2023-03-31-accounts - Wokingham Youth Counselling And Information Service

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2023 Annual Report

ARC Annual Report 2022/23

TABLE OF CONTENTS

About Arc .................................................................................................................. 3 Chairs report ............................................................................................................. 4 The Team 2022-23 ..................................................................................................... 5 THE MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE ....................................................................................... 5 Counselling Supervisors: .................................................................................................. 6 The TEAM: ........................................................................................................................... 6 The counsellors: ................................................................................................................ 6 Statstics ...................................................................................................................... 7 Coordinators Report ................................................................................................. 8 A year in review ................................................................................................................ 8 Partnerships ....................................................................................................................... 8 Increased school offer ..................................................................................................... 8 Clinical Coordinators Report ................................................................................. 10 Lamplight & Coffee break .............................................................................................. 10 Counsellors ...................................................................................................................... 10 Supervisors ....................................................................................................................... 10 Training ............................................................................................................................ 10 Youth Access Report .............................................................................................. 11 Youth Access in Schools ................................................................................................ 11 September to January ................................................................................................... 12 January to February ....................................................................................................... 12 March to April ................................................................................................................. 12 Successes: ....................................................................................................................... 13 Making a difference ............................................................................................... 14 Donor Thank you ..................................................................................................... 15 Financial Report ...................................................................................................... 16

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ARC Annual Report 2022/23

ABOUT ARC

ARC offers one-to-one counselling to Adults and Young People across Wokingham and the surrounding areas. We provide confidential counselling, at our main site in Wokingham, Oakwood in Woodley, GP surgeries and Schools across the area.

ARC provides an important role within the community, with referrals coming from other agencies as well as self-referrals.

In addition to counselling, we also offer important support for 16 – 25 year olds, through our Youth Access program, which provides information to young people on where and how to access support, from housing, to work and mental health.

Our counselling services are free to young people under the age of 21 years and low cost for adults. We believe that counselling should be accessible for all and that cost should never be a barrier to better mental health

We are a charity with over 25 years offering support within the Wokingham area.

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ARC Annual Report 2022/23

CHAIRS REPORT

It has been a very successful year for ARC, despite some of the challenges we have had to face, such as the aftermath of the Covid pandemic, people still require on-line counselling sessions. They will continue to be delivered as long as they are needed.

Following the Covid Lockdown, ARC has reintroduced its training sessions in Bournemouth, which this year was vey well received; with positive feedback. ARC needs to be at the forefront of the delivery of training to students with autism and ADHD, and workshops for counsellors are to be instigated.

Due to the increasing challenge facing the population, with regard to ‘3 Dads Walk’ and their presentation to Parliament; ARC has decided to put together Workshops for both Schools and Colleges on the ‘Trauma of Suicide’; these workshops will be available in the coming months.

With the financial assistance of Lottery Funding, ARC has been able to facilitate a Youth Access Project. Shaffirina put together this commendable project and has been working in both schools and colleges; delivering help on the following topics, sexual health, substance abuse and mental health. We are very pleased to report that we have been able to employ an assistant to help in the delivery of this much needed work, particularly with young people that have dropped out of education in the 1625 age group.

We are happy to report that in partnership with Reading University, Emma is assisting us with our Social Media strategy to form a more coherent delivery.

Top of the list for counselling sessions is still anxiety, this can take the form of financial worries, parental concerns regarding their children not wanting to attend school, after effects of Covid; with people isolating and continuing to wear masks, problems obtaining GP consultations, children fearful of attending school ( a big problem).

Mental health and depression are still an ongoing concern. ARC provides a very worthwhile service to the people of Wokingham and beyond.

We are indebted to the following organisations for their vey generous support, NHS, Wokingham Borough & Town Councils, Wokingham without, Woodley, Winnersh and Twyford Town Councils and all other financial donations.

Finally I wish to give thanks to all our hard working and dedicated Counsellors, Administrative staff and all members of the Management Committee.

