| Trustees' Annual Report | for theperiod | ||||||
| From | Period start date | To | Period end date | ||||
| 01 | April | 2020 | 31 | March | 2021 |
Section A Reference and administration details
Charity name The Loss Foundation Other names charity is known by Registered charity number (if any) 1147362 Charity's principal address 6 Welbeck Villas Highfield Road London Postcode N21 3HN
Names of the charity trustees who manage the charity
| 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 |
Trustee name | Office (if any) | Dates acted if not for whole year |
Name of person (or body) entitled to appoint trustee (if any) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dr Kirsten Smith | Erin Thompson | |||
| Deepa Patel | Erin Thompson and All Trustees |
|||
| Shereen Sally | Deepa Patel | |||
| Francine Bear | Deepa Patel | |||
| Ruth Barnett | Deepa Patel | |||
| Rebecca Mahallati | Deepa Patel | |||
| Peter Osborne | Deepa Patel | |||
| Sarah Barrick | Deepa Patel | |||
| Edward Levey | Deepa Patel | |||
| Vanessa Babouram |
From January 2021 | Deepa Patel | ||
| Names of the trustees for the charity, if any, (for example, any custodian trustees) | ||||
| Name | Dates acted if not for whole year | |||
| n/a | ||||
Name of chief executive or names of senior staff members (Optional information)
Dr Erin Hope Thompson acts as Director of the charity.
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Section B Structure, governance and management
Description of the charity’s trusts
Type of governing document
Constitution
- (e.g. trust deed, constitution)
How the charity is constituted
Charity
- (e.g. trust, association, company)
Trustee selection methods
(e.g. appointed by, elected by)
New Trustees are appointed by interview with a selection of The Board of Trustees.
Additional governance issues (Optional information)
You may choose to include additional information, where relevant, about:
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policies and procedures adopted for the induction and training of trustees;
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the charity’s organisational structure and any wider network with which the charity works;
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relationship with any related parties;
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trustees’ consideration of major risks and the system and procedures to manage them.
Trustees are elected for an initial term of three years and may offer themselves for a further period of three years. The Trustees are a voluntary management committee and have ultimate responsibility for the charity. The Trustees meet 4-6 times a year to plan, control and monitor the overall policy and direction of the charity.
The trustees understand that they have a duty to identify and review the risks to which the charity is exposed and to ensure appropriate controls are in place to provide reasonable assurance against fraud and error. The Trustees recognise that in the dynamic environment in which the charity operates the risks encountered are continually changing.
No business shall be transacted at any general meeting unless a quorum is present of 4 members. General meetings are chaired by the person who has been elected as Chair (unless the Chair is unavailable and Trustees appoint another attendee).
The charity can elect officers and other trustees in general meetings. New trustees are invited on to the Board when; a) an area of need has been recognised and discussed on the Board, b) avenues are explored to secure a new Trustee fitting for that role, c) a meeting is arranged between the potential new Trustee with the Chair and/or Director, d) if all requirements are met, the Board agree to the new membership.
We have paid members of part-time staff who are responsible for the dayto-day running of the organisation, volunteer management, seeking funding, and reporting progress and developments to the Board of Trustees.
The next level of organisation lies within the charity’s volunteers who run the bereavement services. The volunteers are made up of psychologists, doctors, counsellors and other professionals. All volunteers receive bereavement support training. The volunteers undergo training, run the support services and access supervision for their work.
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Section C Objectives and activities
Vision: Providing gold standard support for everyone bereaved by cancer and tackling the taboo of grief in society.
Mission: Providing accessible and varied support to people bereaved by cancer and helping them learn to compassionately support themselves, carrying out research to learn best practice in grief support, and campaigning to break the taboo of grief in society.
Summary of the objects of the charity set out in its governing document
In acknowledging the vision and mission, the aims and objectives of the charity are to provide support to people experiencing bereavement or loss as a result of cancer in the UK through:
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the provision of self-help support groups and other events;
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providing spaces for people to grieve with peer support available;
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offering information about the experience of bereavement;
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signposting to other forms of support.
The Trustees confirm that they have reviewed the guidance contained in the Charity Commission’s general guidance on providing public benefit.
REVIEW OF SERVICES – Local to National Support Growing from local to national provision has been a development in the pipeline for our Charity in recent years. The Coronavirus pandemic significantly contributed to this developing across the year.
Summary of the main activities undertaken for the public benefit in relation to these objects (include within this section the statutory declaration that trustees have had regard to the guidance issued by the Charity Commission on public benefit)
In response to the pandemic we shifted all of our support events online, which allowed us to support people across the whole country remotely. As well as continuing to be a charity focused on providing bereavement support to those who lose a loved one to cancer, we opened up our support to those bereaved by coronavirus. This allowed us to do our part in helping respond to the global pandemic.
