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← Baobab Centre For Young Survivors In Exile

2022-03-31-accounts

THE BAOBAB CENTRE

For Young Survivors in Exile

Annual Report and Accounts for April 2021 to March 2022

Charity Number: 1135407 Company Number: 6816297 6-9 Manor Gardens London, N7 6LA Phone: 0207 263 1301 E-Mail: info@baobabsurvivors.org Website: https://www.baobabsurvivors.org

The Baobab Centre for Young Survivors in Exile: Annual Report

The Baobab Centre for Young Survivors in Exile: Annual Report and Accounts

The Annual Report for April 2021- March 2022

The Baobab Centre for Young Survivors in Exile: Annual Report and Accounts .................................... 2 It Takes a Village To Raise a Child ......................................................................................................... 3 Our Approach........................................................................................................................................ 4 Statistics on asylum seeking minors, at Baobab and beyond................................................................ 5 Individual Psychotherapy ...................................................................................................................... 6 Group Work .......................................................................................................................................... 7 Casework .............................................................................................................................................. 9 Advocacy Work ................................................................................................................................... 12 Monitoring and Evaluation ................................................................................................................. 14 Additional Activities ............................................................................................................................ 14 Operations, Fundraising, HR and Financial Management .................................................................. 15 Our External Context ........................................................................................................................... 17 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................... 17

The Annual Accounts for April 2021 – March 2022

Legal and Administrative Information.................................................................................................2 Directors Report.....................................................................................................................................3 Statement of Directors Responsibilities................................................................................................7 Independent Examiners Report on the Accounts................................................................................8 Statement of Financial Activities..........................................................................................................9 Balance Sheet.....................................................................................................................................10 Statement of Cash Flows....................................................................................................................11 Notes to the Financial Statements.....................................................................................................12

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The Baobab Centre for Young Survivors in Exile: Annual Report

It Takes a Village To Raise a Child

This report aims to reflect the different aspects of our work at the Baobab Centre over the past year, that is from April 2021 to the end March 2022. In order to understand our model of work, which is complicated, it is helpful to share some statistical information which comes from our regular collection of attendance statistics and from our referral and assessment process as well as from our, annual monitoring and evaluation process, these can be found on page 5 of this report.

At Baobab we aim to be a reflective organization and we are getting better and better at consulting and communicating with everyone in the organisation, our staff, our community members and external stakeholders. We aim to ensure that our work, our aims, our philosophy and our unique models of practice can be understood by all members of our community and by those outside our community who might be interested in our work and wish to collaborate with us or support what we do. This includes, internally, our young community members, volunteer and paid staff and externally all those in the networks around each young person, those making use of our services and our generous donors whose support makes our work possible.

Over this year, despite the interference of the pandemic restrictions on our work, we have been able to set up structures and create posts in order to meet our long term aims. These aims are:

  1. The rehabilitation and return to the path of progressive development for each young person in our community via individual and group psychotherapeutic work, casework and social work and community activities and events.

  2. Working towards justice for our population by advocating both for our whole population and all the unaccompanied asylum seeking minors who do not access our services directly but who have had similar experiences to our community members.

There is an African saying originating historically from many African communities. The saying is: ‘ It takes a village to raise a child.’

The idea of the whole village involved in a child’s upbringing highlights that children need individual, family, cultural and community relationships in order to flourish and to learn about the context and culture in which they find themselves. The young people who attend the Baobab Centre have all had to make huge transitions from one community to another. Most have lost their close attachment figures from their families and communities and all have been separated from a familiar and often nourishing world. These experiences lead to a sense of disorientation, confusion and often profound uncertainty.

The African saying heading this report is particularly relevant for anyone working holistically with children, adolescents and young people and who are concerned about their wellbeing. This includes their development, their education, their mental, emotional and physical health, their social life and for each young person, their rehabilitation after a series of several painful and overwhelming experiences. It is particularly relevant for the model of work we have at the Baobab Centre where we run as a nonresidential therapeutic community and hold a holistic and integrated model of work.

During this year our staff team and in particular the newly formed leadership team have worked together in order to ensure that all the elements of our model work effectively. Each part of our model interacts with the others and none are sufficient in their own right. We aim to think in a holistic and integrated way and to apply this thinking to our initial and ongoing assessments of the practical and the developmental and mental health needs of all our community members. It is essential that staff are familiar with all

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The Baobab Centre for Young Survivors in Exile: Annual Report

aspects of our work, at some level, and are able to understand the essential interweaving of all our different activities and their consequences for each community member. Coming to understand our approach takes some while (up to a year) and we hope that each member of staff stays in post for at least thirty months and ideally more as our population need time to build trusting relationships and a therapeutic alliance and to explore the dimensions of ‘normal’ separation and loss in addition to traumatic separation and loss.

Our Approach

At Baobab our community members are offered different opportunities for involvement and for addressing their different mental health, emotional, practical and psychosocial needs. Our community members are offered opportunities and the physical and emotional space to develop insight into their problems and difficulties and to understand themselves. They are given opportunities to develop their sense of responsibility, to find their own voices and to develop trust in adults and peers. Baobab supports the young people in our community to eventually to engage in studies, find work and to become free be themselves. Our ultimate aim is for them to find a place in the community of exile where they can hold responsibilities, participate in community life and thrive.

Two members of staff from one of our funders came recently to meet and speak with us. They sat in my office and commented initially that unlike many of the organizations that they fund coming into Baobab felt like coming into someone’s home. This is our intention. We could not do the work we do if we did not engage with the young people in a warm and involved and proximal way. This includes allocating lots of time to individual and group conversations and the slow development of involvements. It also includes warm physical contact, not simply through football or dancing but through touch and hugs. For a population of young people who have been separated from intimate relationships and close attachments this prioritising of warm involvement including touch is central to our approach. As has often been said: ‘We are not a clinic. ’ For us the issue of shared physical space is very important. Baobab does not have separate areas and facilities for staff and for young people in our main rooms and offices. The intention to make our centre homely is serious and acts as an antidote to bureaucratic officialdom and over defensive professionals in many contexts where our young people have to engage for example the Universal Credit offices, some Social Services Departments.

Our planned therapeutic environment includes the following essential elements:

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The Baobab Centre for Young Survivors in Exile: Annual Report

Statistics on asylum seeking minors, at Baobab and beyond

Below are some information and statistics on the demographics of young asylum seekers, and specifically unaccompanied children in the UK taken from a report from the Refugee Council[1] .

‘In 2020, worldwide, 21,000 children applied for asylum having arrived in the country of refuge alone, with no parent or guardian, according to the most recent global figures published by UNHCR. In the year ending June 2022, the UK received 4,896 applications for asylum from unaccompanied children .

Many of them come from Sudan , a country facing political instability following years of civil war, children, in particular, are at risk. As well as Sudan, they come from countries including Iran, Eritrea, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Iraq, Albania, Ethiopia, and Syria . The majority are aged between 14 and 17 years of age when they begin their journey and when they arrive in the UK, but we do work with younger children who often, but not always, travel with close or distant relatives. Children are also regularly trafficked into the UK to be forced into domestic servitude, sexual exploitation and other forms of forced labour including cannabis cultivation . These children statistically join the huge numbers of UK children who are trafficked for labour, sexual exploitation, and crime.’

Below are statistics on the number of young people Baobab have supported in 2021-2022 and the type of support they have received at Baobab.

1 https://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/information/refugee-asylum-facts/separated-children-facts/

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The Baobab Centre for Young Survivors in Exile: Annual Report

Individual Psychotherapy

The material emerging in individual sessions with Baobab community members is coloured by shades of trauma and loss and unplanned changes and the consequent experiences of disorientation and bereavement. Some young people share their flooding feelings and intrusive memories while others are highly defended and find talking about their feelings and memories difficult and sometimes impossible, expressing their wish to ‘forget’ their past. Though many of our young people suffer significant symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, being alert to imminent danger by night and by day and suffering intrusive thinking, bad dreams and nightmares where they are haunted by memories of their past experiences and where they sometimes feel that they are back in situations where they felt helpless, the central organiser of their experiences is the sense of profound loss. All also experience high anxiety and depression and show unstable functioning in particular with difficulties in regulating their feelings.

