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2020-12-31-accounts

ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS

For the year ended 31[st] December 2020

The Lodge 64 Pinner Road Harrow Middlesex HA1 4HZ 020 8427 5720 email: admin@bereavementcareandsupport.co.uk website: www.bereavementcareandsupport.co.uk

Registered Charity number 1157002

BEREAVEMENT CARE

ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS

For the year ended 31st December 2020

CONTENTS

Details of Charity Trustees’ Report Chair’s Report 6 - 7 Training Report Fund Raising and Awareness Report Conference Report 8 -9 Executive Officer’s Report 10 -11 Independent Examiner’s Report 12 Receipts and Payments Account 13 Summary of Funds 13 Notes to Financial Statements 14 -15 Statistics 16 -17

BEREAVEMENT CARE

ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS

For the year ended 31st December 2020

Trustees

Corporate Members

Bankers:

Neena Bedi (Chair, from 25/11/2020) Edward Lewis (Chair, to 25/11/2020) Bobbi Riesel (Vice-chair, from 25/11/2020) Richard Jones (Vice-chair, to 20/10/2020) Leslie Pappoe (Honorary Treasurer) Jean Seymour (Honorary Secretary) Val Austen (to 21/10/2020) Neena Bedi (to 25/11/2020) Almarene Frederick (from 20/10/2020) Edward Lewis (from 25/11/2020) Jack Lynes Helena Reid Bobbi Riesel (to 25/11/2020) Richard Segalov (from 21/10/2020) Afghan Association Paiwand, Harrow All Saints Church, Harrow Weald All Saints Church, Queensbury Asian Bereavement Care Dovetail Bereavement Care (in association with Hillingdon Park Baptist Church) Edgware & Hendon Reform Synagogue Edgware & Mill Hill Bereavement Support Group Elliott Hall Medical Centre Emmanuel Church, Northwood Harrow and Hillingdon Circuit of the Methodist Church Holy Trinity Church, Wealdstone Ickenham Churches’ Bereavement Support Group Kol Chai Synagogue Mosaic Synagogue Bereavement Group Northwood & Pinner Liberal Synagogue (The Ark Synagogue) Pinner Synagogue Bereavement Support Group St Alban’s Church, North Harrow St John the Baptist Church, Pinner St John the Evangelist Church, Stanmore St Luke’s Hospice, Kenton St Margaret’s Church, Uxbridge St Martin’s Church, Ruislip St Mary’s Church, Harrow-on-the-Hill St Michael & All Angels Church, Harrow Weald West London Synagogue

HSBC

26-28 St Ann’s Road, Harrow, Middlesex HA1 1LA

Independent Examiner:

Executive Officer:

Margaret Matchett 9 Stanmore Lodge, 71 Stanmore Hill, Stanmore, Middx, HA7 3EX David Griffiths The Lodge, 64 Pinner Road, Harrow, Middlesex HA1 4HZ

TRUSTEES’ REPORT

The Trustees are pleased to present their report with the accounts of the charity for the year ended December 31, 2020.

Charity

Charitable status

Bereavement Care obtained a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) status in 2014. The aim of the organisation is to provide emotional support to people during bereavement. Grief impacts both the health and emotional wellbeing of a person. This journey may be painful and lonely, we help people through it. Our trained volunteers are good listeners and offer free support to all, regardless of religion, race, sexuality, disability, gender or age. As we cover a wide geographical area, our support is either over the telephone / mobile or face to face in person as home visits.

Charity Objectives

Our objectives for the public benefit are:

To relieve the suffering and distress caused by bereavement or loss among people who seek our help.

This would be, in particular, but not exclusively by:

Organisation

Trustees

The constitution allows for up to twelve elected Trustees and one nominated Trustee appointed by Harrow Deanery Synod.

Visitors

There are approximately 135 volunteers, who are trained in visiting and listening skills, and have worked with bereaved people in their homes or in other appropriate places such as drop-in centres. Each visitor successfully completes the Initial Bereavement Training (IBT) before joining a group. Visitors work to a comprehensive code of practice and are expected to complete a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) assessment, where appropriate.

The visitors contact bereaved people who are referred by their Group Leader or have requested support via the Bereavement Care office. Visitors are supervised by a Leader within the context of a group which meets regularly. Group Leaders have meetings for mutual support and exchange of information and have been supported by the Honorary Consultant Supervisor, Dr. Dorothy Edwards.