To meet the main aims and objectives of the charity whilst continuing to work towards national support and responding to the pandemic, we have carried out the following activities: Support Groups Over the course of the year we have provided peer bereavement support groups free of charge to individuals who are bereaved by cancer or coronavirus. We ran a total of 52 peer support groups over the course of the year. This included continuing to run specific themed support groups, e.g. parent loss to cancer, partner loss to cancer. Social Events
We continued to provide social events for people to access informal peer support outside of a facilitated event with online get togethers. We ran 9 social events over the course of the year, providing opportunities for people to come together for peer support in times of global isolation. We also hosted an online get together on Christmas Day, which is a particularly difficult time of year for people who are grieving.
Therapeutic Workshops
We adapted our therapeutic workshops to be hosted online, aimed at helping people to cope with grief related difficulties. We ran 4 online workshops. The workshop design came from our evidence based
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therapeutic groups, and we are currently evaluating the benefits of the workshops. These have been a highly beneficial addition to our services, offering a lot of support and psychoeducation in a short amount of time, and bringing people together.
Connect Service
We hired an assistant research psychologist to develop our Connect service, in which we match people with similar losses for 1-2-1 supportive conversations. After piloting the service several times, we are looking to expand the service and connect people across the country for more individualised peer support.
Training
Our training remit expanded significantly over the last year. As the world experienced more loss we became a go-to organisation to provide training on providing bereavement support and associated difficulties. This largely included training mental health professionals and providing continued professional development for them, as well as training organisations. This is an area we plan to extend over the coming year.
Information
In addition to our in-person support, many people have continued to benefit from information and articles on our website that focus on the experience of bereavement.
Social Media
We extended our support more widely on our social media channels, offering articles, quotes, advice, event info and pictures. We also took on a volunteer to help develop this area for us so that we could reach more people and spread brand awareness. Our main social media avenues are Facebook and Twitter and Instagram.
Signposting
We have been able to signpost people to other services and make referrals to other professionals when necessary for their benefit and mental health. We have noticed that as our organisation continues to grow, we receive increasing numbers of emails and calls regarding support. As a peer-support service that is not available 24-hour support, we regularly signpost to other support services, such as Samaritans.
Campaigning
Following on from previous years, we have continued to advertise our IWontGoQuiet, campaign, encouraging people to say something rather than nothing when someone is bereaved. We have not been able to host a campaigning event during the pandemic.
Research
Over the course of the year we continued to collect information from people taking part in our support events (with permission and all made anonymous). This allows us to learn more about those who need our support so that we can target those most in need, and it allows us to continuously evaluate the benefits of our support so that we can continue to improve it and share our resources more widely.
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Additional details of objectives and activities (Optional information)
POLICIES
We have a Charity Policy Handbook that houses all of our policies and is regularly updated.
You may choose to include further statements, where relevant, about:
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policy on grant making;
-
policy programme related investment;
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contribution made by volunteers.
All volunteers receive the Policy Handbook as well as a Volunteer’s Handbook, outlining their role and responsibilities.
VOLUNTEERS
We are extremely grateful to our dedicated team of volunteer psychologists and other professionals. Over the course of the year they have donated a huge amount of time collectively and helped support hundreds of people during their bereavement.
Our volume of volunteers increased significantly over the last year so that we could meet the demand for support during the global pandemic. We will aim to increase numbers of volunteers each year.
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Section D Achievements and performance
Summary of the main achievements of the charity during the year
SUPPORT EVENTS
Over the course of the year we provided 65 support events, all hosted remotely. This includes all of our support groups, social events, and workshops. We also started to develop our Connect service further, allowing us to reach and support more people.
BOARD DEVELOPMENT AND RESTRUCTURE
We have continued to benefit from a Board with varied expertise to help guide our discussions around supporting people and growing nationally.
The Board were committed to the Charity providing as much support as possible to those in need during the global pandemic, hence our extension of support to those bereaved by coronavirus. The Board were proud of the Charity’s ability to adapt to providing support online so quickly, and were keen that we continue to respond to the feedback of our users’ in adapting approaches where possible to remain responsive, sensitive and compassionate.
PAID STAFF DEVELOPMENT
Our Head of Strategic Development completed her contract with the Charity and evolved into becoming a Trustee with the Charity. We continued to have three paid part-time roles: administrator, Director, and Assistant Research Psychologist. We aim to take on a fundraiser for our next paid role.
VOLUNTEERS
We are extremely grateful to our dedicated team of volunteers. Over the course of the year they have donated a huge amount of time collectively and helped support hundreds of people during their bereavement.