Key themes presented include each individual’s struggle with aspects of the process of adolescent development including finding a stable adult identity in the absence of key attachment figures. We observe all the time young people who wish to become mature adults but who feel lost in exile in the light of the differences in culture that trouble and amuse and astonish them. They experience adolescent conflicts and struggles about which direction to take in terms of relationships, studies and work. They all welcome a time to explore issues of ethics and morality about potential actions and in terms of adult roles alongside their memories and feelings and defensive strategies. Increasingly our clinical staff bring to supervision sessions issues related to psycho-somatic symptoms that is body and health symptoms that are clearly rooted in stress and anxiety and psychological barriers that prevent the feelings being acknowledged and discussed and which can be described as unconscious defences or coping strategies.

In general our population takes a long time to develop a relationship with their psychotherapist, a therapeutic alliance. Many of our clinical team find it very helpful to think with young people and with each other about different aspects of each young person’s identity and how in moving towards mature adulthood each young person has a developmental task to acknowledge and to take responsibility for all aspects of their identity. An example of this that is common in young refugees is the persistence of childhood and adolescent aspects of their personality alongside more mature aspects. We might call some of these aspects, these the infant self, the teenage self, the aggressive self, the helpless self, the hopeless self etc. Psychotherapeutic work engages with young people’s feelings and memories over time with the aim of facilitating grief and bereavement processes, finding individually appropriate ways to deal with symptoms of trauma and in processing developmental themes in an ongoing way exploring stuck aspects of development and extreme feelings that are hard to manage and to regulate.

Developmentally and Psychoanalytically Informed Therapeutic Work

Clinicians at Baobab need to have experience of psychoanalytically informed work with troubled and abused individuals, and an understanding of the vicissitudes of child and adolescent and young adult development and in particular be able to think about the various factors that enable progressive development and which cause development to stop or which trigger development moving backwards. We aim that the various elements of our holistic, integrated and community based model facilitate forward development.

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The Baobab Centre for Young Survivors in Exile: Annual Report

Group Work

Our groupwork has continued through this year with the huge improvement of our group work brought about by appointing our most experienced group worker, Bitenge Makuka to the position of Head of Group Work. In this role Bitenge has taken on his role of both managing individually and bringing together all those who facilitate groups at the Baobab Centre at a monthly meeting. At Baobab we run both psychotherapeutic groups and activity groups (arts and sports based) both one off, time limited and open ended groups. From the responses of the young people groups are seen to be both useful and enjoyable and they provide a space for young people to meet others who have similar experiences to theirs and thus they do not feel so alone and isolated.

Over the course of this year we have run three psychotherapeutic groups, two weekly and one fortnightly. We have also run an ongoing weekly music group, a fortnightly philosophy group and for several months ran a film making group. These activity based groups are a space for young people to develop relationships in the community, build trust, learn new skills and develop creativity and essentially to and have fun! We hope in the near future to run a group specifically for the young women and girls in our community.

Community member and member of staff on a kayaking trip in Camden

Addressing Cultural Diversity within Individual and Group Psychotherapeutic Work

Our population is diverse. As you see from our statistics young people are referred to us from 23 different countries including a very small number from each of a number of African countries (Algeria, DRC, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Nigeria, Morocco, Sierra Leone, Somalia and Uganda), Though there are fewer young women than young men we are referred and that we take on, but the diversity within the genders

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is in many ways as great as the diversity within each gender. The young people come from many different cultures and while most have experienced organized violence in their communities and most have also experienced interpersonal violence to their bodies from corrupt and exploitative individuals, gangs and traffickers they also present to us a wide range of coping and defensive strategies and a huge variety of resiliencies.

In a recent group psychotherapy meeting of our young adult group six young men started to talk about their experience of community life in the UK. One young man from Sudan mused that he would never make sense of English society. “ I watch out of the windows of my flat or I walk in the street, No-one smiles and if I approach anyone to ask the way or to make contact they look afraid and withdraw. Then you won’t believe what I see in my neighbourhood, people having long time kisses in the street where all can see them. You would never see this in Sudan.” Another young man also from Sudan challenged the first speaker: “ Sudan has a mixture of Christians and Muslims. The Muslim girls cover their heads and wear long dresses but the Christian girls wear mini-skirts and openly have boyfriends and kiss in the street”. Though the hilarity of the examples and much laughter the group moved to a discussion of Muslim versus Christian societies, religious tensions, ethnic tensions and political tensions and finally the different relationships between adults and children in the UK and in their home countries. “ In my country in a village in the Sudan countryside no-one would ever eat alone. A meal would be prepared and people would gather. The young people would bring water so the adults could first wash their hands and only then the children could wash their hands”.

Our group members agreed on the absence of respect between adults and children in the UK. A wellestablished group member from Sierra Leone (who had been a member of our Baobab Community for ten years) pronounced:

“You lot have to understand, you are in the UK and you have to accept the ways things happen in the UK, like males and females can have long kisses in the streets. You have to understand though that,like in my country, children are prepared for adulthood from the age of five…this is how African children are raised in their communities. All adults in the close community, not just family members can restrain or chastise children. In the UK it looks like children remain as children until they are eighteen and then they are suddenly expected to become adults. Most seem to have no respect for adults.”

In this group the issue of cultural transition emerged, what you hold on to from your culture and what to adapt to in UK society. Some need to cling hard onto the mores and ethics of their home cultures while others can identify with the behaviour and ideas of UK young people. Some and certainly not all young people can criticise their home cultures. It seems much easier to be critical of UK society. The dissonance between their values and beliefs and behaviour and what they observe in peers of their age in the UK highlights their huge sense of loss and the pain of grief and their huge resiliencies and capacities to be flexible and to change. Many young people are religious and hold on to both the cultural, the spiritual and the emotional aspects of their religions.

Spending Time Together in Small Groups Engaged in Various Activities Outside the Baobab Centre. Borrowing from the ideas of Equal Justice Lawyer Bryan Stevenson, with whom we share the importance of, over time considering and valuing of Proximity, Transformation of Narratives, and Sustaining Hope.

Part of our therapeutic approach is to encourage all of our young people to take part in group activities and to learn to express their views and to agree and disagree with confidence alongside learning to trust each other. We organize many small activity- based groups that run throughout the year, and these have included, during this year, music, philosophy, film making, and English/creative writing. During the holidays we run open art studios, drama and music sessions and various sports activities including

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The Baobab Centre for Young Survivors in Exile: Annual Report

climbing, running, cycling, kayaking, swimming, and horse riding. We plan to review and increase these groups throughout the coming year including setting up a film club and an open art studio.

When we meet outside Baobab for social or educational or sports or arts events or when we go away for day or week long holiday retreats the possibilities for conversations and building of relationships is increased. There is always time for talking about a variety of subjects relevant to our psychotherapeutic processes and to issues that interfere with self-esteem, self-confidence, managing emotions and feelings and engaging in meaningful relationships. This work can take place in groups consisting of peers and adults and in individual conversations between peers and between young people and adults. For some a group in the open air is more relaxed situation for sharing deep feelings than in a psychotherapy session in a room where this is the only focus. We are aiming to raise funds to increase the numbers of retreats we are able to organise.

Horse Riding in the countryside on a Summer Retreat

Casework

Jodie Bourke is our Senior Social Worker and Senior Manager. Jodie is also our senior safeguarding officer and has the responsibility to review with our Director all the safeguarding issues that emerge at our centre each week. She also facilitates with an external teacher (an experienced senior social worker) safeguarding training for all our staff and volunteers including our trustees.

