Street Talk
Registered charity no. 1117588
Trustee’s Annual Report April 1st 2023 - March 31st 2024
Objectives and Activities
Street Talk’s mission is to provide professional, specialised mental health care of the highest quality to women trapped in street prostitution, women who have been the victims of trafficking, or any vulnerable woman. To listen to each woman’s personal story, to enable each woman to overcome those obstacles which keep her trapped in a life of exploitation and to enable her to live in safety and with dignity. To share the learnings accrued over Street Talk’s two decades of operation with other organisations within the sector and to promote Therapy of Presence, the clinical model pioneered by Street Talk that has already enabled hundreds of vulnerable women to engage successfully with psychotherapy. To campaign and influence policy in areas relevant to Street Talk beneficiaries and to give a voice to marginalised women.
This year Street Talk has provided the following services
One-to-one psychotherapy for women who come to the service without a referral
Taking place in our therapy space at Resource for London and over the phone.
Telephone helpline for women in crisis in Camden hostels
Originally set up for women in crisis at the start of the Coronavirus pandemic, after the borough of Camden forced all rough-sleepers into hostels. Leaflets and posters were put in all the Covid Protect hotels and hostels and we continue to get a few women using that service.
One to one psychotherapy taking referrals from partner organisations
Over the period Street Talk worked with women referred by Solace Women’s Aid Westminster, WiSER Project Islington, SHP Kali Project Barking and Dagenham, Safer Beds Camden, Hibiscus Women’s Centre, Hammersmith Women’s Hostel, Medaille Trust Hostel, Chrysalis Project, Hestia, as well as individual referrals from Islington Social Services, Camden Social Services, and Nia.
Art therapy groups and one-to-one art therapy
Over the period Street Talk ran four art therapy groups in Hibiscus Women’s Centre, Medaille Trust hostel, Safer Beds Endsleigh Gardens, Hammersmith Women’s Hostel and the Chrysalis hostel.
Photography groups and exhibitions
In partnership with Medaille Trust.
Advocacy for individual women’s rights
The women who came to us over the course of the year had many complex needs and had almost all been failed by services in different ways. Advocacy alongside the therapy seems to provide all round support.
Accompaniment throughout immigration proceedings
We provide reports to the court evidencing that mental health symptoms are consistent with PTSD caused by extreme fear and that the woman has told a consistent story over the years which we have worked with her. When requested by the women or by their legal team we attend court with the woman and have been called as a witness.
There is almost no mental health support for people going through the asylum system. The process takes a catastrophic toll on the mental health of those put through it and our main role is to bear witness and work with women to manage the despair, terror, uncertainty and dehumanisation the system incurs.
Accompanying women through family proceedings
We provide reports for the court and psychological assessments as well as accompanying women to social services case conferences as well as court.
Where we believe a woman has parental capacity, we will support a woman in her fight to be allowed a parenting assessment and to evidence her parenting capacity in other ways.
Accompanying women to criminal court hearings
Reports were provided to explain circumstances and to draw attention to mental health issues and we accompanied women although the cases were still heard online this year.
Legal support
Street Talk beneficiaries continue to receive legal support from Martin Stewart, a solicitor who works pro bono up to one day each week, on housing, benefits, crime and family matters. The therapist working with the woman will work together with their lawyer to make as strong a case as possible and where that will help to include relevant information on women's mental health which otherwise would not be taken into consideration.
Mentoring
One-to-one mentoring, supporting women by accompanying them to appointments, which many find very hard, accompanying them to go out from where they are living and do simple things like go to a café or for a walk in a park to improve their well being and to give them some social contact. Mentoring provides a good volunteering opportunity for women who have come through the service.
Referral to specialist services
Women who have made sufficient progress may be referred on to addiction services, mental health specialists, parenting classes, and other services when that would provide additional support. The vast majority of Street Talk’s women are excluded from these services at the time of their first engagement with Street Talk.