RESEARCH AND EVALUATION
Carrying out research projects in collaboration with leading universities has enabled us to better measure the need for support, the benefit of our support and to collect tangible outcomes for our work. We continue to evaluate our support so that we can be sure we are providing gold standard support at all times.
FUNDRAISING
In addition to the support services we have provided to individuals who have lost a loved one to cancer, we have undertaken activities to generate funds for the charity. This has mainly been through the seeking of grants to cover our maintenance and development costs, as well as donations raised through sporting and sponsored events.
We were unable to host our annual fundraising event due to the pandemic, but did host an online version, which raised some funds for us.
We largely applied for grants over the year to help fund our increased support.
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Section E Financial review
Brief statement of the charity’s policy on reserves
The Trustees have agreed that the charity is currently not of sufficient size to justify a formal reserves policy, however, this will be reviewed on an annual basis. We work to always having three months average monthly spend available at all times.
Details of any funds materially in deficit
n/a
Further financial review details (Optional information)
You may choose to include additional information, where relevant about:
-
the charity’s principal sources of funds (including any fundraising);
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how expenditure has supported the key objectives of the charity;
-
investment policy and objectives including any ethical investment policy adopted.
The charity’s principal source of funds in the current year have been via two larger grants.
We also secure a small amount of income from small grants, individual donations and fundraising. We expect that these avenues will continue into next year.
Our expenditure has been allocated to key objectives of the charity.
Our main expenditure over the past year has been related to the core costs of running and developing our support services, and the wages of our three members of staff. The costs of running our support services are low but remain a priority.
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Section F Other optional information
Future plans
Our main plans for the year 2021/22 are as follows:
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To continue developing our now national reaching service
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To develop our Connect programme nationally
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To continue providing both cancer and covid loss support
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To pilot running bereavement therapy groups remotely
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To increase awareness for our charity’s services and link with services and organisations across England
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Continue with research and evaluation
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Expand our pool of volunteers
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Expand our training support programme
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Create hire a fundraiser and create a sustainable fundraising strategy
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Create a new 3 year strategy
Section G Declaration
The trustees declare that they have approved the trustees’ report above. Signed on behalf of the charity’s trustees
Signature(s) Deepa Patel Full name(s) Deepa Patel Position (e.g. Secretary, Chair, Chair etc) Date 18/11/2021
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| THE LOSS FOUNDATION | THE LOSS FOUNDATION | 1147362 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Receipts | and payments accounts | CC16a | ||
| For the period from |
01-Apr-20 | To | 3/31/2021 |
| Section A Receipts | and payments | and payments | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A1 Receipts | Unrestricted funds to the nearest £ 115,089 11,747 - 17,353 878 - 1,394 - 146,461 - - - 146,461 463.04 42,440.94 900.00 290.08 534.60 - 394.23 - 754.82 755.02 757.00 1,349.52 4,200.74 - |
Restricted funds to the nearest £ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
Endowmen t funds to the nearest £ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
Total funds to the nearest £ 115,089 11,747 - 17,353 878 - 1,394 - 146,461 - - - 146,461 463 42,441 900 290 535 - 394 - 755 755 757 1,350 4,201 - |
Last year to the nearest £ |
| Donations, legacies, grants | 115,089 | 8,379 | |||
| Fundraising and fundraising events | 11,747 | 43,208 | |||
| Fees for charitable services | - | - | |||
| Training | 17,353 | 975 | |||
| Gift Aid | 878 | - | |||
| Interest on deposit accounts | - | ||||
| Other | 1,394 | 512 | |||
| - | - | ||||
| Sub total(Gross income for AR) |
146,461 | 53,075 | |||
| A2 Asset and investment sales, (see table). |
|||||
| - | |||||
| - | - | ||||
| Sub total | - | - | |||
| Total receipts A3 Payments |
|||||
| 53,075 | |||||
| Fundraising costs | 463.04 | - | - | 463 | 6,750 |
| Wages / salaries / NI / pension | 42,440.94 | - | - | 42,441 | 43,417 |
| Consultancy / professional fees | 900.00 | - | - | 900 | 0 |
| Bank interest / charges / Insurance | 290.08 | - | - | 290 | 673.73 |