Nancy Quinnell

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ARC Annual Report 2022/23

THE TEAM 2022-23

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THE MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE
CHAIR SECRETARY TREASURER
Nancy Quinnell Ann Stainton Dick Crowther
Retired Woodley Town ARC Co-founder and Retired board member of
Councillor and teacher independent delegate Diageo and Mars
David Hare Shelagh Flowers Rev. Jackie Case
Earley Town Councillor Woodley Town Council Churches Together
Representative Representative Representative
Rachelle Shepherd Dubey Dr Katharine Hadfield
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ARC Annual Report 2022/23

THE TEAM:

Paul Cassidy (Coordinator), Vanessa Bunting-Palmer (Clinical Coordinator), Caroline Woodford (Admin Manager), Shaffrina Rogers (YIACS Manager), Lilly Capuozzo (Outreach Manager), Charlie Wall (Admin), Mary Rees (Admin), Emma Carter (Intern)

THE COUNSELLORS: Amanda, AnnaB, AnnaO, BeckyR, BeckyW, Cath, CatherineM, Charlotte, Danny, Davi, Debbie, Elizabeth, Emma, Grace, Heidi, Helma, Honesty, Jackie, Jamie, JaneB, JaneS, Jean, JulieD, JulieF, JulieH, Karolina, Katie, Kayleigh, Kemba, Ken, Kirsty, Krissy, Kuldeep, Laura, Leah, Lilly, Linda, Lizzie, Louise, Lucy, Maddy, Martin, Martina, Mary, Maya, Natasha, Neil, Olivia, Ote, Paul, Sarah, Shaffrina, Sophie, Sue, Tegan, Vicky.

COUNSELLING SUPERVISORS:

Vanessa Bunting-Palmer, Maria Facey, Jo Cooke, Heidi Joliffe, Janet Gunn, Lilly Capuozzo, Sue Byrne, Chris Allen.

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ARC Annual Report 2022/23

STATSTICS

The last 12 months ARC have provided over 11,000 sessions across the Wokingham area.

Over 3700 Adult counselling sessions took place at ARC Wokingham

2000 counselling sessions to Children and Young People at ARC in Wokingham.

3900 Sessions in schools

Our counsellors based at local schools have provided over 3900 sessions over the past year and this area continues to grow in both demand a???

Online & telephone counselling has continued to be an important part of ARC’s offering with over 500 sessions provided over the past year.

Within the GP Surgeries we have provided 300 sessions and this will be an area of growth for ARC now that Covid restrictions have lifted.

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ARC Annual Report 2022/23

COORDINATORS REPORT

A YEAR IN REVIEW

We have seen demand for our services continue to grow, in line with all mental health agencies, and have managed to keep waiting

PARTNERSHIPS

We are part of the Wokingham wellbeing hub, working with others to help with some more complex cases, as well as working with other local charities such as JAC and CLASP. We have also agreed to work with Wokingham’s emotional wellbeing steering group

INCREASED SCHOOL OFFER

times as low as possible.

Staffing continues to be a challenge, the demand for qualified youth counsellors, from both schools as well as other services means we struggle to keep up with the demand.

We have run our first in-house introduction to level 5 youth counselling and those participants are now using those skills to great effect.

Covid still affects young people, with increased social anxiety, and more

school non-attenders, A major increase in the severity of presenting problems, with selfharm and suicidal ideation a big concern. We do anticipate the Covid effect

unravelling for at least 5 years; it seemed to affect those in transition from primary to secondary, and secondary to 6[th] form the most.

With some schools now employing their own counsellors we have continued to have some more involvement with existing schools, we provide emotional supervision to support staff in 2 of our schools, helping with staff retention and reducing absence due to stress. Our national lottery funded Youth Access project works extremely well with school 6[th] forms, colleges and the hard to reach 16-25 year olds, Shaffrina Rogers, the project lead is doing great things. Peer mentor training has resumed in some schools. To that effect, we have appointed Lilly Capuozzo as our school and outreach coordinator, to promote our services and ensure the best possible relations with the education sector.