Review of the year

There are separate reports covering Conference, Training, and Fundraising & Awareness. There is also a report from the Chair of the Trustees and from the Executive Officer.

Staff

We thank David Griffiths, Executive Officer for his ongoing support and dedication to Bereavement Care.

The Trustees

CHAIR’S REPORT FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2020

2020 has been an eventful year. A year filled with new challenges, a year we learnt to use Face time and zoom. A year which impacted on how we support clients, how we conduct meetings, how we hold conferences, how we raise funds. It was a year of rapid change, crisis management and steep learning curve.

The year started with the usual organised list of activities. The Fundraising group were planning for their February Fish and Chips Supper Quiz, Training sessions were being finalised, Conference group was meeting regularly, Executive Officer was managing the day to day office activities and the Trustees were focused on governance.

In February, the Fish and Chips quiz took place and a Training course was delivered. Soon after that on 23[rd] of March the country went into work from home mode and eventually a complete lock down, to control the pandemic. This obviously had a very big impact on the work of our organisation. Home visits stopped and drop-in centres closed. Charity set up a Zoom account so that working groups and Trustees could carry on with their work through virtual meetings. Training packages were modified and training delivered by zoom. The biggest challenge of all was the delivery of the Conference to a large audience. My hats off of the dedicated competent volunteers who made every challenge look easy. Well done! Reports from various working groups further explain the impact of lock down on their activities.

It was at this time we realised our administration work was not set up to facilitate remote working. The Executive Officer could only access emails from home. All other files were saved on our computer and could only be accessed in the office or taken on a pen drive to work from home. Clearly this was unsatisfactory and needs to be addressed. The office has to be updated to standards that will allow files to be stored in a ‘cloud’ and accessed from anywhere/ home. After some research Trustees have decided to adopt Microsoft 365 as our platform. We are in the process of setting this up with a view to moving our data and files onto this platform as soon as possible. Charity is aware of its duty to client’s confidential data and its protection. So, all work will be done with utmost care.

Fortunately, our communication by phone was not affected. We had already upgraded our phone system to a provider to allow calls to be diverted to another telephone or mobile. So, our communication channels were kept open during the lock down. However, to our surprise we did not receive that many referrals. In fact, they were fewer than the previous year. All referrals were processed quickly and visitors allocated. Due to the lock down visitors were not allowed to visit, so they had to remotely support over the phone. Our visitors are of exceptional calibre, they quickly mastered IT skills and could offer support through facetime, skype and zoom to their clients. This was in addition to the regular telephone support.

Although our routine fundraising activity and donation sources were affected, we were lucky to receive three large grants to the total of £22,000. Here I would like to record my thanks to Lewis Owens who raised more than £5,000 for Bereavement Care. This was very welcome because our expenses had not gone down during the lockdown. On the contrary Harrow Council had increased the service charge for the Lodge from £170 to £255 in Feb 2020. So far the Council has ignored our requests for concessional rate during the lock down period of 9 months.

It’s a pleasure to report that after an external assessment Bereavement Care Charity has been granted the Trusted Charity Mark (TCM). This was only possible because of the quality of our dedicated volunteers who willingly give up their valuable time to support vulnerable bereaved person. They provide free service to our clients. The Trustees are very grateful for their continued support.

Towards the end of the year, David’s request for part-time work was accepted. Later on 25[th] November I was elected as Chair of Bereavement Care. It was a challenge for me because the country was coming out of lock down and we needed to take stock and plan for the future.

However, our sole employee David had a substantial amount of unused annual leave which had accumulated due to lock down. This had to be taken before he started his reduced hours in January 2021. So, the issue was manning the phones and processing the referrals in December. Fortunately, we have a marvellous team of Assessors, who immediately offered to help, arranged a rota and provided cover for the whole month of December. I cannot thank them enough for their support. They are kind heated souls who truly care about the charity.

Bereavement Care provides free service to our clients. We can do this because we have a team of fantastic public-spirited volunteers. I and the board of Trustees thank them for their support and good will to the charity. The Trustees also thank our Executive Officer, David for his continued commitment and efficiency. No report can be complete without thanking the people behind the scenes Margaret Matchett, Independent Examiner and Dorothy Edwards for her vital support to the assessors. As the Chair I would also like to thank Father Edward my predecessor for his hard work as Chairman, my fellow Trustees for their support, teamwork and constructive criticism.