During this year the need for social work and casework has significantly increased and we have been able to raise funds for two further posts in the team, a casework coordinator and a caseworker each for three

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The Baobab Centre for Young Survivors in Exile: Annual Report

days each week. Given the political context in which we are working and the increasingly complex needs of our community members, we will need over future years, to raise more funds for our social/case work team. The current economic and political context in the UK has made the processes by which young asylum seekers and refugees, access housing, benefits and care increasingly difficult. Our whole team of clinicians, social workers and case workers support young people through the asylum-seeking process. After young people are granted asylum that they have a further struggle, especially those with significant developmental and mental health difficulties in accessing the self- contained accommodation that they need for their personal sense of privacy, control, agency, protection and safeguarding and in parallel accessing appropriate and realistic support (including benefits) for them to work part time and to have time to work through and integrate their difficulties. Jodie has spent increasing amounts of time during this year in finding housing, public law and community care solicitors and supporting young people through these, sometimes intimidating, legal processes which sometimes lead to judicial review and court hearings.

Below our Senior Social Worker and Senior Manager describes her role and the challenges faced over the last year.

‘My role as Senior Social Worker at Baobab was challenging in the post covid, ‘hostile environment’ where the demand for casework support for young people rose sharply. As homelessness and benefit cuts became the accepted norm again when the shortlived government ‘generosity’ of covid inspired financial support for those in need, soon diminished; placing added pressure on young people’s day to day living and their capacity to manage. These difficulties included both managing day by day having sufficient funds to live and do more than survive, and the difficulties of managing to understand the bureaucracies that need to be negotiated in order to sustain benefits and housing and relationships with social services. Throughout 2021 Baobab’s destitution and hardship grants for young people saw an increase and our capacity to offer support.

As the Government Care Review got under way throughout 2021 and the Nationality and Borders Bill was introduced into the political landscape, the realities of how young people seeking asylum or those with refugee status in the UK, seemed once again to be on the agenda across the sector. Baobab contributed to various consultations, submitted evidenced reports and arranged meetings with MP’s and authorities in the hope to influence legal amendments and some real change in care policy and practice for young people. The Baobab community were actively participating and there was a real collective buzz as there seemed to be a possibility for change. We were making banners for protests, collaborating with networks and building community relationships. The Baobab advocacy team was formalised and there was a real sense that together we could make a difference.’

We began during the time period of this report to reflect on the data that needs to be recorded in order that we might adequately document both the internal struggles of each young person who attends our centre and the external issues about which we need to keep abreast. Young people, and especially those who are under the scrutiny of certain Social Services Departments or who have poor assessments by the Home Office, where their credibility is challenged are likely to have to deal with many changes in terms of

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The Baobab Centre for Young Survivors in Exile: Annual Report

practical support offered, housing and education and subsistence payments. In this context it is important that we as an organization record the details of the support, or absence of support, they are receiving.

The ten key areas we need to document, in order to accurately understand the proportion of time in terms of the practical support offered to each young person are:

- Benefits/Sources of Subsistence Support: Social Services Support., Universal Credit, PIP, Asylum Support (from Home Office) - Housing Issues : Homelessness, Disrepair, Utilities, Temporary Housing, Private Housing, Council Housing - Education : School, College, University, NGO provided classes, Education from tutors at Baobab or elsewhere - Employment : Volunteer Work, Apprenticeships and Training, Employed Work - Asylum Status and Process: Seeking Asylum, Asylum Application Refused, Appeal to Tribunal or Higher Court, Fresh Claim, BRP, Asylum Support, Family Reunion Application - Health and Well Being: GP, Baobab Individual Psychotherapist/Key worker, Specialist consultant (Psychiatric or Physical), Ability to Care for Self (cooking and cleaning self and environment), Activities and Exercise. - Social Services Departments (SSD) Involvement: In SSD care as a child in need, Care Plans, Leaving Care Support, Professionals Meetings - Legal Issues: Community Care, Housing, Public Law (challenging SSD/Home Office re credibility errors), Criminal Law - Financial Support : Debt, Budgeting, Grant Applications - Network of Support: Friendships, Family members in UK, Engaging in group activities inside and outside Baobab, Adult Befrienders (formal through an organization or informal)

It is our aim over the next couple of years to find optimum ways of recording this data and what are for many of our young people numerous changes of accommodation, benefits, care and relationships over time. The majority of young people who attend our centre arrived as unaccompanied asylum-seeking minors, separated from their cultures and communities and families before they reached the age of eighteen. All the young people attending our centre have been repeatedly overwhelmed by traumatic and often violent experiences in their home countries and on their journeys into exile where they will have experienced annihilation and abandonment anxieties, fear that they would be killed or abandoned.

Often in the UK the systems for making asylum decisions and for assessing young people’s need for care and involvement from adults, are prolonged and bureaucratic and young people both feel neglected and unable to manage the level of uncertainty about their futures that they are forced to bear. All the young people attending our centre show both significant vulnerabilities, developmental, and mental health symptoms that indicate how experiences of state and interpersonal violence have interfered with their wellbeing and their capacity to regulate emotions, to assess accurately the environment in which they find themselves, to move forward in their development, and to care for themselves among other symptoms. They also in parallel all show huge resiliencies and strengths.

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The Baobab Centre for Young Survivors in Exile: Annual Report

A Community Member at a Demonstration outside the Houses of Parliament against the Nationality and Borders Bill

Advocacy Work

We have now established an advocacy team which has enabled us to focus on the area of policy and practice challenges where government policy and practice does not function in the best interests of our population. Our advocacy team consists of six members, Rosanna O’Keeffe our Head of Operations, Fabrice Lyczba our Advocacy Administrator, Jodie Bourke, Senior Social Worker/Senior Manager, Mina Radev Social Worker, Tonny Oketta Community member, and Sheila Melzak Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist/Director.

We have continued to maintain a working relationship with Home Office Directors in order to keep open channels of communication both about the situation of individual young people in Baobab’s community who have waited for an excessive amount of time for the resolution of their asylum claims, and about the asylum resolution processes for young asylum seekers in general i.e. not simply those attended our centre.

Key issues that our advocacy team worked on in the 21-22 financial year include the Nationality and Borders Bill (now Act) which divides those who arrive into the UK through routes approved by the government from those who arrive to the UK ‘illegally’. From the perspective of our population this policy shows no understanding of the realities of asylum seekers in a world where the UK government has created few practically available safe routes. The government is preoccupied with individuals (adults and

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The Baobab Centre for Young Survivors in Exile: Annual Report

children) who arrive with people traffickers in flimsy dinghies. The UK press quotes parliamentarians views on trafficking but rarely addresses the helplessness of refugees in terms of finding safe routes when, as in the words of the 1951 Refugee Legislation, individuals and groups have a ‘well-founded fear’ of further persecution or of remaining alive in their home countries. It is our experience that young people NEVER arrive by legitimate routes and that they are rarely included in government approved refugee programmes.

The Bill also proposes a return to age assessment of young asylum seekers and the setting up of a National Age Assessment Board peopled by medical, forensic and anthropology specialists. These proposals are strongly against the best interests of young people.

Our advocacy work will aim to continue our focus on policies and practices that set up barriers to young people accessing services that are, developmentally in their best interests. This will include addressing problems in the asylum -seeking processes; the asylum support processes (including housing and subsistence); the issue of age assessment, and the issues involved with family reunion. Currently it is clear that the services offered to young refugees are fragmented and inadequate and that they set up barriers to young asylum seekers moving forward in their development and integrating into UK society. Currently both the Home Office and many Social Services Departments outsource the services they offer to young people. These services are paid for from the budgets of statutory services but they seem to have little scrutiny, so many young people experience that their needs are not met and in fact that the services they are offered are neglectful and sometimes abusive, for example placing developing adolescents in accommodation with troubled adults or frequent moves of accommodation which, for vulnerable young people, are unsettling and disorientating.