Our adult counselling service, little advertised but well respected, is also

offered to schools, both for teachers and staff, as well as parents who are also trying to cope in these difficult and challenging times. We benefit by the extra income it generates as well as a cohort of potential new youth counsellors for the future.

Increased diagnosis of ADHD and autism, along with the increase in numbers of those waiting for tests has led to a rise in demand for counselling,to help the young person come to terms with the label.

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ARC Annual Report 2022/23

I am grateful for the support of the great team we have at ARC, ensuring we have a quality , safe and professional team available to meet the growing needs of our growing population in the borough. Without their dedication, time and qualities we would find it hard to manage.

In the coming year we plan to increase the size of our team, hoping to resume and increase outreach work in GP surgeries. We are still exploring an increased counselling offer to primary school aged children, the demand is increasing but funding for it still remains an issue.

I am also grateful for the time and support of ARCs management committee ensuring ARC can continue to grow and improve in helping our community

Paul Cassidy

Coordinator

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ARC Annual Report 2022/23

CLINICAL COORDINATORS REPORT

This past year has continued to be a mixture of change, consolidation and growth.

LAMPLIGHT & COFFEE BREAK

We have been busy embedding the new

Lamplight database system, which is working smoothly and is providing a platform that reduces the administrative load on

counsellors with their client work, whilst at the same time ensuring that we have good quality information at hand.

We are also continuing to exploit the advantages of our Microsoft Sharepoint site “ARC Staff Coffee Break” which offers a one-stop shop for information and resources for counsellors.

SUPERVISORS

We welcomed two new supervisors to the team this year, to add to what is a strong and experienced team. I know from counsellor feedback how much their guidance and wisdom is valued.

TRAINING

We successfully ran our Introduction to Children and Young People counselling course, focusing on secondary aged clients. The course was valued by those participating and has boosted the number of young people counsellors at ARC. We will be running this again over the summer, and hope to make it an annual offering to extend the skill set of our counsellors. As mentioned by Paul, we also hope to extend this training to primary age children in the near future.

We are about to launch a course that will provide new counsellors with the skills to work online and will make it available to all our counsellors, whether as an initial training or a refresher.

COUNSELLORS

We have just completed this year’s round of recruitment and appointed a number of promising student counsellors, as well as some already qualified with young people work. These new faces add to an amazing group of counsellors with a great variety and depth of experience. It is this mixture of experience, along with our willingness to learn from each other, that makes ARC such a rewarding place to work at.

Our Bournemouth training weekend last October was a valuable opportunity to gather together, participate in a very informative and useful training about Shame and Narcissism, and remind ourselves of the wider ARC community that we are part of.

Vanessa

Bunting-Palmer Clinical Coordinator

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ARC Annual Report 2022/23

YOUTH ACCESS REPORT

Youth access started July last year (2022) with no infrastructure or delivery plan. Having analysed the funding bid we created a programme of delivery, outcome measures and evaluation tools. With this being a brand-new offer, it was important to spend the first few months

networking with local providers to ensure we were fully aware of the offers

already existing within the borough. It was also a great opportunity for us to get our service offer out. This was very successful with services complementing our offer, offering to advertise and sign post to Youth Access as well as ARC offering the same for other services.

We also attended local events to advertise our service. We met the Mayor of Woodley who was keen to hear more about us

YOUTH ACCESS IN SCHOOLS

We decided to take the service to the young people Five schools, Bracknell and Wokingham college, Maiden Earleigh (450 students), Piggot (500 students), Waingels and Bulmershe (150 students each), took up the offer for us to run fortnightly sessions onsite over lunchtime. This meant that we were able to engage with the young people enabling us to hit our reporting outcomes. Initially we ran assemblies for all 6[th] forms so that the young people knew who we were and what we were offering. The assemblies consisted of advertising and practical activities around mental health, wellbeing, drugs and alcohol, ETE and sexual health.

