start with the capabilities it actually needs rather than buying an enterprise-scale implementation. The commercial and functional configuration can then be reviewed if the organisation adds homes, staff or additional services.

Yes. For larger providers, Geco can provide house-level and organisation-wide visibility, consistent recording structures, role-based access and reporting across multiple services. The implementation should be designed around governance, service structure and reporting responsibilities rather than treating every home as an isolated installation.

Yes. Geco Connect can scale from a smaller initial configuration into wider safeguarding, multi-service, education, compliance and leadership capabilities. Organisations can expand their use of the platform as they grow without automatically having to replace it.

Traditional systems often concentrate on digitising forms and storing records. Geco is designed around the relationship between daily recording, outcomes, child voice, safeguarding, reporting and leadership visibility. Its value is therefore not simply that information is digital, but that information can be connected and reused more intelligently.

Yes. Geco has been developed specifically around the realities of supporting children and young people in care and education. Its workflows, outcomes focus, safeguarding capabilities and child-centred structure are intended for this sector rather than adapted from a generic adult-care or CRM product.

Geco has been shaped with input from care and education professionals and is being developed through a UKRI-funded Knowledge Transfer Partnership with the University of Strathclyde. The wider work also draws on academic and sector expertise, including Dr Laura Steckley, so product development can be challenged by practice as well as technology.

Geco helps organisations connect everyday evidence with the outcomes they are trying to achieve for each child. By making progress, concerns, interventions and patterns easier to review, teams can have better-informed conversations and leaders can see whether support is translating into meaningful change. The platform supports professional decision-making rather than claiming to create outcomes by itself.

Geco Connect is priced around the size, structure and requirements of each organisation. Factors can include the number of homes or services, staff numbers, required capabilities and organisational complexity. We provide a tailored written proposal so you can see clearly what is included and how the licence can grow with your organisation.

Geco Connect pricing reflects the shape and requirements of your organisation. Relevant factors can include the number of homes or services, staff numbers, required capabilities, the complexity of your care and education provision and the level of organisation-wide reporting needed. Your agreed price and inclusions will be clearly set out in a written proposal.

The number of homes or services can be one factor because it affects configuration, oversight and implementation. It should not be assumed to be the only pricing driver, particularly where two organisations with the same number of homes have very different staffing, reporting or functional requirements.

Staff numbers are considered alongside the number of homes or services, required capabilities and organisational complexity. We will explain the pricing structure clearly within your tailored proposal, including what is included as your organisation grows.

Yes. A provider can begin with one home and an appropriate set of capabilities. Starting smaller should not mean choosing a temporary platform, because the same Geco environment can be expanded as the organisation develops.

If you open another home, Geco can be extended so the new service follows the appropriate workflows and leadership structure. We would review configuration, user access, reporting and commercial terms with you before rollout so the second home becomes part of the same organisational picture.

Yes. Additional homes, education services or wider organisational capabilities can be introduced as requirements change. The practical route depends on what is being added, so Geco would agree the configuration, training and any commercial change before expansion.

No. Geco Connect is configured around the capabilities your organisation needs. Your proposal will clearly explain what is included from the outset and how additional services or functionality can be introduced as your requirements develop.

The Foundation plan provides the core child-centred capabilities required by a smaller provider or single service. This can include child profiles, case notes, outcomes, chronology, everyday recording and reporting. We will confirm the precise configuration and inclusions within your proposal.

The Professional plan builds on Geco Connect’s core child-centred capabilities with more extensive safeguarding and incident-management functionality. This can include child protection, incidents, injuries, body maps, restrictive-practice recording, linked chronologies, trend visibility and controlled access to sensitive information. Your proposal will confirm the capabilities included.

Multi-Service is aimed at providers operating, or preparing to operate, more than one home or service. Its purpose is to add consistency and leadership visibility across services, including house-level reporting and an organisation-wide view, rather than simply duplicating a single-home setup several times.

Geco Enterprise supports organisations requiring the broadest connected capability across care, education and multiple services. Its configuration can include education, compliance, workforce or resourcing tools, Keeping in Touch and advanced organisation-wide reporting. The final configuration is tailored to the organisation and confirmed within the proposal.

The right route depends on what you need to solve now and what the organisation is likely to need next. A single home focused on core recording may start differently from a provider needing safeguarding, several services or connected care and education. A discovery session maps those requirements before a plan is recommended.

Yes. The configuration can be reviewed as services, staffing and requirements change. The objective is to expand capability within Geco where appropriate, rather than force an organisation to replace its platform because it has grown.

Yes. Different services can use role-appropriate capabilities and permissions while remaining part of the same organisational environment. This is agreed during discovery so each service has what it needs without weakening governance, consistency or organisation-wide reporting.

My Geco can be included as an additional, configurable capability. Its setup, rollout and support are tailored to the organisation and the needs of the children and young people using it. Your proposal will confirm whether My Geco is included within your agreed configuration.

Yes. An organisation can begin with residential-care requirements and add education capability later where appropriate. The expansion should include role permissions, data structure, workflows and training so education is genuinely connected rather than simply switched on as another menu item.

Yes. Your quotation is tailored around your organisation’s structure and requirements. The written proposal explains what is included, how the licence can scale and any assumptions made, giving you a clear basis for review and comparison.

Geco reduces paperwork by capturing structured information once and allowing it to contribute to chronologies, outcomes, handovers and reporting. The goal is to remove avoidable copying and rebuilding of information, not simply move paper forms onto a screen.

Time is released by reducing repeated recording, manual report preparation and the need to search across disconnected sources. The exact saving varies by provider, but the practical objective is straightforward: less staff time reconstructing information and more time available for children.

Yes, where the workflow and permissions allow it. Information recorded in daily practice can be reused in summaries, chronologies and reports so staff do not have to type the same event repeatedly. The source record remains important so teams can trace where reported information came from.

Geco reduces duplication by connecting records around the same child and reusing structured information in later workflows. Rather than asking teams to enter the same fact into several documents, the platform is designed to make the original record useful elsewhere.

Geco can use information already recorded to support report preparation and AI-assisted summaries. Reports still require appropriate professional review, but staff can begin from organised evidence rather than manually rebuilding a reporting period from scratch.

The University of Strathclyde is undertaking an independent evaluation of Geco Connect to measure its impact, including how much staff time the platform saves across recording, reporting and other administrative tasks. Once the evaluation is complete, we will publish the verified findings. This will provide organisations with credible, evidence-based insight into the efficiencies Geco Connect can deliver, rather than relying on estimates or making unsubstantiated claims.

Geco can replace many paper-based recording processes where the organisation agrees the digital workflow and governance. During implementation, the team should identify which paper records can be retired, which must be retained for legal or operational reasons and how historical information will be handled.

In many cases, yes. Geco Connect can consolidate child-centred recording, outcomes, reporting and related workflows currently held across spreadsheets, documents and separate systems. Discovery identifies what can be brought together effectively and whether any specialist systems still need to remain.

Yes. By organising information as it is recorded and supporting structured and AI-assisted reporting, Geco can reduce the manual work managers undertake at the end of a week, month or review period. Managers still validate the narrative and exercise professional judgement.

Yes. Daily information can be brought into a clearer shared view for authorised staff, helping the next shift understand significant events, current priorities and relevant changes without relying solely on handwritten notes or fragmented verbal updates.