How a Canberra-based childcare provider is using Verkada to improve child safety, accelerate incident investigations, and protect sensitive information with privacy controls built into its security platform.
Results at a Glance
90 minutes → 10 minutes: Reduced incident footage retrieval and preparation time, with one staff member now completing work that previously required up to two.
30 minutes → 5 minutes: Reduced the time needed to secure each centre at the end of the day.
Privacy-conscious rollout: Introducing video security, access control, and alarms in stages, with higher-sensitivity analytics remaining disabled pending further privacy assessment.
When North Belconnen Community Association (NBCA) set out to modernise security across its two childcare centres, replacing ageing cameras was only part of the challenge. The organisation also needed to ensure that the technology protecting children wouldn't compromise their privacy.
Based in Canberra, Australia, NBCA is a not-for-profit organisation providing early childhood education and care through Cooinda Cottage Early Childhood Centre and Flynn Early Childhood Education Centre. Guided by its purpose, For Children, Together, NBCA wanted a more reliable way to investigate incidents, manage centre access, and respond to emergencies while maintaining the trust of families and staff.
With Verkada, NBCA is bringing video security, access control, and alarms together in one platform. Incident footage retrieval has already dropped from up to 90 minutes to approximately 10, while a staged rollout allows the organisation to carefully evaluate more advanced features before enabling them.
The Challenge: Fragmented Security Systems and Growing Safeguarding Responsibilities
NBCA's two centres relied on different CCTV systems with limited retention, unreliable cameras, and cumbersome footage retrieval processes. When footage was needed for an investigation or regulatory review, staff sometimes resorted to recording video directly from a monitor using a work mobile phone. Sharing evidence with regulators could even require someone to physically collect a USB drive.
"It's not enough to have cameras on the wall and assume that means you've managed the risk," says Jocelyn Cronin, Executive Director of NBCA. "If something serious happens, we need systems that help us understand what actually occurred and respond appropriately."
Cameras, access control, and alarms were also managed separately, adding to the administrative burden on Service Directors. Limited remote visibility meant staff sometimes had to visit centres after hours to investigate alarms, while the lack of a centralised lockdown process could require educators to manually secure doors during an emergency, potentially putting themselves at risk.
As safeguarding and regulatory expectations increased, NBCA needed a more reliable, coordinated approach to security that would simplify incident response, protect staff, and uphold children's privacy.
From 90 Minutes to 10: Faster Incident Investigations and Reporting
To evaluate Verkada, Operations Director Skye Rutherford led a hands-on trial focused on how the platform would work in practice.
Rutherford tested footage retrieval, secure evidence sharing, remote door management, and emergency response scenarios. Service Directors also participated in a walkthrough to assess whether the system would be easy to use in their day-to-day work.
Although Rutherford quickly saw the platform's potential, usability was critical. As she puts it, "New is not automatically better."
With Verkada Command, authorised staff can locate relevant video, compile clips into an incident report, add contextual notes, and share evidence through a secure link. What previously took up to 90 minutes and sometimes required two employees can now be completed by one person in approximately 10 minutes.
NBCA recently put these capabilities to use during a reportable incident involving children. Using Verkada's Incident feature, staff quickly located and compiled the relevant footage, added notes, and shared the evidence with the regulator by email link.
"This meant we did not have to wait for the one person who knew how to retrieve and package the footage, or spend time navigating the technology," says Rutherford. "Instead, we could focus on the incident and the response required."
Higher-quality cameras also provide clearer footage, giving staff more reliable visual information when reviewing incidents. With some incidents requiring notification to regulators within 24 hours, the ability to quickly access and securely share evidence is especially valuable.
Simplifying Centre Access and Strengthening Emergency Preparedness
NBCA is also using Verkada Access Control to improve how it manages entry across its centres.
Previously, shared door codes limited visibility into individual access and made it more difficult to update permissions. With individual staff codes, administrators can now manage access on a person-by-person basis and maintain clearer records of entry activity.
As the rollout continues, NBCA plans to introduce unique access codes for families. These will make it easier to change or revoke permissions when circumstances change, such as when a family leaves the service or an individual is no longer authorised to enter.
"We want our centres to remain welcoming and accessible, without making families feel as though they are entering a fortress," says Cronin.
The new system also makes everyday security procedures considerably faster. Securing each centre at the end of the day now takes around five minutes, compared with 30 minutes previously.
Emergency preparedness is another priority. Previously, NBCA had no centralised lockdown process, meaning staff might have needed to manually secure doors while someone was attempting to enter a centre. With Verkada, NBCA can configure emergency scenarios to lock or unlock designated doors, notify authorised personnel, and coordinate responses to lockdowns, evacuations, and drills. These capabilities can reduce reliance on staff physically securing doors during a potentially dangerous situation, allowing them to focus on keeping children safe.