The ‘Resilience Book’ available for purchase on Baobab’s Website

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The Baobab Centre for Young Survivors in Exile: Annual Report

On a creative positive note we were asked to present at a conference during this year, organized by a new project, Equal Justice for Migrant Children which was led by Catriona Jervis and Syd Bolton from the organization Methoria. They are leading on work with their colleagues (judges, solicitors, barristers, social workers and clinicians), on the idea of setting up a separate court for young asylum seekers that addresses both the asylum and the welfare needs of children and young people. We made a film for this conference of young people talking about their current experiences of the care and asylum systems in the UK and Sheila Melzak talked about the challenging processes of the Home Office and Social Services Departments and what changes we would like to happen. This conference is designed to take place annually while they build their organization and fundraise for a pilot project.

Monitoring and Evaluation

Over six years our monitoring and evaluation has been carried out by students from the Anna Freud Centre and led by Saul Hillman from the Anna Freud Centre. Saul and some of his master’s students, initially developed a baseline measure looking at anxiety, depression, regulation of affect, behaviour and resilience. Since that year they have annually carried out the evaluation using their baseline measure developed specifically for our population. Over the six years many young people have been involved in the evaluation process.

Saul Hillman told us he is taking a sabbatical later this year. Co-incidentally we were approached by two clinical psychologists who had set up a small organization (BC Psychology) to work with the mental health needs of minority groups in the UK, including working with issues of cultural and ethnic diversity and their impact on mental health. Kenny Chiu and Mazda Beigi have developed a slightly different monitoring and evaluation model. Unlike Saul Hillman’s model which compared general results of our work across the years, Kenny and Mazda are looking, in a more specific way, only at young people who repeatedly participated in the monitoring and evaluation process rather than looking at the cohort who only participated occasionally even though they attended Baobab over several years. This is thus a smaller number but will yield a deeper and more nuanced results. Our 2021 report is due to be published in early 2022 and the analysis of our 2022 results are ongoing.

Additional Activities

Community Meetings

Our monthly community meeting now is preceded by a warm meal sometimes prepared with our community members with a 90 minute community meeting after the hour set aside for the meal. A variety of subjects are explored in the community meeting including, during this time period, confidentiality, fund raising material, our external context in the UK, the political context of the main countries where our young people originate and preparing a cabaret for our Christmas party. The aim of our Community Meetings is to enable young people to find their own voice, to be able to tolerate disagreements and eventually to disagree.

Mentoring Training and Support

We decided to begin our mentoring training on our summer residential retreat at MB3 in Gloucestershire. We covered several issues such as well -being and taking care of yourself, listening, boundaries and the role of a mentor. We plan more training sessions and then to run an ongoing support group for the mentors once they have been allocated mentees.

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The Baobab Centre for Young Survivors in Exile: Annual Report

Health Issues

We now have a volunteer GP coming once a month to meet with young people to discuss general access to a GP and to GP appointments, sexual health and individual health difficulties and how to access specialist assessment. These discussions give young people the opportunity to talk openly about their fears about health difficulties, treatments and medication. Our volunteer GP is able to pitch the discussion in a clear and informative way that all the participants can understand.

Developments in the area of Increased Involvement of Young People in Our Operations and Governance Processes.

We have for some time now been thinking how we can ensure that those with lived experience of coming to the UK to seek asylum as a child, or adolescent are offered suitable roles as members of the staff of Baobab. Alongside this, we have been thinking about ways of bringing community members into our staff body, in ways which would be mutually beneficial. We have been thinking, about what might be suitable roles, in terms of their capacities and their wishes to learn.

We already include young people on interview panels for new staff and on working groups for project decisions within our community e.g. strategic planning or planning for one off events. We also have a former community member as a member of our trustee board. We are hoping to create some posts for community mentors for a small number of our young community members who will have the opportunity to develop their skills in areas of work such as financial management, office management or some aspects of casework.

Operations, Fundraising, HR and Financial Management

Our Operations Team meets weekly to discuss our young people’s practical needs and in particular, individual needs for destitution and hardship support. At this meeting we also review young people who are a safeguarding concern. At any one time we tend to need to talk about a few members of our community i.e. five to eight and not more. Through our Operations Meetings we have been able to recognise the need for a Destitution and Hardship fund and we have been generously supported in this task by one of our generous individual donors David Kogan. We very much appreciate his ongoing involvement and active interest in our work and his annual meetings with some of our staff and young people.

Our Operations and Admin Team also oversee our programme of additional activities. We aim to run one outing a month except for in the college holidays where we hold several activities each week. In the summer 2021 programme this included kayaking, a beach trip, cycling, picnicking on Hampstead Heath as well as our week long residential retreat.

Fundraising and Finance

It has been a challenging year for us financially with most of our grants coming in, in the last quarter and several of our multi-year funders ending their funding at the same time. Thanks to a concerted effort from our fundraising team, the extra support of some of our generous donors, and the successful grants which came in in the last quarter of the year we were able to avoid ending the year in deficit.

Our finance team of administrator Mark, Accountant Rob under the leadership of Rosanna Head of Operations, have raised the quality and clarity of our accounts. Their contribution to Baobab is both fundamental, and like gold dust, precious and without this team we would not survive as an organization. We hold a regular finance meeting of our finance committee and monthly accounts are produced. In

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what has been a challenging and difficult year for the young people we support, and for us in raising money in order to provide that support we would like to thank our funders – small and large. As a small charity every contribution makes a significant difference, we would particularly like to thank all those individuals and trusts who came together to ensure we ended the year in a stable position.

----- Start of picture text -----
Please see below a list of our donors including trusts and individual donors. We would
also like to thank many of our generous Individual Donors who wish to remain
anonymous.
- A B Charitable Trust
- Ashworth Charitable Trust
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The Alan and Babette Sainsbury Charitable Fund
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The National Lottery Community Fund – Awards for All
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Bleu Blanc Rouge Foundation
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The Bromley Trust
- Children in Need
- The David Cock Foundation
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David Kogan
- Evan Cornish Foundation
- Garfield Weston Foundation
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Lloyds Bank Foundation
- Lucille Foundation
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Network for Social Change Charitable Trust
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Peter Stebbings Memorial Charity
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The Rayne Foundation
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The Reel Fund – David Kogan and Leah Schmidt
- The Roddick Foundation
- Samworth Foundation
-
Stanley Thomas Johnson Foundation
- The Souter Charitable Trust
- The Tudor Trust
-
Unbound Philanthropy
----- End of picture text -----

Employed Staff and Volunteer Clinicians

Over the period of time covered by this Annual Report a large group of young people have attended weekly for individual psychotherapy. We always have concerns about our capacity to offer unlimited psychotherapeutic help to a large number of young people and at the same time to attend to the wellbeing of our staff who listen to the young people’s experiences of human rights abuses and their consequences, and who work within a hostile and troubling political context where a great deal of fake news about refugees is spoken, published and reported. We offer all clinical staff individual and group supervision including an all staff monthly reflective meeting which is facilitated by an experienced group analyst but we have begun to reflect further on the process of how better to support our valued staff and volunteers. We are thinking about keeping issues of staff well- being in mind and introducing ways to address well-being issues in the best ways possible. To this end, with support of our funders, we are developing a small wellbeing fund in the aspiration to support all members of staff to find ways within

16

The Baobab Centre for Young Survivors in Exile: Annual Report

their professional frames of reference to manage the various stressors in their lives and find ways to understand links between body and mind as well as finding ways to relax.

We currently have six part time employed clinicians, including part of the hours of our director and two interpreters who wish to learn to become group workers; three part time employed social work/case work practitioners, and one volunteer case worker, and five part time volunteer clinicians. We have four part time volunteer teachers and three very part time employed teachers, two for music and one for our philosophy group and one volunteer administrator. We have one full time employed Head of Operations and fundraising and four part time employed administrators.

