## **ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS** For the year ended 31[st] December 2021 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 2021** ## **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 9 -10 Independent Examiner’s Report 11 Receipts and Payments Account 12 Summary of Funds 12 Notes to Financial Statements 13 -14 Statistics 15 -16 - 3 - ## **BEREAVEMENT CARE** ## **ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS** ## **For the year ended 31st December 2021** Trustees ## Corporate Members Bankers: Neena Bedi (Chair) Bobbi Riesel (Vice-chair) Leslie Pappoe (Honorary Treasurer) Jean Seymour (Honorary Secretary, to 31/06/2021) Jeremy Day (from 20/04/2021, Honorary Secretary, from 01/07/2021) Geraldine Dammen Kombonglangi (from 06/01/2021) Almarene Frederick Maceo Frederick (from 01/03/2021) Bhavini Kaviya (from 06/01/2021) Edward Lewis (to 31/10/2021) Jack Lynes Helena Reid (to 09/04/2021) Richard Segalov John Spencer (from 01/05/2021) Victoria Wells (from 20/04/2021) 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, Northwood 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 - 4 - ## **TRUSTEES’ REPORT** The Trustees are pleased to present their report with the accounts of the charity for the year ended December 31, 2021. ## **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: - Offering support through the process of grieving. - Increasing the public awareness and knowledge of the needs of bereaved people, or those who have experienced loss, throughout the community. - Training and supervising suitable volunteers in listening skills for working with the bereaved (whether in their homes or in other appropriate places). - Co-operating with and offering training to other agencies engaged in similar work. ## **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** Bereavement Care has only one part-time employee. ## **Office** Bereavement Care rents an office in one of Harrow Council’s buildings: The Lodge, 64 Pinner Road, Harrow. The office is adequately equipped with computers, photocopier and filing cupboards. The office is at present not set for remote working. People have to be in office to access information and documents. Trustees would like to develop systems to make it easier for stakeholders to access policies, documents, and policies from home. Obviously, these systems will have to comply with Data Protection and Safeguarding of information guidelines. ## **The Trustees** - 5 - ## **CHAIR’S REPORT FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2020** Like the previous year, 2021 came with its own challenges. Although COVID restrictions had started to relax, the virus was still around, and a huge number of cases were being reported. Trustees were concerned about the wellbeing of our volunteers, so their suggested directive was to try and avoid unnecessary risk and contact with people not in their bubble. Trustees felt that it was better to err on the side of caution and not encourage visitors to resume face to face visits, drop-in and meetings straight away. Most visitors and clients had become skilled in using Face time / Zoom and supporting clients over the phone, they were encouraged to carry on using these methods where possible. We are proud of our volunteers who carried on supporting their clients and our group leaders and Assessors who are irreplaceable. We cannot thank them enough. The other new challenge was adjusting to the reduced working hours of our one and only employee, David Griffiths. His working week was being reduced from 37.5 hours to 30 hours from January 2021 and from July 2021 he was going to drop another day and reduce his hours to 22.5 hours. This was a big change for us because over the years we have become very dependent on David and his absence from the office one or two days a week was unsettling. Fortunately, we were expecting a Kick Start person, assistant to David to start in January 2021. We were planning to use this person to cover the office and man the phones when David was not working. Unfortunately, Sana from Kick Start did not arrive till July. So, we moved to plan B, to help David for the first six months January to June. Trustees were put into a rota to man the telephones and receive phone calls on Friday, chair or vice chair visited the office to man it for a few hours and check on mail. Trustees further agreed to reduce the number of meetings David attended and take minutes. Line manager Jean, agreed to do the bank and post office run. In July Sana, Kick start person arrived and we were able to hand over some of the responsibilities to her. She was extremely capable and efficient person. She took telephone calls, processed referrals, organised attendance and display at Brunel University, got the training packs ready, drafted newsletter and improved our social media presence. In the short time she was with us she managed to secure funding for £2000. The Fundraising and awareness group have also been raising funds which are essential for us. Through their yearly planned activities, they raised £4720. A big thank you to this dedicated group. Conference group is another amazing group, they are self-motivated and very professional. They meet regularly and meticulous planning every aspect of the conference. The net amount raised this year was £1112, and we are grateful to them for their commitment and support to Bereavement Care. Every conference is superb and certainly raises the profile of our Charity. All of the money raised by the above groups and from outside agencies is put to good use, in maintaining our office and in salary. We do not get any funding from the Council nor do we get concessional rates on our rent. Trustees are still committed to updating the office computer system and software capability of our office, to improve remote accessibility. Unfortunately, we only have a small budget for this, so we are looking for person who will help our charity free of charge or work with us for a discounted rate. This year three trustees have left the board, two retired and one is taking a break. However, we have been very lucky to recruit four new trustees. In January, we advertised internally and externally for additional trustees. We encouraged people to join our charity and become a trustee. The response to our external advert was amazing, we had a lot of interest. We think it might be due to COVID, people have lost their near and dear ones. They are more willing to talk about bereavement, it is not a taboo any longer. Another reason could be that people were at home for nearly a year, they felt had more time on their hands