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A BRISBANE mom has developed a technology that allows concerned parents to easily follow their children with a smart watch and an application.
The program is popular with parents of people with special needs and children with disabilities, but is also attended by mothers and fathers concerned about the antics of their teens.
TicTocTrack uses GPS and mobile phone technology to track children, with the help of a special smartwatch, which parents can monitor via an app. Parents can call or send an SMS to the smartwatch and are alerted when their child leaves a particular area.
Karen Cantwell started working on technology in 2012, when her son began his studies. A grant of $ 1 million from the Queensland Government in 2018 helped one in two young mothers launch the application, which now has 1,500 subscribers.
Pullenvale's mother, Christina Penrose, has been using the app for 16 months to monitor her two 11- and 12-year-old sons.
Isabella Mudford, 10, is wearing a TicTocTrack children's tracker watch.
She said that technology gives her children more freedom, not less.
"My relationship with my children has improved," she said.
"I much prefer the choice of providing phones to my kids because I know who can contact them and that's not a distraction."
The smartwatch software prevents children from calling numbers unauthorized by their parents.
The Lutton family in the northern suburbs of Brisbane, Kallangur, recently adopted technology, accredited by NDIS, for their daughter Bethany. Her mother, Jannine, said the SOS function gave her peace of mind.
"Bethany has SWAN, an unnamed syndrome, which has elements of epilepsy and autism, so she often suffers from convulsions," she said.
"If she were to have a seizure and call an ambulance, that would give them the opportunity to call me at the guardhouse."
Cantwell said technology could be a game changer for disability care.
"Having the Queensland government as an investor has a lot of weight," she said.
Ms. Cantwell, who hoped to use grant funds to spread the invention to the United States, said she had founded the company with the help of loved ones.
"I raised $ 150,000 from friends, family and colleagues who have all accepted my idea from the beginning," she said.
"The idea came when my eldest son started school and I wanted him to be safe.
"We take data security very seriously and are currently conducting a full audit of all applications across all our applications," said Ms. Cantwell.
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