We are hugely appreciative of our volunteer staff most of whom have been with us for some years and who provide us with the possibilities of enhanced capacity to offer individual psychotherapy and case work and to flesh out the details of our holistic model of working. We thank them all formally here. We also keep in mind our very generous, group of trustees, in terms of their time, and their relationship with our organization as critical friends.

Our External Context

We continue to be troubled by the dysfunctional processes of the Home Office and the impact of the Home Secretary’s policies on the young people with whom we work, and on their families. The family reunion processes, even from Afghanistan after all the promises from Priti Patel, are slow to the point of being non- functional. Families and young and unaccompanied minors are housed in hotels and have remained there for months.

The thinking in the Home Office as it is operationalised and put into practice still obfuscates and muddles immigrants and asylum seekers. Troubled and vulnerable minors, overwhelmed by a series of traumatic events in their home countries, and on their journeys to the UK are met by workers many of whom have internalised the hostile environment. Young people in mourning and suffering from complex posttraumatic stress disorder are age assessed in a clumsy and unscientific way and placed in below standard accommodation. Their accounts of their experiences are often met by suspicion and challenges to their credibility by workers who cannot imagine or reflect on the detail of their histories.

It is in the light of these facts that we are thinking about how we might work to try to ensure that we take on new community members soon after their arrival in the UK as well as continuing to maintain a constructive dialogue with the Home Office. We aim in our future plans to develop our Advocacy work in an effort to tackle specific challenges to the wellbeing of our population including on one hand inadequate assessments of young people’s narrative and age and the serious avoidance of the serious impacts on functioning and thinking of young people’s state of mind and mental health and developmental difficulties and on the other hand the provision of poor accommodation where protection and safeguarding concerns have frequently to be raised. These often receive a very slow response. We plan to refine the areas of policy and practice of the Home Office and Social Services departments and to use our documented evidence and research in order to advocate on behalf of our population.

Conclusion

Our work during this year has been aimed at fortifying our centre and making it more resilient in the face of the political and economic context in which we find ourselves. We are very clear about our aims and our goals and our resources. We aim to find ways to retain committed staff for as long as is realistically possible as continuity of relationships between adults and young people at Baobab is very important for

17

The Baobab Centre for Young Survivors in Exile: Annual Report

wellbeing. It is especially hard to be a child refugee in Europe at this time. In order to safeguard young people and address their developmental needs and their rehabilitation in the context of their human rights as children and adolescents we aim over the next year to develop a five year strategic plan to underpin Baobab and to continue to develop and to integrate both our rehabilitation work and our advocacy.

Finally I would like to share with you a poem a quiet young man who is a member of our community sent on our young people chatroom. This poem echoes our aims and objectives and through this poem we would like to pass on thanks to all those, staff, volunteers, funders and supporters who make our work possible.

At the Baobab Centre, young survivors find a home

A place of safety and support, where they can heal and grow A place where they can learn and play, and make new friends Where they can find a sense of belonging and a sense of hope

The Baobab Centre is a lifeline for young refugees Who have fled war, persecution, and violence And who have lost so much along the way Their homes, their families, and their childhoods

At the Baobab Centre, they are not alone They are surrounded by others who have shared their pain And who understand the trauma that they have endured They are given the care and attention that they need

The Baobab Centre is a beacon of light In a world that can be dark and cruel It is a place of compassion and kindness Where young survivors can find a new beginning

The Baobab Centre is a shining example Of what can be done to help those in need And to give hope to those who have lost everything It is a symbol of the human spirit And of the resilience and strength of young survivors in exile.

Sheila Melzak Director Baobab Centre Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist January 6th 2023

18

BAOBAB CENTRE FOR YOUNG SURVIVORS IN EXILE (A COMPANY LIMITED BY GUARANTEE)

ANNUAL REPORT AND FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR YEAR ENDED 31ST MARCH 2022

COMPANY REGISTRATION No: 6816297 CHARITY REGISTRATION No: 1135407

Pages 2 to 7 Report of the Directors Page 9 Statement of Financial Activities Page 9 Balance Sheet Pages 10 to 15 Notes to the Financial Statements Page 16 Independent Examiners Report to the Directors

Independent Examiners Ltd 2 Broadbridge Business Centre Delling Lane Bosham West Sussex

BAOBAB CENTRE FOR YOUNG SURVIVORS IN EXILE (A COMPANY LIMITED BY GUARANTEE)

LEGAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION

COMPANY REGISTRATION NUMBER

6816297

CHARITY NUMBER

1135407 (registered 8-Apr-10)

START OF FINANCIAL YEAR

01-Apr-21

END OF FINANCIAL YEAR

31-Mar-22

DIRECTORS AT 31ST MARCH 2022

Claire Helman - Chair John Clark Gill Martin Melanie McFadyean James Welsh Herman Otto Felicity Dirmeik Holly Hemming Enla Fees

COMPANY SECRETARY

Sheila Melzak

REGISTERED ADDRESS

6 Manor Gardens LONDON N7 6LA

WEBSITE

www.baobabsurvivors.org

DATE OF INCORPORATION

11-Feb-09

COMPANY STATUS

Company Limited by Guarantee

GOVERNING DOCUMENT

Memorandum and Articles of Association incorporated 11 February 2009 as amended by special resolution 24 February 2010.

BANKERS

Co-operative Bank 1 Islington High Street London N1 9TR

INDEPENDENT EXAMINER

Independent Examiners Ltd 2 Broadbridge Business Centre Delling Lane Basham West Sussex PO18 8NF

2

BAOBAB CENTRE FOR YOUNG SURVIVORS IN EXILE (A COMPANY LIMITED BY GUARANTEE)

Objects

  1. The relief of children and young people who have suffered violence and are asylum seekers and refugees in Europe, in particular by the provision of psychotherapy, counselling and support.

  2. To advance education in the circumstances of children and young people who have suffered violence in their home countries and who are asylum seekers and refugees in Europe, in particular by undertaking research and publishing the useful results thereof.

Public Benefit

The Trustees confirm that they have complied with the requirements of section 17 of the Charities Act 2011 to have due regard to the public benefit guidance published by the Charity Commission for England and Wales.

Objects and Activities

Fuller information about our work can be found in our Annual Report available on application. Our areas of work include:

Over the last year 75 young people attended the Baobab Centre for regular psychotherapy, with 25 also attending group psychotherapy. Over the year we re-opened our referral process, and 11 new young people joined our community. The young people in our community come from 21 different countries, predominantly Afghanistan (36%), but also Ethiopia, DRC, Nigeria, Bangladesh, China, Iran, and others. 80% of those we supported are young men and boys while 20% are young women and girls. Alongside psychotherapy we provided holistic care to the young people in our community, including practical support, casework support, support through the asylum seeking process and community activities. During the summer we ran a programme of additional activities and a week-long residential retreat which was attended by nine young people and two mentors. At the end of the year we grew our casework team to meet the increased need from our community.

In addition to this direct work with young people in our community, Baobab’s Advocacy has had significant successes over the last year. Baobab submitted a response to the Nationality and Borders Bill and met with our community members and members of the House of Lords and House of Commons about the Bill as well as the situation in Afghanistan and the lack of safe passage for refugees from Afghanistan to the UK. A member of Baobab’s community was quoted by Baroness Lister in the House of Lords in a discussion of the Bill in February 2022 and several articles were published in the Byline Times as well as a feature on ITV news about Baobab’s work and the situations the young people we support face.