Together we move forward and work for the good of the organisation.

Neena Bedi Chair

TRAINING REPORT

The training we provide is a vital part of our on-going recruitment and induction for new volunteers who would like to be trained as Bereavement Visitors. We offer workshops and training for our existing volunteers, to keep their skills up-to-date. Our courses are also open to others who wish to increase their knowledge and understanding of bereavement. The pandemic therefore threw some challenges at us.

In February 2020 we were able to have our last face to face Initial Bereavement Training (IBT) for 11 trainees.

Our Children & Grief training which was due to take place towards the end of March, was regrettably cancelled due to the onset of the restrictions imposed by the Government to reduce the spread of the pandemic

We then turned to online trainings. Initially for the London Borough of Harrow - 2 presentations - one concerning children, one for adults. This was on Bereavement, Grief and the Covid pandemic.

We developed a new 4-hour Webinar: Introduction to Bereavement Support which was first delivered in September with 9 trainees and November with 4 trainees.

Hillingdon Carers Trust asked us for a bespoke training which we ran 3 times last October for a total of 29 of their volunteers.

We realised that online training wasn't for everyone but we were able to train people who could volunteer for us with a view to them attending the two-day IBT course when they were able.

Thank you to all our Trainers: Helen Blakeley and Carole Scarlett for organising the Children and Grief Training; and to Bette Fraser and Judy Karbritz for their help and support with the training for adult bereavement visitors and the training for external agencies.

Bobbi Riesel Voluntary Head of Training

FUND RAISING AND AWARENESS COMMITTEE REPORT

Our usual fundraising last year was severely curtailed by the pandemic and this has had a substantial impact on the charity. We weren't able to do our usual carol singing, there were no memorial services as churches were closed but we did receive some money from the Waitrose Community Fund; and we were fortunate to receive grants from the Mrs Smith and Mount Trust, the Edward Harvist fund and the Joint Jewish Burial Society. We also received donations from St John's Church in Pinner and Mosaic Reform Synagogue.

We were rather late in launching our Christmas appeal but still had a generous response; and were very grateful for the support of Terry Waite, who recorded a short video to encourage supporters to donate.

Some special birthdays were marked by presents in the form of donations to Bereavement Care - a good example to follow.

We were happy to have the services of Lewis Owens for a few months during which time he generated some considerable sums.

We are now looking ahead to a face-to-face Fish and Chip Supper Quiz in February, when we will be drawing our most ambitious Grand Raffle with a first prize of a holiday in Mauritius. Please support this if you can, either buying a ticket or two – but preferably by asking relatives, friends and colleagues to support us. Tickets are available online through our web-site.

"Every little helps" and we are grateful for our members’ continued support.

Bobbi Riesel Chair: Fund Raising and Awareness Committee

CONFERENCE WEBINAR REPORT

Committee members

Angela Atkins, Sharon Goldstein, David Griffiths, Jack Lynes, Bridget Murray, Karen Pollak, Jenny Reid, Bobbi Riesel, Judy Silverton (Chair).

For the last 38 years, Bereavement Care has organised an all-day Conference which provides an opportunity for delegates to receive training on diverse bereavement issues and to network with others working in the same field. Delegates include bereavement visitors, healthcare professionals, teachers, counsellors, community leaders and clergy.

Well, this year it was rather different! There was a pandemic – what to do?

At the beginning of the year, we had started planning a face-to-face event but as the year went on it became apparent that we needed to think out of the box. We didn’t know whether Covid 19 would still be a threat in November but assuming it would be, we started planning our first Webinar – an altogether different challenge.

At this point, it was obvious to us all that we had to go for a Covid 19 theme. So this was the inception of our Webinar: When Covid Strikes: Responding to those bereaved during a pandemic.

Jon Fiber, our amazing IT/AV expert, suggested that we pre-record as much of the webinar as possible. I was extremely worried about the IT. Zoom is a great platform but so many things could go wrong.

In the early stages of planning, we were lucky enough to ‘secure’ a wonderful Keynote speaker – Julia Samuel. She is very well known with the field. She is a psychotherapist specialising in grief and worked as a bereavement counsellor in the NHS paediatrics department of St Mary's Hospital, Paddington, where she pioneered the role of maternity and paediatric psychotherapy. She is also the author of several books and has a fairly high profile on TV and radio.