Practical Support
Provision of essential items for women including food or supermarket vouchers, medication, nappies and other supplies for babies, clothing, telephones, laptops, travel cards, funded partly through partnership with Family Action who provide the grants for individual women.
Respite from the street at St Beuno’s Retreat Centre
Women were accompanied by Street Talk staff to St Beuno’s Retreat Centre for a four-day residential stay for a period of rest and respite.
Campaigning activity
Street Talk continued campaigning as part of Together With Refugees, an alliance of organisations in the sector, advocating the rights of refugees.
Street Talk continued its partnership with the Human Trafficking Foundation for joint campaigning.
Street Talk participated in campaigned for the rights of mothers within the criminal justice system lead by Women in Prison.
Promoting the Street Talk model
We work hard to share our learning, specifically about how to work therapeutically with people who are usually excluded from therapy and to promote the Therapy of Presence model. Our most important goal is to evidence that people with complex needs who have come from a background of trauma can use therapy to recover. Street Talk’s strategy is to remain small to ensure high standards of work, but we know that there are very many people we can’t reach. Encouraging others to practise the model is a way to extend the reach of the work, to scale up effectively.
We continue to share the book Not Angry But Hurting with colleagues in the sector, we have provided consultations on the model to other organisations in the sector and take up invitations to give talks on the model.
Some of the organisations receiving consultation / training from Street Talk over the period are listed below.
Spitalfields Trust St Mungos The Human Trafficking Foundation Solace Women’s Aid Medaille Trust The Metropolitan Police
Training
Street Talk completed a six month long media training course provided by Media trust. Street Talk staff took part in training on safeguarding.
Non-clinical staff took part in an introductory counselling training.
Public Benefit Guidance
In setting Street Talk’s objectives and planning its activities our Trustees have given due regard to the Charity Commission’s public benefit guidance.
Outputs
Quantification of Street Talk’s services is complex due to the nature of the women’s engagement which, according to the needs of each individual, may be chaotic in the early stages and later, sporadic. Street Talk’s model emphasises quality, long-term work over raw quantity of beneficiaries and this informs a strategy of sustainable growth.
Over the course of the year, 128 women engaged with Street Talk’s services. The charity generated over 1700 discrete charitable outputs which are summarized in the table below.
| Output | Occasions Of |
|---|---|
| Therapy sessions provided | 1281 |
| Inter-agency meetings facilitated / attended | 225 |
| Practical support provided | 81 |
| Reports to the courts / witness testimony / letters of support | 46 |
| Onward referrals to other support services e.g. addiction services | 23 |
| Training and consultation to other professionals | 8 |
| Mentoring sessions | 40* |
*estimated
Outcomes
Each of the 128 women who had contact with Street Talk over the period has reported some positive outcome. These may include ‘hard’ such as managing addiction, exiting abusive relationships, exiting street prostitution, getting off the street and into accommodation, moving from supported accommodation to independent living, etc.
However, for many of the women, these outcomes are distant goals. Street Talk has learnt that, ‘soft’ outcomes which may seem insignificant (e.g. simply engaging with service or attending an appointment with a therapist), will, given time, eventually lead to hard outcomes.
The overall aim of Street Talk’s work is to enable women who have been brutalised to encounter their own humanity. When women feel entitled to live in safety and with dignity the hard outcomes follow. It is constantly challenging to quantify outcomes. Small acts of kindness go a long way in recovery from trauma, but they are almost impossible to measure.
None of the women who took part in one-to-one therapy or art therapy would have been able to access therapy through any conventional practitioners. All would be excluded for reasons such as addiction, homelessness, learning-difficulties, chaotic lifestyle or poor self-advocacy. The fact these vulnerable women with complex needs saw a therapist is, in and of itself, arguably Street Talk’s most significant outcome
Street Talk lacks the resources to record every outcome resulting from its work. The soft outcomes which are central to Street Talk’s process may be practically unmeasurable. Below, a sample of the hard outcomes achieved by the women over the period is presented as an illustrative example of the changes that women working with a Street Talk therapist are able to make.