3

BAOBAB CENTRE FOR YOUNG SURVIVORS IN EXILE (A COMPANY LIMITED BY GUARANTEE)

The Baobab Centre acknowledges with appreciation the financial support during the year of:

4

BAOBAB CENTRE FOR YOUNG SURVIVORS IN EXILE (A COMPANY LIMITED BY GUARANTEE)

Financial Review

The Directors report an excess of income over expenditure for the year of £45,817 (2021, £151,461). Total income for the year was £547,116 (2021, £657,189) of which £276,969 was unrestricted income (2021, 183,981) and £270,147 was restricted income (2021, £473,208). Total expenditure for the year was £501,299 (2021, £505,728).

Total income for the year significantly reduced from the prior year, largely as a result of prior year income being buoyed by grants that aimed to help with the impact of Covid on the young people supported by the Baobab Centre. However, despite this, overall income for this year compares favourably with income received between 2017 and 2020, a result of improved fundraising and the support of a range of fantastic grant givers.

Reserves

The Trustees have set a reserves policy which requires that reserves be maintained at, at least a level which ensures that the Baobab Centre's core activity can continue during a period of unforeseen difficulty. The Trustees are to hold the charity's reserves at a level which is at least equivalent to six months reduced operational expenditure, currently considered to be £253,751. We also have a commitment to ensuring that we maintain restricted funds at any given point during the year at the level necessary to fulfil the conditions of any grant and the expectations of any funder. Where funding has been received, we guarantee the use of the funds will be spread over the full period of the grant agreement and thereby fulfil any commitment we have made to the funder.

In line with best practice in the charity sector, the Baobab Centre seeks to hold a reserve that exceeds this minimum position in order;

The calculation of the required level of reserves is an integral part of the Baobab Centre's planning, budgeting and forecasting cycle. It takes into accounts the risks associated with each stream of income and expenditure varying from budget, planned activity level and future commitments.

When unrestricted reserves are low we will manage income shortages by controlling expenditure and will retain in the reserve sufficient funds to meet our legal obligations in the event of closure. On 31st March 2022 the amount carried forward as unrestricted reserves was £269,382. The restricted level of funds carried forward was £196,923 and the level of free reserves held at the year end was £249,854.

We have therefore maintained a free reserve level that represents close to 6-months reduced operational expenditure. Reserves will only be expended in pursuit of the above aims and as a result of a decision by the Board.

Going concern

At the time of budget setting for the 2022/23 financial year, Baobab Centre had secured income of £293,441, a shortfall of £299,990 against budgeted expenditure. The lack of recurrent and multi-year funding that matches expenditure needs, remains a challenge for Baobab Centre each year. Trustees monitor the situation through regular meetings of the Finance Committee through which they receive

5

BAOBAB CENTRE FOR YOUNG SURVIVORS IN EXILE

(A COMPANY LIMITED BY GUARANTEE)

updates on fundraising, and through a regular review of the current, and forecast reserve position. Trustees are confident, given the reserve position and additional funds secured through the 2022/23 year that Baobab Centre has adequate resources to continue in operational existence for the foreseeable future. For this reason Trustees continue to adopt the going concern basis in preparing the financial statements.

Risk Management

The Directors have reviewed the risks to which the charity is exposed and have ensured appropriate controls are in place to provide reasonable assurance against fraud and error.

Plans for Future periods

The focus for the Baobab Centre is to continue to support as many young people as possible for as long as we are able to. In order to ensure continued financial stability during these challenging economic times we are focused on ensuring that we can obtain multi year grants that support our core work, which will allow our management team to focus on delivery.

Structure, Governance and Management

The Baobab Centre is registered as Charitable Company Limited by Guarantee. The management of the Company is the responsibility of the Trustees who are appointed according to the process outlined in the Memorandum of Association. The Trustees are responsible for recruiting and appointing the senior staff within the Company, and for setting the pay for each year. The Director is responsible for the day to day management of the Baobab Centre and its activities.

6

BAOBAB CENTRE FOR YOUNG SURVIVORS IN EXILE

(A COMPANY LIMITED BY GUARANTEE)

Statement of Director's Responsibilities:

Company law requires the directors to prepare financial statements for each financial year which gives a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the company and of the profit or loss of the company during that period. In preparing those financial statements the directors are required to:

(iii) prepare financial statements on a going concern basis unless it is inappropriate to presume that the company will continue in business.

The directors are responsible for keeping proper accounting records which disclose with reasonable accuracy at any time the financial position of the company and to enable them to ensure that the financial statements comply with the Companies Act 2006. They are also responsible for safeguarding the assets of the company and hence for taking reasonable steps for the prevention and detection of fraud and other irregularities. In preparing this report the directors have taken advantage of special provisions of the Companies Act 2006 relating to small companies.

We approve the attached statement of financial activities and balance sheet for the year ended 31st March 2022, and confirm that we have made available all information necessary for its preparation.

Approved by the Directors on 23[rd] November 2022 and

. Signed on their behalf by Director, , Claire Helman

7

BAOBAB CENTRE FOR YOUNG SURVIVORS IN EXILE

(A COMPANY LIMITED BY GUARANTEE)

INDEPENDENT EXAMINER'S REPORT TO THE TRUSTEES OF BAOBAB CENTRE FOR YOUNG SURVIVORS IN EXILE

I report to the charity Trustees on my examination of the accounts of the charity for the year ended 31 March 2022 which are set out on pages 9 to 18.

Respective responsibilities of Trustees and examiner

As the charity’s Trustees of Baobab Centre for Young Survivors in Exile (and also its directors for the purposes of company law) you are responsible for the preparation of the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Companies Act 2006 (‘the 2006 Act’).

Having satisfied myself that the accounts of Baobab Centre for Young Survivors in Exile are not required to be audited under Part 16 of the 2006 Act and are eligible for independent examination, I report in respect of my examination of your charity’s accounts as carried out under section 145 of the Charities Act 2011 (‘the 2011 Act’). In carrying out my examination I have followed the Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5)(b) of the 2011 Act.

Independent examiner’s statement

Since Baobab Centre for Young Survivors in Exile's gross income exceeded £250,000 your examiner must be a member of a body listed in section 145 of the 2011 Act. I confirm that I am qualified to undertake the examination because I am a member of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, which is one of the listed bodies.

I have completed my examination. I confirm that no matters have come to my attention in connection with the examination giving me cause to believe:

  1. accounting records were not kept in respect of Baobab Centre for Young Survivors in Exile as required by section 386 of the 2006 Act; or

  2. the accounts do not accord with those records; or

  3. the accounts do not comply with the accounting requirements of section 396 of the 2006 Act other than any requirement that the accounts give a ‘true and fair view' which is not a matter considered as part of an independent examination; or

  4. the accounts have not been prepared in accordance with the methods and principles of the Statement of Recommended Practice for accounting and reporting by charities [applicable to charities preparing their accounts in accordance with the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102)].

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.

...................................... G W Schulz ACMA Independent Examiners Ltd Unit 2 Broadbridge Business Centre Delling Lane Bosham Chichester PO18 8NF

23 November 2022

8

BAOBAB CENTRE FOR YOUNG SURVIVORS IN EXILE

(A COMPANY LIMITED BY GUARANTEE)

STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL ACTIVITIES FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2022

Notes
INCOME & ENDOWMENTS FROM:
Donations & Legacies
Voluntary Income
2
Grants
Major Individual Donors
Donations
Gift Aid Tax Recoverable
Trading Activities
Report Income
Investment
Total Income
EXPENDITURE ON:
Raising Funds
3a
Charitable activities
3b
TOTAL EXPENDITURE
NET INCOME/EXPENDITURE
Total funds brought forward
TOTAL FUNDS CARRIED FORWARD		 £
£
£
Unrestricted
Restricted
TOTAL
190,000
238,247
428,247
38,500
31,900
70,400
30,156
0
30,156
14,800
0
14,800
3,513
-
3,513
-
-
-
276,969
270,147
547,116
15,794
5,608
21,402
264,154
215,743
479,897
279,948
221,351
501,299
-2,979
48,796
45,817
272,362
148,126
420,488
269,382
196,923
466,305
2022		 2021
TOTAL
537,586
89,584
25,668
694
3,657
-
657,189
27,501
478,227
505,728
151,461
269,027
420,488

Movements on all reserves and all recognised gains and losses are shown above. All of the organisation's operations are classed as continuing.