Julia was very happy to be involved in the online conference and she wanted to ‘be in conversation’ rather do a traditional keynote speech. The conversation with Judy Silverton was entitled “Grief in the Time of Corona. Jon was very reassuring but I did want to prerecord as much as possible. However, Julia wanted to have the conversation live as she felt it would come over much more naturally.

I recorded my opening speech as did the four other participants, Ummi Merali, (Delayed Grief), Paul Parsons (The dual process model of Grief), Aaron Goldstein (Supporting Children and Young People), Ruth Caleb (Caring for Ourselves).

The Q&A sessions were all live with Jon co-ordinating screens etc and the questions were all moderated by Angela Atkins and Bobbi Riesel and then fed to Judy by WhatsApp. It worked very well.

During the Comfort Break there was a short film with Information about Bereavement Care produced by Aaron Lynes, a young volunteer who had helped out in the Bereavement Care office.

Luckily, on the day it all went very smoothly with no IT hitches.

I would like to add my thanks to the Conference Planning Committee members without whom this event would not be possible. Also, my grateful thanks to David Griffiths for his support and help with the administration which is always carried out extremely efficiently and never with a cross word, making my task much easier.

The 40[th] Conference will take place again online on 20[th] October 2021 and is entitled: It’s a Long Journey: The length and complexity of prolonged grief.

Judy Silverton Chair, Conference Planning Group

REPORT FROM THE EXECUTIVE OFFICER

There have been many challenges in the ‘lifetime’ of Bereavement Care (and of its predecessors, Harrow Churches Bereavement Visiting Scheme and Harrow Bereavement Care) over the past 40 years; but none that could match the unexpected Covid pandemic that struck last year. At the turn of the year in January, we were excited by a grant we had received from the People’s Postcode Neighbourhood Trust, and plans to run a number of training courses, meetings and events to raise greater awareness of our charity, to recruit and train more volunteers and start up some new Bereavement Groups and Drop-ins, particularly in areas that were under-resourced such as South Harrow, Hayes, Yiewsley & West Drayton.

The Fish & Chips Supper Quiz took place on 8[th] February and the Initial Bereavement Training Course which was planned for later that month went ahead with a good number of participants and then everything ground to a halt! The Government advised everybody where possible to “work from home”. Fortunately, our office telephone provider has the facility for us to divert calls, and from Monday 23[rd] March all calls were diverted to my mobile and upon the advice of the Trustees I re-located the office of Bereavement Care to my small home office.

This was not ideal, but we were able to keep open communications and I was able to receive and send Bereavement Care e-mails from my home computer. Training Courses and meetings were swiftly cancelled; our Drop-in Groups were suspended; and perhaps most devastating of all, our one-to-one face-to-face visiting was curtailed. Just at a time when the nation and London in particular were seeing huge numbers of deaths from Coronavirus, it looked like we were going to be unable to provide the bereavement support that so many more people were going to require.

However, if we thought that a global pandemic was going to stop us, we should think again! Our dedicated and versatile Bereavement Visitors ‘almost overnight’ switched from face-toface support to supporting clients remotely on the telephone (or in a few cases, using Facetime or Skype) to maintain the support that was so desperately needed. As the number of deaths rose (reported on a daily basis in the Downing Street briefings) it was paramount that our services were even more accessible.

Surprisingly, despite the significant increase in the number of deaths, the number of adult client referrals stayed very much the same, whilst the number of children and young people referrals dropped dramatically as the schools and colleges were forced to deliver learning at home, and thus unable to meet students face-to-face. By the end of the year, through our referral process we had received 179 (2019: 187) Adult referrals and 32 (2019: 42) Child & Young People referrals. However, we were not the only bereavement service to identify this anomaly; and later research suggested that many grieving families had “put their grief on hold” during the lockdown. Often the lack of ‘closure’ that normally follows the death of a relative or close friend had been ‘suspended’ along with the restrictions in funeral attendance and mourning. We were also aware that the bereavement groups associated with places of worship had been providing more support directly with members of their congregations.