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15 women entered education, from college to Masters Degree level.
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8 women resolved their immigration status
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28 women successfully accessed specialist support services, most commonly addiction services, specialist mental health services, legal services, etc.
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4 women accessed (physical) health care for serious conditions
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16 women received positive decisions from social services, eg. positive progress within a Child in Need Plan, in some cases signing off.
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21 women improved their accommodation status, e.g no longer rough-sleeping, entering independent accommodation.
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13 women secured paid employment
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5 women accessed disability benefit
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3 women brought criminal cases against abusers
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29 women overcame specific, practical problems caused by poor mental health, e.g. exiting abusive relationships, overcoming or better managing conditions such as agoraphobia, bulimia, hoarding, ending estrangement from family, ceasing suicidal ideation, improvements related to depression, etc.
It was a successful year for growth of the Street Talk model, Therapy of Presence . Training and consultation was provided to 8 new organisations interested in adopting or incorporating practices developed by Street Talk into their own services for vulnerable people.
Case Study
Helping to keep one child out of the state care system
When Amal came to Street Talk she was pregnant. She took a few months to get the hang of therapy, to build a good relationship, what we call the therapeutic alliance, with Shirely, her Street Talk therapist. Amal had many immediate practical problems, but the real work in the therapy was on her early trauma.
Amal came from a large Muslim family struggling with extreme poverty in a rural part of Albania. As the eldest child her role in the family was to care for her younger siblings while both parents worked as agricultural labourers. When Amal was 16, her baby brother died suddenly on her watch. Blamed by her parents, Amal was sold into an arranged marriage as punishment. She has never seen any of her family since. Her husband beat her, raped her, and forced her into prostitution. When she was 19 a punter helped her to escape and arranged a visa for her to come to the UK to work as a carer.
Shortly after arriving in the UK to take up her live-in job at a care home, Amal discovered that she was in the early stages of pregnancy. Once she could no longer work, she lost that job, and with it her accommodation and her right to her working visa. It was at this point, facing homelessness, the birth of her baby without recourse to public funds, the loss of her legitimate immigration status, the threat of being put in an immigration detention centre, and the fear of being sent back to Albania, where she was sure her husband would kill her, that Amal found her way to Street Talk.
A few months later, leaving hospital after the birth of her baby, Amal was sofa surfing. Her case was in the immigration courts, but she had not told her solicitor anything of her background, her trauma, of grief and exploitation. It was only through a report to the court authored by Street Talk that Amal’s case was heard in its full context. She was awarded one year’s leave to remain, and the judge told the court that their decision had been made on the basis of the information provided by Street Talk about the danger she would be in if she were repatriated.
Social services were considering placing the baby into foster care because Amal was reluctant to give information about the people she was staying with. Street Talk worked closely with the child protection social worker and were able to assure her that we had a close relationship with Amal, and we were confident that the baby was loved, well cared for and safe, and that the sofa surfing was temporary until she got another job. The chair of the case conference referenced the background information from Street Talk as well as the close support Amal was getting from Street talk as the reason the baby was allowed to stay with the mother.
The significance of this case is that Shirley took her time to understand the whole of Amal’s story, to see beyond the immediate crisis, and that meant allowing Amal the time she needed to
trust her. We were then able to share this vital information with the other agencies involved, to keep mother and baby together and to keep them safe in this country. It is difficult for women to talk about a lifetime of trauma with lawyers and social workers who carry out interviews in a highly formal setting, asking specific questions and not necessarily connecting facts – Social Services’ concern was around Amal’s accommodation status, a problem that went away as soon as her immigration status was sorted out. However social services don’t necessarily look that far.
This case also evidences the importance of support and advocacy for vulnerable mothers with parental capacity, to prevent children being taken into the state care system unnecessarily. Once a child is taken into care it sometimes takes years to get them back with their own family. Most of our women grew up in care or with extreme neglect and to break that cycle impacts the mother, the child and future generations.