Our original service delivery consisted of 4 drop-in sessions held at ARC covering: wellbeing, sexual health, LGBTQ+ and Education, employment and training (ETE). Due to this being so new we were aware that engagement may be limited until our service was fully advertised.

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ARC Annual Report 2022/23

SEPTEMBER TO JANUARY

JANUARY TO FEBRUARY

Focus was on advertising & providing advice. Below figures show the number of young people that we supported over this

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initial
period
Month 1-2
Month 3
Month 4
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Indirect

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20
246
Month 1&2
Month 3
Month 4
782
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Other Month
1&2
Month 4
Month 3
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Mental health awareness and local / national services.

Our findings indicated that most students (75%) didn’t know the local or national services in detail. They may have heard of the services but were not sure what they offered. Moving forward we have arranged for local and national services to 243 send advertising to us so we 1550 can hand it Direct Indirect out to the young people.

MARCH TO APRIL

Drugs and alcohol

The students were very keen to engage with the drugs and alcohol workshops and on this occasion were queuing to try the drunk goggles and to see if they could place a condom on a demonstrator whilst having the effect of being drunk

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ARC Annual Report 2022/23

Whilst the project has been running it has come to light that the need for 1;1 support is increasing. We have had over 10 referrals for 1:1 practical support through schools around exam stress, bereavement, LGBTQ+, ETE and sexual health. These are young people who wouldn’t access support services.

Ongoing 1:1 support:

Bereavement
• LGBTQ+

SUCCESSES:

We have now supported 2 young people into some sort of education setting (Elevate – apprenticeship team and the princes trust).
1 student who had a sexual incident following a party- she has now agreed to access counselling.
1 young person with a family history of alcohol abuse – now agreed to access counselling.

ARC has also created an LGBTQ+ information booklet for young people and families- giving them information, guidance, support, and signposting information. This is currently with the publishers.

Due to the demand of the service, we employed a new member of staff who has now signed up to the National Youth Work Agency to complete her Level 3 qualification in youth work. We will be supporting her training.

Overall, the project has been a great success with more needs emerging as we deliver this great opportunity for our young people between 16-18 years. Moving forward we are looking at amending our delivery to accommodate more 1:1 sessions. We have also identified a huge need for more sexual health information as many young people missed their school sessions due to covid. This has been added to the programme for delivery after Easter.

Success with external services:

P3 housing and ARC Youth Access have agreed to work holistically with Youth Access providing information, guidance, and support for the young people in the supported housing project.
Cranstoun drugs and alcohol service have agreed to run sessions alongside us within 6[th] forms and colleges.
Bracknell and Wokingham college and staff members at 6[th] forms have also been gaining information, guidance, and support from youth access.

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ARC Annual Report 2022/23

MAKING A DIFFERENCE

In August 2022, the BACP (The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy) reviewed our service and our professional accreditation. We received some very positive feedback from the BACP which we would like to share:

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“
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“ It is clear what a brilliant and valuable service ARC provide to CYP and adult clients in their area and how hard they are working to expand, upskill and deliver professional counselling services, appreciated by service users and the team.” (BACP Aug 2022)

Over the last year we have provided over 11,000 number of counselling sessions at ARC and at in our outreach sectors. The feedback from our clients continues to be positive. Below is a snap shot from a selection of our clients:

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I have learned coping
Counselling has helped
strategies for my
me move forward, and
anxiety. Counselling
have hope for myself.
in a good thing.
Helped me find peace.
Talking through my
problems has helped Counselling has been
me work through my invaluable it has been
feelings and issues. a great and reliable
support.
Made my daily
aspects of life easier
more awareness of ARC has helped me in
ways I wouldn’t have
my feelings.
thought possible. I feel a
weight has been lifted.
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ARC Annual Report 2022/23

DONOR THANK YOU

ARC would like to thank and express our huge gratitude to all the local companies, councils and organisations that provide the financial support for our services throughout 2022/2023 and onwards.

A huge thank you to all our volunteers and counsellors!

