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2024-03-31-accounts

Trustees' Annual Report for the period

Period start date Period start date Period end date Period end date
01 April 2023 31 March 2024
From To

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		 Trustee name Office (if any) Dates acted if not for whole
**year **		 Name of person (or body) entitled
to appoint trustee (ifany)
Vanessa
Babouram		 Chair Deepa Patel and Erin
Thompson
Dr Kirsten Smith Erin Thompson
Shereen Sally Deepa Patel
Rebecca Mahallati Deepa Patel
Peter Osborn Deepa Patel
Sarah Barrick Deepa Patel
Edward Levey Deepa Patel
Kate Rowlandson Shereen Sally and Erin
Thompson
Colin Ware Erin Thompson and Peter
Osborn

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

How the charity is constituted

Charity

(e.g. trust, association, company)

New Trustees are appointed by interview with a selection of The Board of Trustee selection methods Trustees.

(e.g. appointed by, elected by)

Additional governance issues (Optional information)

You may choose to include additional information, where relevant, about:

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 times a year to plan, control and monitor the overall policy and direction of the charity. Subcommittees of Trustees may meet more frequently to work on specific tasks.

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 a range of professionals. All volunteers receive bereavement support training and access supervision for their work.

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Section C Objectives and activities

Purpose: To provide UK-wide bereavement support for anyone who loses a loved one to cancer. The aims and objectives of the charity are: • To provide UK wide access to cancer bereavement support; Summary of the objects of the • To relieve the suffering of persons resident in the United Kingdom charity set out in its (UK) experiencing bereavement or loss by cancer, by providing governing document support for such persons; • To relieve the suffering of persons resident in the UK experiencing bereavement or loss from cancer, by offering information about the experience of bereavement and how to access other forms of support. REVIEW OF SERVICES – Local to National Support Growing from local to national provision has been a development in the pipeline for the Charity in recent years. The majority of our support services continued to be held online during this period in time, alongside the growth of our Walk and Talk events that we host in-person. We continued to be a charity focused on providing bereavement support to those who have experienced the death of a loved one to cancer, however, we continued to provide a small provision of support groups to those bereaved by coronavirus. We provided these in line with demand, which continues to reduce over time. Summary of the main To meet the main aims and objectives of the charity whilst continuing to activities undertaken for the work towards a growing model of national support, we have carried out public benefit in relation to the following activities: these objects (include within this section the statutory Support Groups declaration that trustees have Over the course of the year we have provided peer bereavement support had regard to the guidance groups free of charge to individuals who are bereaved by cancer or issued by the Charity coronavirus. We ran a total of 95 peer support groups over the course of Commission on public the year. This included continuing to run specific themed support groups, benefit) e.g. parent loss to cancer, partner loss to cancer, as well as one-off support groups and support group bubbles (meeting with the same collection of people on a monthly basis). Social Events We discontinued the running of our online social get togethers given the shift to hosting more in-person get togethers. We hosted one online social get together on Christmas Day to support those who were alone or in need of connection during a difficult time of year. Walk and Talks We focused our efforts on increasing our Walk and Talk events, which are the target of our national growth. The aim is to create communities

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across the UK bringing people together in loss and creating friendships and connections, alongside the therapeutic benefits of nature. During this financial year we hosted 19 events across several cities. These events have involved recruiting and training new volunteers in new locations for us.

Therapeutic Workshops

We continued to run our online therapeutic workshops, led by our Clinical Psychologists and aimed at helping people to cope with grief related difficulties. We ran 11 online workshops. The workshop design came from our evidence based therapeutic groups, and we are continuing to evaluate the benefits of the workshops. These have been a highly beneficial service, offering a lot of support and psychoeducation in short windows of time, and bringing people together.

Connect Service

We have continued to provide our buddy service, Connect. The goal of Connect is to pair up individuals with similar losses for supportive conversations, meaningful connections, and perhaps the start of a friendship.

Training

We continued to provide training across the year, to both organisations and individuals. This largely included training mental health professionals and providing continued professional development. This is an area of development for the charity that we plan to extend over the coming year. Our aim is to provide more training to share our knowledge of bereavement experiences and evidence-based support for it, whilst creating a stable avenue of income for the charity.