Financial Review
| Income | £163,000 | |
|---|---|---|
| Trusts and Foundations | £128,000 | |
| Major Donors | £15,000 | |
| Donations and Fundraising | £12,000 | |
| From Solace Women’s Aid/WiSER Project | £8,000 | |
| Expenditure | £149,000 | |
| Salaries, Pensions and Tax | £102,000 | |
| Sessional Staff | £34,000 | |
| Admin and Overheads | £6,000 | |
| Staff and Volunteer Expenses | £4,000 | |
| Beneficiary Expenses & Practical Support | £3,000 | |
| Unrestricted reserves 31/3/24 | £57,000 | |
| Restricted reserves 31/3/24 | £161,000 | |
| Trusts and Foundations Breakdown | ||
| Tudor Trust | £30,000 | |
| Segelman Trust | £25,000 | |
| National Lottery Community Fund | £19,740 | |
| Aurum Trust | £15,000 | |
| Cripplegate Foundation | £12,812 | |
| Madhav Mugal Foundation | £10,345 | |
| London Community Foundation | £10,000 | |
| London Quaker Services Trust | £5,000 |
The Trustees are satisfied that there are no uncertainties about the charity’s abilities to continue as a going concern over the next reporting period.
Reserves Policy
Street Talk’s policy is that reserves should be held equal to at least six months operating costs in order to guarantee safe cessation of therapeutic services in the event that the charity were to close. Reserves held at the end of the reporting period were in line with the policy.
Structure, Governance and Management
Street Talk is a registered charity. The governing document is the Constitution. Trustees are selected by the Board.
Trustees
Aoife Ritchie
Works in NHS mental health services and completed her psychotherapy training placement with Street Talk.
Charlotte Littlewood
Works in NHS mental health services and completed her psychotherapy training placement with Street Talk.
Colleen Rhodes
Former service user.
Fatima Ba
Former service user.
Keran Burris
Former service user.
Rebecca Hammond
Business owner/operator.
Sophie Jones
PR professional.
Consultants
Simon Dodds (lawyer)
Advises on strategy and development.
Dr Jan Birtle (psychiatrist)
Advises on the clinical model and sharing the learning.
Eileen Aird (psychotherapist and supervisor)
Advises on clinical standards.
Thomas Humphrey (marketing)
Advises on communications strategy for sharing the clinical model across the sector.
Martin Stewart (solicitor)
Advises on legal matters.
Staff
Director, clinical supervisor, psychotherapist Pippa Hockton
Operations, fundraising and reporting, communications & compliance Oliver Hockton
Art Therapists Catriona Alderton Vera Howard Beata Somogni (training placement)
Psychotherapists Amanda Chapman Karl Svars Rose Campbell Shirley Sutton Sandi Baiju Alison Caldow Tuesday Benfield Laura Guy (training placement)
Partnerships
Aside from external and independent referrals, Street Talk also works in partnership with the following organisations.
Chrysalis Project (St. Mungo’s Broadway)
Two hostels exclusively for women involved in street prostitution in the London Borough of Lambeth.
St Mungo’s Safer Space
Enhanced support for women involved in street prostitution across three hostels and one drop-in centre in the London Borough of Camden.
St Mungo’s Hammersmith Women’s Hostel
Hostel for so-called difficult to reach women in Hammersmith.
Human Trafficking Foundation
Street Talk has taken part in joint campaigning with HTF in previous years but we are working more closely with HTF providing clinical supervision to the LEAP group and training in trauma to their team.
Medaille
Hostel for women who have escaped from traffickers in East London. Street Talk takes referrals from the hostel for psychotherapy and remote one-to-one art Therapy.
Hibiscus Women’s Centre
Day centre for vulnerable women, including women involved in street prostitution, women in the criminal justice system, women who have been trafficked, asylum seekers and those who have no recourse to public funds in the London Borough of Islington.
Solace Women’s Aid / The WiSER Project
Service for hard-to-reach women who are extremely vulnerable but not able to access other women’s services, sometimes because they are from a culture where asking for help is not permitted.
