Silent Beacon, a Maryland-based company that creates wearable silent panic buttons, has partnered with My Sister’s Place, a day shelter for women in Baltimore experiencing poverty and homelessness.
With just a click of a button, Silent Beacon panic buttons alert emergency authorities and send multi-channel alerts with GPS coordinates to multiple contacts simultaneously.
Silent Beacon’s technology also includes multiple layers of safety tools designed for workers in high-risk or unpredictable situations. This includes a safety app linked directly to the panic button, a cloud-based dashboard with device tracking, and a mass alert portal allowing organizations to send emergency notifications to individuals or groups via text, email, or pre-recorded calls.
My Sister’s Place employees and volunteers often work with vulnerable individuals or those who have come from domestic violence situations. Due to the nature of the work, My Sister’s Place approached Silent Beacon for a partnership in April 2024.
“Our staff works with survivors of domestic violence every day; in shelters, in the community, and often in challenging or high-risk situations,” said Krista McDaniel, interim Executive Director of My Sister’s Place. “It’s critical that our team can reach help the moment a problem arises, because every second matters in an emergency,”
McDaniel said safety remains their number one priority and they want to mirror that value across all aspects of work. McDaniel hopes that this partnership will send a clear message to other organizations that prioritizing staff safety is essential.
“Safety is at the core of everything we do,” she said. “My Sister’s Place empowers survivors to take back control of their lives, and this partnership with Silent Beacon reflects that same value for our staff.”
At Silent Beacon, Josh Dunham, the vice president of sales, said the partnership reflects their mission and values as well.
“I think that knowing at the end of the day that the work that we’re doing and the time that we put in, is ultimately or potentially saving people’s lives on a small scale or a large scale,” said Dunham.
Dunham said partnerships like these are a pillar in continuing Silent Beacon’s success. Panic buttons, he said, are a versatile resource that can be used in many industries.
“It’s a wide range of organizations that we can work with, but specifically working with companies like My Sister’s Place gets to the root of why we do what we do, which is to protect people that could be or find themselves in vulnerable positions,” he said.
The feedback from staff, McDaniel said, has been positive so far.
“They’ve said they feel more confident conducting home visits, outreach, and community work with survivors of domestic violence,” she said. “Knowing they have a discreet, reliable way to reach help allows them to focus fully on supporting survivors, rather than worrying about their own safety.”
In the future, Dunham is excited to expand and grow Silent Beacon with other community partnerships. A successful partnership, Dunham said, is not just about sales. Instead, Silent Beacon focuses on the stories that are told through survivors that used Silent Beacon.
“When you’re able to see those success stories firsthand when you’re helping somebody in your own backyard, there’s a piece of that that’s really, really special,” Dunham said. “They’re able to tell the story about how Silent Beacon played a part in saving their lives or saving their organization or somebody within the organization’s life, I think those stories are so powerful.”