Integrated alarms and remote visibility also offer a way to improve after-hours response. With more information available remotely, authorised staff can better assess alarm events and determine whether someone needs to attend a centre in person.
For NBCA, these improvements are about more than convenience. They help create a safer working environment for educators while giving families confidence that appropriate safeguards are in place.
Protecting Children's Privacy with Greater Control and Accountability
For NBCA, choosing a new security platform involved more than evaluating camera quality or ease of use. It also meant deciding how sensitive footage would be accessed, stored, and shared, and which capabilities were appropriate for an early childhood environment.
"Our guiding principle is to minimise unnecessary exposure while enabling footage to be shared appropriately," says Cronin.
Keeping Sensitive Footage in the Right Hands
One priority was ensuring that footage of children, families, and educators could only be accessed for legitimate purposes.
Verkada's role-based permissions allow organisations to restrict access to authorised personnel, while immutable audit logs record activity such as viewing cameras, changing settings, and exporting footage. This gives administrators visibility into who accessed sensitive information and when.
The platform also offers ways to limit unnecessary exposure. Administrators can selectively blur faces when exporting footage, helping protect the identities of children and bystanders when video needs to be shared. Configurable retention settings and privacy regions allow organisations to determine what footage is captured and how long it is stored.
These controls help childcare providers protect sensitive information while retaining the evidence needed for incident investigations and regulatory reporting.
Privacy protections also extend to how Verkada handles customer data. Each organisation's data is logically isolated rather than pooled into a shared, searchable network, and customer video is not used to train Verkada's AI models without explicit opt-in consent. Together with configurable access controls, these safeguards give organisations greater control over their security data.
Choosing Which AI Capabilities to Enable
NBCA also wanted to understand how more advanced analytics could affect children's privacy before deciding whether to use them.
Verkada's People Analytics features are disabled by default and require administrators to opt in and authorise access. This allows organisations to evaluate whether a capability serves a legitimate purpose and establish appropriate safeguards before activating it.
For NBCA, that flexibility supported a deliberate, staged implementation. The initial rollout focuses on video security, access control, and alarms, with more advanced features remaining inactive while the organisation completes further assessments.
Facial recognition, for example, is not part of the initial rollout and will never be used for children. NBCA may consider tightly restricted use involving adults who present a genuine safety risk, but only after a Privacy Impact Assessment, governance review, and further consultation.
Rather than enabling every available feature, NBCA is determining which capabilities are necessary, what risks they introduce, and how they should be governed.
Building Trust Through Family and Staff Consultation
Technology controls were only one part of NBCA's approach. The organisation also invited families and staff to share their views before implementation.
Many families supported improvements to safety but raised questions about surveillance, AI, cloud processing, biometrics, and who would have access to children's information. Staff expressed additional concerns about privacy, potential performance monitoring, and system reliability.
NBCA reviewed the feedback and used it to inform the rollout, keeping higher-sensitivity capabilities inactive pending further assessment and consultation.
The evaluation also prompted broader organisational improvements, including policies governing information access, privacy incidents, cybersecurity, and procurement. These changes extend beyond Verkada and are helping NBCA establish more consistent expectations for how technology and sensitive information are managed.
"Rolling it out in stages gives us time to explain what's changing, listen to questions and concerns, and let that feedback shape how we move forward," says Rutherford.
For NBCA, responsible innovation means recognising that new technology must be supported by clear policies, human oversight, and community trust.
"Innovation and caution aren't opposites; the best results come from combining both," says Cronin.
Less Time Managing Security, More Time Supporting Children
Although implementation is still underway, NBCA is already seeing practical benefits. The intuitive platform makes it easier to train authorised staff, reduces reliance on specialised technical knowledge, and gives leaders greater visibility across both centres.
"Verkada represents a greater investment than our previous system, so it was important to look carefully at the return," says Cronin.
Beyond time saved on routine administration and incident reviews, NBCA sees value in stronger emergency preparedness, more reliable information, and clearer accountability. The evaluation has also helped the organisation improve its approach to privacy, cybersecurity, and risk management.
For Service Directors and educators, these improvements mean spending less time managing security systems and more time supporting children and families.
Looking Ahead: Putting Safety and Privacy First
As NBCA prepares to transition to Tillerra Early Learning Services, the organisation plans to continue introducing new capabilities thoughtfully, with the same emphasis on child safety, privacy, and community trust.
For other childcare providers considering a similar investment, Cronin recommends starting with the outcomes they want to achieve, testing technology against real scenarios, and establishing appropriate governance from the outset.
Ultimately, she believes the value of the investment should be measured by more than operational efficiency:
"Financial returns matter, but so does where the saved time goes: back to children, families and the staff who support them."