The notes on pages 12 to 18 form part of these financial statements.

9

BAOBAB CENTRE FOR YOUNG SURVIVORS IN EXILE (A COMPANY LIMITED BY GUARANTEE)

REGISTRATION NUMBER: 6816297 BALANCE SHEET AS AT MARCH 31 2022

Notes
FIXED ASSETS
Tangible Assets
1
CURRENT ASSETS
Debtors and prepayments
5
Cash at bank and in hand
Total Current Assets
CREDITORS: Amounts falling due
within one year
6
NET CURRENT ASSETS
NET ASSETS
REPRESENTED BY:
Unrestricted
Designated funds
Restricted Funds
4		 Unrestricted
Restricted
Total
Funds
Funds
31-Mar-22
£
£
£
-
-
-
7,134
64
7,198
275,625
199,013
474,638
282,759
199,077
481,836
13,377
2,154
15,531
269,382
196,923
466,305
269,382
196,923
466,305
249,854
249,854
19,528
19,528
196,923
196,923
269,382
196,923
466,305		 Total
31-Mar-21
£
-
7,044
432,885
439,929
19,441
420,488
420,488
253,316
19,046
148,126
420,488

For the year ending 31st March 2022 the company was entitled to exemption from audit under section 477 of the Companies Act 2006 relating to small companies.

Directors' Responsibilities

These financial statements have been prepared in accordance with the special provisions relating to companies subject to the small companies regime within Part 15 of the Companies Act 2006.

Approved by the Directors on 23[rd] November 2022 and

Signed on their behalf by

, Claire Helman, Chair of Directors

The notes on pages 12 to 18 form part of these financial statements.

10

BAOBAB CENTRE FOR YOUNG SURVIVORS IN EXILE (A COMPANY LIMITED BY GUARANTEE)

STATEMENT OF CASH FLOWS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2022

Cash flows from operating activities
Net income/(expenditure)
Working capital adjustments
(Increase)/ decrease in stocks
(Increase)/decrease in debtors
Increase/(decrease) in creditors
Net cash flows from operating activities
Cash flows from investing activities
Dividends, interest and rents from investments
Purchase/sale of fixed assets
Purchase/sale of investments
Net cash flows from investing activities
Cash flows from financing activities
Repayments of borrowing
Cash inflows from new borrowing
Net cash flows from financing activities
Net increase/(decrease) in cash and cash equivalents
Cash and cash equivalents at the beginning of the year
Cash and cash equivalents at the end of the year
Analysis of cash and cash equivalents
Cash at bank and in hand
Total cash and cash equivalents		 2022
2021
£
£
45,817
151,461
-
-
-154
14,105
-3,910
8,143
41,753
173,709
-
-
-
-
-
-
0
0
-
-
-
-
0
0
41,753
173,709
432,885
259,176
474,638
432,885
2022
2021
£
£
474,638
432,885
474,638
432,885

The notes on pages 12 to 18 form part of these financial statements.

11

BAOBAB CENTRE FOR YOUNG SURVIVORS IN EXILE (A COMPANY LIMITED BY GUARANTEE) NOTES TO FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2022

1. ACCOUNTING POLICIES

Summary of significant accounting policies and key accounting estimates

The principal accounting policies applied in the preparation of these financial statements are set out below. These policies have been consistently applied to all the years presented, unless otherwise stated.

Statement of compliance

The financial statements have been prepared in accordance with Accounting and Reporting by Charities: Statement of Recommended Practice applicable to charities preparing their accounts in accordance with the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102) (effective 1 January 2019) - (Charities SORP (FRS 102)), the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102). They also comply with the Companies Act 2006 and Charities Act 2011.

Basis of preparation

Boabab meets the definition of a public benefit entity under FRS 102. Assets and liabilities are initially recognised at historical cost or transaction value unless otherwise stated in the relevant accounting policy notes.

Incoming Resources

Recognition of Incoming Resources

These are included in the Statement of Financial Activities (SOFA) when:

Incoming Resources with related expenditure

Where incoming resources have related expenditure (as with fundraising or contract income) the incoming resource and related expenditure are reported gross in the SOFA.

Grants and Donations

Income from donations and grants, including capital grants, is included in incoming resources when these are receivable, except as follows:

When donors specify that donations and grants, including capital grants, are for particular restricted purposes, which do not amount to pre-conditions regarding entitlement, this income is included in incoming resources of restricted funds receivable.

Tax reclaims on Donations and Gifts

Incoming resources from tax reclaims are included in the SOFA in the same financial period as the gift to which they relate.

Contractual Income and Performance Related Grants

This is only included in the SOFA once the related goods or services has been delivered.

12

BAOBAB CENTRE FOR YOUNG SURVIVORS IN EXILE (A COMPANY LIMITED BY GUARANTEE) NOTES TO FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2022

Gifts in Kind

Gifts in kind are accounted for at a reasonable estimate of their value to the charity or the amount actually realised. Gifts in kind for sale or distribution are included in the accounts as gifts only when sold or distributed by the charity. Gifts in kind for use by the charity are included in the SOFA as incoming resources when receivable.

Donated Services and Facilities

These are only included in incoming resources (with an equivalent amount in resources expended) where the benefit to the charity is reasonably quantifiable, measurable and material. The value placed on these resources is the estimated value to the charity of the service or facility received.

Volunteer Help

The value of any voluntary help received is not included in the accounts.

Incoming Resources Continued

Investment Income

This is included in the accounts when receivable.

Investment gains and losses

This included any gain or loss on the sale of investments and any gain or loss resulting from revaluing investments to market value at the end of the year.

Expenditure and liabilities

Liability recognition

Liabilities are recognised as soon as there is a legal or constructive obligation committing the charity to pay out resources.

Governance Costs

Includes costs of the preparation and examination of statutory accounts, the costs of the Directors' meetings and cost of any legal advice to Directors on governance or constitutional matters.

Grants with performance conditions

Where the charity gives a grant with conditions for its payment being a specific level of service or output to be provided, such grants are only recognised in the SOFA once the recipient of the grant has provided the specified service or output.

Changes in Accounting policies and previous accounts

There has been no change to the accounting policies (variation rules and methods of accounting) since last year, and no changes to the previous accounts.

Support Costs

Support costs include central functions and have been allocated to activity cost categories on a basis consistent with the use of the resources, eg allocating property costs by floor areas, or per capita, staff costs by the time spent and other costs by their usage.

Assets

Tangible fixed assets for use by the charity:

These are capitalised if they can be used for more than one year, and cost at least £1,000. They are valued at cost or, if gifted, at the value to the charity on receipt. The Company has no individual assets costing more than £1,000.

13

BAOBAB CENTRE FOR YOUNG SURVIVORS IN EXILE

(A COMPANY LIMITED BY GUARANTEE) NOTES TO FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2022

Investments

Investments quoted on a recognised stock exchange are valued at market value at the year end. Other investment assets are included at Directors' best estimate of market value.