Information

In addition to our in-person support, many people have continued to benefit from information, articles and videos on our website that focus on the experience of bereavement. We successfully launched a new website during this financial year, which houses significantly more information and free resources for those who are grieving.

Social Media

We extended our support more widely on our social media channels, offering articles, quotes, advice, event info and pictures. Our main social media avenues are Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. We have continued with our investment in a very part-time Social Media Officer who works to build our presence across social media and helps with outreach.

Signposting

We have been able to signpost people to other services when necessary for their benefit and mental health. As a peer-support service that is not available 24-hour support, we regularly signpost to other support services, such as Samaritans. We now house more information on our website on other support services.

Campaigning

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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 past year, but continue to hold this campaign close to our mission.

Research

Over the course of the year we continued to collect information from people taking part in our support events (with permission). This allows us to learn more about peoples’ authentic experiences of grief and associated difficulties, as well as the benefits of the support we provide. Feedback from users also allows to gauge which elements of our support are being well received and which elements need tweaking, and we use this type of feedback to inform our volunteer training. We are committed to continuously improving our support and resources.

We have also started collaboration with UCL to do research together to help further learn about bereavement support and to evaluate the data we collect.

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Additional details of objectives and activities (Optional information)

POLICIES

We have a Charity Policy document that houses all of our policies and is updated regularly and reviewed annually.

We also have Volunteer Handbooks designed specifically for volunteers and their roles, which also houses some of our charity policies they need to know.

All those involved in the charity are required to sign a confidentiality statement, stating that they will not break the confidentiality of our users or charity.

STRATEGY

You may choose to include further statements, where relevant, about:

We have continued working towards our 3-year strategy, with the aim of accomplishing our target goals, including;

VOLUNTEERS

We are extremely grateful to our dedicated team of volunteers, which has increased in size over the past year. Over the course of the year they have donated a huge amount of time collectively and helped support hundreds of people during their bereavement.

In this time period we have taken on a new cohort of volunteers specifically targeted at our new support service, Walk and Talks. This is an extension of our Walk and Talk progress last year, which proved successful, hence the continued recruitment and growth.

We will aim to steadily increase numbers of volunteers each year, and to continuously provide training and continued professional development.

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Section D Achievements and performance

SUPPORT EVENTS Summary of the main Over the course of the year we provided 128 support events, the majority achievements of the charity of which were hosted remotely. This includes our peer support groups, during the year workshops, therapy groups, online social events and in-person walks. We also continued to develop our Connect service further, allowing us to provide more 1-2-1 support for our beneficiaries.

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. We have not recruited any new Trustees in this financial year. PAID STAFF DEVELOPMENT We have continued with our part time staff roles of Director, Charity Administrator, Fundraiser and Social Media Officer during this period. We aim to continue raising money to be able to expand our team.

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 and evaluation 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. We are also collaborating with UCL on two research projects to better learn about our impact. 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 hosted a comedy night fundraiser that helped us raise funds for our services, and we hosted some places in the London to Brighton bike ride, which also helped us raise funds. We largely applied for grants over the year to help fund our increased support.

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Section E Financial review

The Trustees have agreed that the charity is currently not of sufficient Brief statement of the size to justify a formal reserves policy, however, this will be reviewed on charity’s policy on reserves an annual basis. We work to always having three months average monthly spend available at all times. Details of any funds materially n/a in deficit Further financial review details (Optional information)

We secured a small amount of income from small grants, individual You may choose to include donations and fundraising. We expect that these avenues will continue additional information, where into next year. relevant about:

• the charity’s principal Our expenditure has been allocated to key objectives of the charity. sources of funds (including any fundraising); Our main expenditure over the past year has been related to the core • how expenditure has costs of running and developing our support services and charity. The supported the key objectives costs of running our support services are low but remain a priority. of the charity; • investment policy and objectives including any ethical investment policy adopted.