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ARC Annual Report 2022/23

FINANCIAL REPORT

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CHARITY (OMMISSION FOR ENGLAND AND WALES Independent examiner's report on the accounts Section A Independent Examinevs Report Report to the trusteesl members of ARC WOKINGHAM YOUTH COUNSELLING AND INFORMATION SERVICE On accounts for the year ended 31 MARCH 2023 Charity no (if any) 1043347 Set out on page5 I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of the above charity (Ihe Trust-) for the year ended 3110312021. Responsibilties and basis of report As the charitys trustees, you are responsible for the preparation of the accounts in accordan wrth the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 ('the Act.). I report in respect of my examination of the Trust's accounts carried out under section 145 of the 2011 Act and in carying OLrt my examination, I have followed all the applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145{5)(b} of the Act. IER Oct 2018

Independent I have completed my examination. I confim) that no material matters have examinerfs ststement come to my attention in connection wth the examination which gives me cause to believe that in, any material respect.. the accounting records were not kept in accordance wth section 130 of the Chartties Act", or the accounts did not accord with the accounting records.. or the accounts did not comply vrith the applicable requirements conmIng the fomi and content of accounts set oul in Ihe Charities (Accounts and Reports) Regulations 2008 other than any requirement that the accounts give a Irue and fairf view which is not a matter considered as part of an independent examination. I have no conMS and have come across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in this report in order to enab a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached. Signed: Date: 04 MAY 2023 Name: SIMON MANN Relevant professional qualification{s} or body (if anyl: CHARTERED MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTANT, ACMA Address: ACS ACCOUNTING (BERKSHIRE) LTD SUITE 3 RKET HOUSE, 19-21 MARKET PLACE WOKINGHAM RG40 1AP Section B Disclosure Only complete If the examiner needs to highlight material matters of conrn (see CC32. Independent examination of charity accounts.. directions and guidance for examiners). Give here brief details of any items that the examiner wishes to disclose. IER Oct 2018

ARC Wokingham INCOME AND EXPENDITURE ACCOUNT- 2022123 INCOME Wokingham Borough Counal Berkshiie NHS National Lottery Community Fund Woodley Town Councrl Wokingham Town Council Earley Town Council Primary CareTrust Wokingham Without Schoo15 Counsellin8 Wokingham United Session Fees Training Income Charitable Donations Gift Aid Claims Other Income Bank Interest Received 29.785.( 23.(KX). 29,392.¢X) 5.000. 3.500. 37,937.14 i.OLK).CQ 69.351. 7,5CKI.(KI 17.620.96 13.991.76 676.21 27.86 262.64 Totsl 241.492.57 EXPENDITURE Schools Counselling- Contracts Schoo15 Counselling- Ad hoc GP Counselling YP Counselling QAMHS Young Citizens Advice Work Rent & Rate5 Printing & Stationery Furniture & Equipment Maintenance Woodley Outreach Gener31 Expen5e5 Bank Charges, Credit Card Fee5 & Interest Stsff Salaries Coun5ellors Supervision Counsellors Training Legal & Professional Fees s7,2.50 7,153.44 3342.79 14.118_ 1.605.20 7.432.35 5.359.17 9,213.68 3,981.27 4.253.37 6.619.20 3.881.16 344.33 59.278.68 32.677.lY) 10.224.75 819.(X) Prepared by:_ Totsl 228.205.89 EXCESS OF INCOME OVER EXPENDITURE 13286.68 BALANCE SHEET AS AT 31 MARCH 2023 Brought FOard from 2021122 Plus surplus income from 2022123 Total 99.268.83 13.286.68 112.555.51 Date:. 091of Approved by:. Represented by Current Account Less out5tandin8 cheques Debtor5 & Prepayments Deposit Account Petty Cash Creditors & Accruals Totsl 47,265.35 47.265.35 17.751.12 50.226.84 202.9) 12,890.701 112.555.51 ACS rrwq ARC WokIrn Date:. 04t41ay 2023 41> Iz3