Case Study: The Guidance Center achieves encrypted, compliant remote access for 200 staff with Fortinet FortiSASE

FortiSASE Secures Remote Employee’s Data and Long Beach’s Most Vulnerable Residents

The Guidance Center is a Long Beach nonprofit founded by teachers and counselors to provide mental health services to disadvantaged children. When COVID-19 forced about 200 staff to work remotely, the three-person IT team faced the challenge of securing sensitive client data in transit, meeting California Department of Health Care Services encryption requirements, and preventing unencrypted use of public Wi‑Fi—all without creating a single point of failure or overburdening a small staff.

The organization deployed FortiClient on endpoints and FortiSASE, a cloud-based firewall-as-a-service, to create encrypted VPN tunnels from devices to the cloud, enforce web and application policies, and enable easy user segmentation. The result was high-performance, transparent security that met compliance, reduced total cost of ownership versus alternatives, and gave IT and leadership confidence that client data is protected even over public networks.

The Guidance Center

Ian Adduru

IT Director