| Office rent | 534.60 | - | - | 535 | 4,452 |
| Training / Conferences | - | - | - | - | 1,060 |
| Telephone | 394.23 | - | - | 394 | 414.59 |
| Research | - | - | - | - | 0 |
| Internet/website/email | 754.82 | - | - | 755 | 1,416 |
| Printing/postage/stationary/tech tools |
755.02 | - | 755 | 339 | |
| Membership | 757.00 | - | - | 757 | 5286.77 |
| Equipment | 1,349.52 | - | - | 1,350 | 0 |
| Cost of charitable activities | 4,200.74 | - | - | 4,201 | 1880.42 |
| Volunteer expenses | - | - | - | - | 16.01 |
| Advertising | 1,946.51 | - | - | 1,947 | 836.4 | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Merchandise | - | - | - | - | 0 | |||||||
| Board / governance | 1,190.00 | - | - | 1,190 | 0 | |||||||
| Team expenses / wellbeing | 50.79 | 51 | 0 | |||||||||
| Other | 341.54 | 342 | 3.99 | |||||||||
| **Sub total ** | 56,369 | - | - | 56,369 | 66,546 | |||||||
| A4 Asset and investment | ||||||||||||
| purchases, (see table) | ||||||||||||
| - | - | - | - | |||||||||
| - | - | - | - | |||||||||
| **Sub total ** | - | - | - | - | - | |||||||
| Total payments | 56,369 | - | - | 56,369 | 66,546 | |||||||
| Net of receipts/(payments) | 90,092 | - | - | 90,092 | - 13,471 | |||||||
| **A5 Transfers between funds ** | - | - | - | - | - | |||||||
| A6 Cash funds last year end | 8,943 | - | - | 8,943 | 23,295 | |||||||
| Cash funds this year end | 99,035 | - | - | 99,035 | 9,825 |
| Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period | Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period | Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period | Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period | Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Categories B3 Investment assets B2 Other monetary assets B1 Cash funds |
Details Details Details Total cash funds (agree balances with receipts and payments account(s)) Details |
Unrestricte d funds to nearest £ - - - 99,035 OK Unrestricte d funds to nearest £ - - - - - - Fund to which asset belongs Fund to which asset belongs |
Restricted funds to nearest £ - - - - OK Restricted funds to nearest £ - - - - - - Cost (optional) - - - - - Cost (optional) |
Endowment funds to nearest £ |
| - | ||||
| - | ||||
| - | ||||
| - | ||||
| OK | ||||
| Endowment funds to nearest £ |
||||
| - | ||||
| - | ||||
| - | ||||
| - | ||||
| - | ||||
| - | ||||
| Current value (optional) |
||||
| - | ||||
| - | ||||
| - | ||||
| - | ||||
| - | ||||
| Current value (optional) |
B4 Assets retained for the charity’s own use
B5 Liabilities
Signed by one or two trustees on behalf of all the trustees
| - | - | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| - | - | |||||
| - | - | |||||
| - | - | |||||
| - | - | |||||
| - | - | |||||
| - | - | |||||
| - | - | |||||
| - | - | |||||
| Fund to which | Amount due | When due | ||||
| liability | (optional) | (optional) | ||||
| Details | relates | |||||
| - | ||||||
| - | ||||||
| - | ||||||
| - | ||||||
| - | ||||||
| Signature | Print Name | Date of approval |
||||
| Shereen Sally | Shereen Sally | 15/12/2021 | ||||
Check101
- Check (0)
To add up to bank accounts at end of year
Independent examiner’s report to the trustees of ‘The Loss Foundation’
I report on the accounts of the Trust for the year ended 31 March 2021.
Respective responsibilities of trustees and examiner
The charity’s trustees are responsible for the preparation of the accounts. The charity’s trustees consider that an audit is not required for this year under section 144(2) of the Charities Act 2011 (the 2011 Act) and that an independent examination is needed.
It is my responsibility to:
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examine the accounts under section 145 of the 2011 Act
-
to follow the procedures laid down in the general Directions given by the commission under section 145(5)(b) of the 2011 Act
-
to state whether particular matters have come to my attention
Basis of independent examiner’s report
My examination was carried out in accordance with the general Directions given by the Charity Commission. An examination includes a review of the accounting records kept by the charity and a comparison of the accounts presented with those records. It also includes consideration of any unusual items or disclosures in the accounts, and seeking explanations from you as trustees concerning any such matters. The procedures undertaken do not provide all the evidence that would be required in an audit and consequently no opinion is given as to whether the accounts present a ‘true and fair view’ and the report is limited to those matters set out in the next statement.
Independent examiner’s statement
In connection with my examination, no matter has come to my attention:
-
(1) which gives me reasonable cause to believe that in any material respect the requirements:
-
a) to keep accounting records in accordance with section 130 of the 2011 Act and
-
b) to prepare accounts which accord with the accounting records and comply with the accounting requirements of the 2011 Act have not been met or
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(2) to which, in my opinion, attention should be drawn in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.
Name: Mr Ribhu Agrawal
Relevant professional qualification or body: ACCA Member
Address: Flat 20 Best House, Matthews Close, Wembley, HA9 8FE Date: 15[th] December 2021