Solace Women’s Aid / Westminster Housing First
Offering intensive support to women who are “hard to reach” very much modelled on the WiSER Project with Islington Solace.
Single Homeless Project / Project Kali
Housing First project offering intensive, wrap-around support to women with complex needs who have experience of homelessness.
Resource for London
Resource centre for charities in the London Borough of Islington.
Media Trust
Supporting small charities with communications.
Women’s Resource Centre
Organises an alliance of activist women’s organisations to campaign for women’s rights.
Family Action
Provide small grants and supermarket vouchers to 20 partner charities of which Street Talk is one.
The Centre for Social Justice Alliance
Sharing lived experience and learning from small charities to influence government policy .
Together with Refugees
An umbrella campaigning organisation.
St Beuno’s Retreat Centre
Welcomes Street Talk women of all faiths or no faith for periods of respite from the street.
Debevoise & Plimpton LLP
Law firm offering pro bono advice and legal services to Street Talk.
Duncan Lewis Solicitors
National Law firm offering legal support to Street Talk clients on immigration cases.
Declarations
The trustees declare that they have approved the above report.
Signed on behalf of the Board of Trustees
Rebecca Hammond Trustee 3/12/2024
Charity Name No (if any) Street Talk 1117588
Receipts and payments accounts
CC16a
For the period Period start date Period end date To from 4/1/2023 3/31/2024
Section A Receipts and payments
| Unrestricted funds |
Restricted funds |
Endowment funds |
Total funds | Last year | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| to the nearest £ | to the nearest £ | to the nearest £ | to the nearest £ | to the nearest £ | ||||||
| Tudor Trust | 30,000 | - | - | 30,000 | 30,000 | |||||
| Segelman Trust | 25,000 | - | - | 25,000 | 27,500 | |||||
| National LotteryCommunityFund | - | 19,750 | - | 19,750 | - | |||||
| Aurum Trust | 15,000 | - | - | 15,000 | 15,000 | |||||
| Major Donors | 15,000 | - | - | 15,000 | 10,000 | |||||
| Cripplegate Foundation | - | 12,812 | - | 12,812 | - | |||||
| Fundraising& Donations | 12,168 | - | - | 12,168 | 10,874 | |||||
| Madhav Mugal Foundation | - | 10,345 | - | 10,345 | - | |||||
| London Community Foundation & Dodds Trust |
- | 10,000 | - | 10,000 | 7,000 | |||||
| Solace Women's Aid | - | 7,240 | - | 7,240 | 9,480 | |||||
| LondonQuaker Services Trust | 5,000 | - | - | 5,000 | 5,000 | |||||
| FamilyAction | - | 300 | - | 300 | - | |||||
| Refunds | - | 36 | - | 36 | - | |||||
| Borrows Trust, Citi Bank, Impact 100 | ||||||||||
| London, Royal Warrant Holders | ||||||||||
| Association Charity Trust, Society of | - | - | - | - | 57,900 | |||||
| Retreat Conductors, Together for London | ||||||||||
| Fund | ||||||||||
| - | - | - | - | - | ||||||
| - | - | - | - | - | ||||||
| - | - | - | - | - | ||||||
| Sub total(Gross income for AR) | (Gross income for AR) | 102,168 (Gross income for AR) |
60,483 | - | 162,651 | 172,754 | ||||
| - - - - - - - - - Sub total - - - - - Total receipts 102,168 60,483 - 162,651 172,754 A2 Asset and investment sales, (see table). ~~—————~~ |
||||||||||
| A3 Payments | ||||||||||
| Salaries | 49,419 | 8,421 | - | 57,840 | 54,573 | |||||
| Sessional Staff | - | 33,815 | - | 33,815 | 39,903 | |||||
| Tax & National Insurance | 22,218 | 3,789 | - | 26,007 | 27,474 | |||||
| Pensions | 15,704 | 2,650 | 18,354 | 15,854 | ||||||
| Phone & IT | 3,305 | 570 | 3,875 | 1,367 | ||||||
| Staff & Volunteer Expenses | 3,296 | 570 | - | 3,866 | 4,635 | |||||
| Beneficiaries Practical Support | 1,948 | 336 | - | 2,284 | 1,570 | |||||
| Other Admin Overheads (Insurance, | ||||||||||
| Printing, Postage, Membership Fees, | ||||||||||