As mentioned previously, we received a grant of £10,000 from The People’s Postcode Neighbourhood Trust. An application to the Mrs. Smith and Mount Trust resulted in a grant of £5,000 for general running costs and £2,000 from the Jewish Joint Burial Society which was used primarily to offset our core costs of maintaining the Bereavement Care office, for which we are most grateful. As face-to-face meetings were still in abeyance, a successful application was made to the Edward Harvist Fund to allow us to purchase a laptop with webcam and microphone to enable “online” meetings and also fund six months of “Zoom” subscriptions. This, in itself, was a learning curve as we slowly got used to the technology

and were able to start offering online training, in addition to regular Zoom meetings. At the end of the year, we welcomed Lewis Owens to the Fund-raising and Awareness Committee. Lewis was instrumental in obtaining a £5,000 grant from the Henry C. Hoare Charitable Trust. Thank you so much to all our donors.

Many of our ‘regular’ annual donations however were missed, as Memorial Services in churches were cancelled, and bucket collections in supermarkets and carol singing at Underground Stations were prohibited. Although the Tesco ‘blue discs’ rapidly disappeared from their supermarkets as Covid struck, we benefited from this scheme by £1,166; and Waitrose in Harrow Weald and South Harrow both made a contribution from their Community Fund of £333 and £400 respectively. We were also even more grateful (than usual) to have received £1,000 from St. John’s Church, Pinner and £500 from Mosaic Reform Synagogue. 2020 also marked the significant birthdays of two of our Trustees, Bobbi Riesel and Jack Lynes, who asked their friends and relatives to make a donation to Bereavement Care in lieu of gifts. Former members Jocelyn and Cyril Tompkins sent a very kind and generous donation and there were several donations from grateful clients. Thank you all so much for such selfless acts of generosity.

I have continued to represent Bereavement Care on the London Borough of Harrow and London Borough of Brent’s Joint Partnership on their Suicide Prevention Strategy Meetings. The National Bereavement Alliance have held monthly Zoom updates throughout the pandemic. These have been very helpful to help us keep in touch with the bereavement response to the pandemic across the UK. We have also forged stronger links with Carers Trust Hillingdon and this has manifested in some bespoke training and better referrals of former carers who have sadly lost the person they have been caring for. We are also a key partner in the Hillingdon Hospitals Bereavement Pathway discussions, led by one of the Palliative Care Doctors in Hillingdon NHS Trust, to provide a clear description of the levels of bereavement support available in the Borough and the organisations that are able to provide the support at each level.

Our PQASSO (Practical Quality Assurance System for Small Organisations) Quality Mark expired in December 2019 and everything was set for the external assessment of the renamed Trusted Charity Mark (TCM). Of course, the visit could not take place, but we were assessed remotely, with telephone conversations and Zoom calls to Trustees, volunteers and me giving the relevant information to the Assessor. As you will see from the logo on the front cover of this report, we were granted TCM Level 1 status in May 2020. Thank you to all those who spoke to the Assessor with such positivity, despite being in the depths of the pandemic!

It is clear that the pandemic has changed many of our ‘normal’ activities and attitudes – just as the death of a loved one challenges us to accept a ‘new normal’. The loss of freedom of travel and restrictions imposed have for many been a different kind of bereavement. Change is inevitable. Perhaps this was partly the reason why, towards the end of the year, I asked the Trustees to consider a reduction in my working hours. This was a difficult decision for me to make, but shortening my working week has certainly helped to improve my physical and mental health; if regrettably making it somewhat less accessible to contact us.

Despite all the challenges of this most unusual of years, one thing has remained constant – and that is the dedication and resolve of our volunteers to ‘keep the Bereavement Care flag flying’ at a time when the support we provide cannot be of more relevance. On behalf of all the children and adults that have received support from many of you, may I offer sincere thanks for all you do.

David Griffiths, Executive Officer

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BEREAVEMENT CARE

Registered Charity Number 1157002

FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31st DECEMBER 2020 RECEIPTS AND PAYMENTS ACCOUNT

Signed for and on behalf of the Trustees

Neena Bedi (Chair of Trustees)

L Pappoe (Honorary Treasurer)

Date:

Date:

BEREAVEMENT CARE Registered Charity Number 1157002

NOTES TO FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31st DECEMBER 2020

BEREAVEMENT CARE

Registered Charity Number 1157002

NOTES TO FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31st DECEMBER 2020

GROUP STATISTICS for the year ended 31st December 2020

GROUP STATISTICS for the year ended 31st December 2020