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Section F Other optional information

Future plans

Our main plans for the year 2024/25 are as follows:

Section G Declaration

The trustees declare that they have approved the trustees’ report above. Signed on behalf of the charity’s trustees

Signature(s) Erin Thompson Full name(s) Erin Thompson Position (e.g. Secretary, Chair, Director etc) Date 28/01/2025

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THE LOSS FOUNDATION THE LOSS FOUNDATION 1147362
Receipts and payments accounts CC16a
For the period
from		 01-Apr-23 To 3/31/2024
Section A Receipts and payments and payments and payments and payments

A1 Receipts
Unrestricted
funds
to the nearest
£
Restricted
funds
to the nearest £		 Endowment
funds
to the nearest £		 Total funds
to the nearest £		 Last year
to the nearest £
Donations, legacies, grants 48,047 21,750 - 69,797 50,354
Fundraising and fundraising events 10,116 - - 10,116 -
Fees for charitable services 2,405 - - 2,405 7,947
Gift Aid 1,755 - - 1,755 1,444
Interest on deposit accounts - - - - -
Training 7,377 - - 7,377 7,868
Merchandise 1,201 - - 1,201 -
Other 510 - - 510 51
Sub total(Gross income
for AR)		 71,411 21,750 - 93,161 67,664
A2 Asset and investment
sales, (see table).
-
- -
Sub total - -
Total receipts
71,411 67,664

A3 Payments

Last year

Fundraising costs 7,969.01


- - - 7,969 5,064
Wages / salaries / NI / pension 57,018.11 14,500 - 71,518 60,802
Consultancy / professional fees - - - - -
Bank interest / charges / Insurance 564.67 - - 565 533
Office rent 236.00 - - 236 623
Training / Conferences - - - - -
Telephone 383.84 - - 384 432
Research - - - - 140
Internet/website/email 289.78 - - 290 271
Printing/postage/stationary/tech
tools		 760.75 - - 761 896
Membership 333.71 - - 334 262
Equipment 464.12 - - 464 109
Cost of charitable activities 3,269.55 7,250 - 10,520 22,496
Volunteer expenses 128.60 - - 129 256
Advertising 1,325.31 - - 1,325 2,192
Merchandise - - - - -
Board / governance 677.80 - - 678 1,150
Team expenses / wellbeing 616.85 - 617 130
Other 1,649.16 - 1,649 -
**Sub total ** 75,687 21,750 - 97,437 95,356

A4 Asset and investment purchases, (see table)

- - - -
- - - -
**Sub total ** - - - - -
Total payments
Net of receipts/(payments)
A5 Transfers between funds
A6 Cash funds last year end
Cash funds this year end
95,356
- 4,277 - 27,692
- -
64,315 92,006
60,039 64,314

Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period

Categories
Signed by one or two trustees
on behalf of all the trustees
B5 Liabilities
B4 Assets retained for
the charity’s own use
B3 Investment assets
B2 Other monetary
assets
B1 Cash funds		 Signature
Shereen Sally
Details
Details
Details
Details
Total cash funds
(agree balances with receipts and payments
account(s))
Details		 Unrestricted
funds
Restricted
funds
to nearest £
to nearest £
-
-
-
-
-
-
60,039
-
OK
OK
Unrestricted
funds
Restricted
funds
to nearest £
to nearest £
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Fund to which
asset belongs
Cost (optional)
-
-
-
-
-
Fund to which
asset belongs
Cost (optional)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Fund to which
liability relates
Amount due
(optional)
-
-
-
-
-
Print Name
Shereen Sally		 Endowment
funds
to nearest £
-
-
-
-
OK
Endowment
funds
to nearest £
-
-
-
-
-
-
Current value
(optional)
-
-
-
-
-
Current value
(optional)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
When due (optional)
Date of approval
Shereen Sally Shereen Sally 12/11/2024

Independent examiner’s report to the trustees of ‘The Loss Foundation’

I report on the accounts of the Charity for the year ended 31 March 2024.

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:

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:

Name: Ribhu Agrawal

Relevant professional qualification or body: FCCA (Association of Chartered Certified Accountants)

Address: Flat 20 Best House, Matthews Close, Wembley, HA9 8FE

Date: 28 Jan 2025