| Publicity, and Meetings) | 1,698 | 300 | - | 1,998 | 2,083 | |||||
| Events | 45 | - | - | 45 | 1,500 | |||||
| Beneficiaries Expenses | 320 | 120 | - | 440 | 1,147 | |||||
| Training | 295 | - | - | 295 | 275 | |||||
| Art Materials | 82 | - | - | 82 | 261 | |||||
| **Sub total ** | 98,330 | 50,571 | - | 148,901 | 150,642 | |||||
| - - - - - - - - Sub total - - - - - Total payments 98,330 50,571 - 148,901 150,642 A4 Asset and investment purchases, (see table) ~~—————~~ |
||||||||||
| **Net of receipts/(payments) ** | 3,838 | 9,912 | - | 13,750 | 22,112 |
| A5 Transfers between funds A6 Cash funds last year end **Cash funds this year end ** |
- | - | - | - 203,973 217,723 |
- | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 52,973 | 151,000 | - | - | |||||
| 56,811 | 160,912 | - | 22,112 |
Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period
| Unrestricted | Restricted | Endowment | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Categories | Details | funds | funds | funds | ||
| to nearest £ | to nearest £ | to nearest £ | ||||
| B1 Cash funds | Lloyds 02305716 56,811 160,912 - - - - - - - 56,811 160,912 - Total cash funds ~~S—S=~~ |
|||||
| (agree balances with receipts and payments account(s)) |
(agree balances with receipts and payments | OK | OK | OK | ||
| Unrestricted | Restricted | Endowment | ||||
| funds | funds | funds | ||||
| Details | to nearest £ | to nearest £ | to nearest £ | |||
| B2 Other monetary assets | - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ~~=—===~~ |
|||||
| Details | Fund to which asset belongs |
Cost (optional) | Current value (optional) |
|||
| B3 Investment assets | - - - - - - - - - - ~~===~~ |
|||||
| Details | Fund to which asset belongs |
Cost (optional) | Current value (optional) |
|||
| B4 Assets retained for the charity’s own use |
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ~~ai~~ |
|||||
| Fund to which | Amount due | When due | ||||
| Details | liability relates | (optional) | (optional) | |||
| B5 Liabilities Signed by one or two trustees on behalf of all the trustees |
- - - - - Signature Print Name Rebecca Hammond 11/19/2024 Date of approval ~~mn~~ |
Independent examiner's report on the accounts
Section A Independent Examiner’s Report
Report to the Street Talk trustees On accounts for 31[st] March 2024 the year ended
Charity no 1117588
Set out on pages Receipts and payments accounts CC16a pages
I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of the above charity (“the Trust”) for the year ended 31[st] March 2024.
Responsibilities As the charity's trustees, you are responsible for the preparation of the accounts in and basis of accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 (“the Act”). report I report in respect of my examination of the Trust’s accounts carried out under section 145 of the 2011 Act and in carrying out my examination, I have followed all the applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5)(b) of the Act.
Independent I have completed my examination. I confirm that no material matters have come to examiner's my attention in connection with the examination which gives me cause to believe that statement in, any material respect:
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the accounting records were not kept in accordance with section 130 of the Charities Act; or
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the accounts did not accord with the accounting records.
I have no concerns and have come across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in this report in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.
Signed: Date: 11 Jan 2025 ~~[~~ Name: René Albert van Velzen Relevant I am familiar with charity R&P accounting through my role as treasurer for a charity. professional qualification(s): Address: 5 Lupton Street NW5 2JA London