14

BAOBAB CENTRE FOR YOUNG SURVIVORS IN EXILE (A COMPANY LIMITED BY GUARANTEE) NOTES TO FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2022

2. Grants Receivable
GRANTS RECEIVABLE
A B Charitable Trust
Ashworth Charitable Trust
The Alan & Babette Sainsbury Charitable Fund
The National Lottery Community Fund Awards For All
Bleu Blanc Rouge Foundation
The Bromley Trust
Children in Need
City Bridge Trust
Comic Relief
The David Cock Foundation
David Kogan
Evan Cornish Foundation
Garfield Weston Foundation
The Henry Smith Charity
Lloyds Bank Foundation
London Catalyst
Lucille Foundation
Network for Social Change Charitable Trust
Peter Stebbings Memorial Charity
The Rayne Foundation
The Reel Fund - David Kogan and Leah Schmidt
The Roddick Foundation
Samworth Foundation
Stanley Thomas Johnson Foundation
The Souter Charitable Trust
The Tudor Trust
Unbound Philanthropy
Various Grants below £1,001
MAJOR INDIVIDUAL DONORS
DONATIONS
LEGACIES & BEQUESTS
GIFT AID TAX RECOVERABLE
TOTAL VOLUNTARY INCOME		 Unrestricted
Funds
£
10,000
10,000
5,000
20,000
5,000
5,000
20,000
10,000
30,000
5,000
70,000		 Unrestricted
Funds
£
10,000
10,000
5,000
20,000
5,000
5,000
20,000
10,000
30,000
5,000
70,000		 Restricted
Funds
£
3,000
10,000
40,064
33,750
12,000
5,000
15,000
-
23,890
7,712
5,000
40,000
31,331
10,000
1,500
2022		 Restricted
Funds
£
3,000
10,000
40,064
33,750
12,000
5,000
15,000
-
23,890
7,712
5,000
40,000
31,331
10,000
1,500
2022		 2021
TOTAL
TOTAL
Funds
Funds
£
-
10,000
10,000
3,000
10,000
10,000
10,000
5,000
20,000
15,000
40,064
29,475
33,750
51,250
-
51,143
5,000
12,000
5,000
15,000
-
41,000
23,890
33,900
-
1,250
5,000
7,712
5,000
5,000
20,000
15,000
10,000
30,000
30,000
40,000
90,105
31,331
110,893
5,000
70,000
42,000
10,000
1,500
1,570
428,247
537,586
70,400
89,584
30,156
25,668
-
-
14,800
694
543,603
653,532		 2021
TOTAL
190,000 238,247
38,500
30,156
14,800		 31,900
273,456 270,147

15

BAOBAB CENTRE FOR YOUNG SURVIVORS IN EXILE (A COMPANY LIMITED BY GUARANTEE) NOTES TO FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2022

3. EXPENDITURE ON:
a) Raising Funds
Fundraising database and tools
External Fundraising services
b) Charitable Activities
Staff Salaries
Sessional Fees
Interpreters
Supervision
Holiday Projects
Beneficiary Expenses
Staff Training & Volunteer Costs
Education
Hardship payments
Beneficiary Legal Fees
Premises costs
Training, Lecturers & Conferences
Monitoring and Evaluation
Board Costs
Bank Charges and Filing Fee
Management Accountancy Fees and Software
Independent Examination
HR Costs
Covid 19 Emergency Response		 Unrestricted
Funds
£
412
15,382
15,794
127,297
5,335
36,188
2,284
8,799
31,004
554
553
1,478
800
25,692
26
512
162
3,181
0
5,248
15,042		 Unrestricted
Funds
£
412
15,382
15,794
127,297
5,335
36,188
2,284
8,799
31,004
554
553
1,478
800
25,692
26
512
162
3,181
0
5,248
15,042		 Restricted
Funds
£
146
5,462
5,608
138,476
4,976
11,882
900
0
8,012
1,244
2,163
2,934
0
39,947
1,738
0
0
0
960
776
1,735
2022		 Restricted
Funds
£
146
5,462
5,608
138,476
4,976
11,882
900
0
8,012
1,244
2,163
2,934
0
39,947
1,738
0
0
0
960
776
1,735
2022		 TOTAL
Funds
£
558
20,844
21,402
265,773
10,311
48,070
3,184
8,799
39,016
1,798
2,716
4,412
800
65,639
1,764
512
162
3,181
960
6,024
16,776
479,897		 2021
TOTAL
Funds
96
27,405
27,501
223,200
17,289
32,866
2,385
5,188
6,350
4,005
25,081
4,538
1,519
52,344
1,404
2,306
35
221
3,327
960
0
95,209
264,154 215,743 478,227

In addition to the staff salaries lines, payments are made to casual staff who support Baobab’s work, and whose costs are included within the Monitoring and Evaluation, Holiday Projects and Interpreters lines. The total cost of all staff for 2021/22 is £268,660. A detailed breakdown of these costs can be found in note 7.

16

BAOBAB CENTRE FOR YOUNG SURVIVORS IN EXILE (A COMPANY LIMITED BY GUARANTEE) NOTES TO FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2022

4. RESTRICTED FUNDS
Ashworth Charitable Trust
The National Lottery Community
Fund Awards For All
Children in Need
City Bridge Trust
David Kogan
Evan Cornish Foundation
Garfield Weston Foundation
The Henry Smith Charity
Lloyds Bank Foundation
Network for Social Change Charitable
Trust
Peter Stebbings Memorial Charity
Samworth Foundation
Stanley Thomas Johnson Foundation
The Tudor Trust
Unbound Philanthropy
Various Grants below £1,001
MAJOR DONORS
Total restricted funds		 Balance at
Income
Expenditure
Balance at
1st April 2021
31 Mar 2022
£
£
£
£
-
3,000
1,000
2,000
-
10,000
1,685
8,315
326
40,064
30,131
10,259
10,366
33,750
32,877
11,239
-
12,000
3,817
8,183
-
5,000
1,667
3,333
-
15,000
729
14,271
20,500
-
20,500
0
9,032
23,890
21,177
11,745

-
7,712
1,286
6,426
-
5,000
3,333
1,667
38,391
40,000
27,193
51,198
53,321
31,331
54,688
29,964
900
-
900
-
-
10,000
1,667
8,333
870
1,500
2,370
-
14,421
31,900
16,331
29,990
148,127
270,147
221,351
196,923

5. DEBTORS AND PREPAYMENTS

Accrued Revenue
Tax Recoverable
Debtors & Prepayments		 Unrestricted
Restricted
Total
Total
Funds
Funds
31-Mar-22
31-Mar-21
£
£
£
£
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
7,134
64
7,198
7,044
7,134
64
7,198
7,044

6. CREDITORS AND DEFERRED INCOME: AMOUNTS FALLING DUE WITHIN ONE YEAR

Creditors
Accruals
Independent Examiner fees
Payroll Liabilities		 Unrestricted
Restricted
Total
Total
Funds
Funds
31-Mar-22
31-Mar-21
£
£
£
£
3,489
794
4,283
5,202
1,896
400
2,296
6,780
960
960
960
7,992
7,992
6,499
13,377
2,154
15,531
19,441

17

BAOBAB CENTRE FOR YOUNG SURVIVORS IN EXILE (A COMPANY LIMITED BY GUARANTEE) NOTES TO FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2022

7. STAFF COST, NUMBERS & VOLUNTEERS

Gross Wages & Salaries
Employer's National Insurance Costs
Pension Contributions
Full Time Equivalent Staff who were engaged in each
of the following activities:
Activities in furtherance of
Organisations Objects		 Total
Total
31-Mar-22
31-Mar-21
£
£
240,917
200,659
15,982
12,590
11,761
9,951
268,660
223,200
Total
Total
31-Mar-22
31-Mar-21
7
6
7
6

No employee received emoluments in excess of £60,000. Staff are paid through the PAYE scheme. During the financial year the company benefitted from unpaid work performed by volunteers.

8. DIRECTORS & OTHER RELATED PARTIES

No payments were made to directors or any persons connected with them during the financial period. No material transaction took place between the organisation and a trustee or any person connected with them.

9. COMPANY STATUS

The company is limited by guarantee and therefore has no share capital. The member's liability under the guarantee is restricted to a maximum of £10.

10. CONTINGENT LIABILITIES

The charity had no material contingent liabilities at 31 March 2022 (2021 none)

18