and wanted to volunteer for a worthwhile cause. Within the first couple of months, we had recruited four promising young - 6 - Trustees. New trustees were inducted, their expected conduct and responsibilities were discussed. They were encouraged to join one of the working groups and become part of the team. The groups on offer were Fundraising and awareness, Publicity and social media, Digitalisation, Finance, Safeguarding, Data Protection and Policies. Trustees started meeting regularly on Zoom, Friday afternoon around lunchtime 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 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 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** Our training continued, despite the restrictions in 2021, and we started off in January with an Introduction to Bereavement Support webinar which was well attended. In March we had another webinar, the subject being Solution Focused Therapy, also known as Brief Therapy. This was run by Harvey Ratner and 60 people joined us on Zoom. From February to May we ran a weekly online support for Harrow Council to help them to support their employees with losses they had suffered over the past year or so. Our children’s training in March was much needed; both for our children’s support groups who are in need of more visitors for children and young people, and also for those working in schools and colleges who are at the ‘sharp end’ of supporting students following the death of a relative or close friend. In June we ran another Introduction to Bereavement Support which helped some of the groups who had lost visitors (for various reasons) during the pandemic. With some trepidation, we decided to run a face-to-face Initial Bereavement Training Course in August with 13 participants and were very kindly hosted at the Hatch End Baptist Church. A second course at Holy Trinity Church, Northwood attracted a further 9 participants in October. An Introduction to Bereavement Support Webinar in September took place online to meet the needs of those who were still somewhat wary of mixing while the coronavirus was still with us. October was the month when we ran a training for some potential Assessors, which helped to share the responsibility of assessing clients to a larger group of trained and experienced volunteers. We were grateful to Harrow and Hillingdon Methodist Circuit for allowing us to use The Lighthouse Centre in Ruislip for our face-to-face Children and Grief Training in November. In December we were fortunate enough to have a face-to-face training in St. Luke’s Hospice which was open to all. We hope to extend our partnership with St Luke’s Hospice in the future. Special thanks to all of the Trainers. ## **Bobbi Riesel Voluntary Head of Training** - 7 - ## **FUND RAISING AND AWARENESS COMMITTEE REPORT** We were unable to do much face-to-face fundraising again this year due to the pandemic. Zooming was one way of keeping in touch with our supporters and raising funds; and in March not only did we have our usual Bereavement Care quiz online which was very successful, but the Barnet Walking Football Club held a quiz and donated their funds to Bereavement Care. We were fortunate to have Lewis Owens with us, who very kindly ensured that we were able to launch our Grand Raffle with both a trip to Mauritius and the flights being donated. At the Pinner Show in September we had a stall where we raised money on the Tombola. London Transport were not yet accepting bookings for Carol Singing, but we were able to book a slot at the St Ann’s shopping centre in Harrow where had a great turnout of musicians and singers and we sang merrily to the entertainment of the staff and much reduced shoppers. We received a grant of £2,900 from the Joint Jewish Burial Service which was very welcome and a small number of donations from some of our grateful clients. ## **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, Jem Day (Minute Taker), Judy Silverton (Chair). For a second year in succession, we held our conference online, as the pandemic was still impacting life in a negative way. It was obvious to us all that we had to go for a Covid 19 theme again. _**It’s a Long Journey: The length and complexity of prolonged grief**_ took place as a webinar on Wednesday 20th October 2021. It was agreed that it should only be a half day as people can easily lose interest whilst on-line. There was a lot of debate but we knew it was the right decision and looking back we definitely made the right choice. There was a new Covid variant and many people were still not ready to ‘go back to normal’. I was slightly less worried about the IT this year as it all had gone very smoothly last year, thanks to Jon Fiber, our amazing IT/AV man. Zoom is a great platform but so many things can go wrong. We were very lucky to ‘secure’ a wonderful psychiatrist for our Keynote speaker – Robert Freudenthal. He is a Registrar in psychiatry, currently completing the final year of his training in general adult and old age psychiatry in North London. Instead of having him deliver a keynote speech we decided to have a ‘conversation’ together. It worked very well. The next segment was delivered by two people: Giles Pinnock and Sharon Merchant. The Revd. Giles Pinnock is the Head of Spiritual & Pastoral Care at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust which includes Charing Cross, Hammersmith and St Mary’s Hospitals. He is the Roman Catholic Archbishop’s Adviser on Health and Wellbeing in the Diocese of Westminster. His presentation was called: Supporting bereaved people in different settings: From the perspective of a Hospital Chaplain. - 8 - Sharon Merchant was Child Bereavement UK’s Regional Lead for the London Region. Prior to working for Child Bereavement UK, Sharon was Counselling Lead at Harlington Hospice. Her talk focussed on Bereaved Children and Young People. The Q&A sessions were all live with Jon Fiber co-ordinating screens etc and the questions were all moderated by Sharon Goldstein and Bobbi Riesel and then fed to me by WhatsApp. It worked very well. During the Comfort Break there was a short film highlighting the 40 years of Conferences. Jem Day, our minute taker, put this together. It was on a loop which ran twice so delegates had time to see it. Fortunately, on the day everything went very smoothly with no technical 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. Our next conference will take place face-to-face on 26[th] October 2022 and is entitled _**Back to the Future: New Ways of Being.**_ ## **Judy Silverton Chair, Conference Planning Group** ## **REPORT FROM THE EXECUTIVE OFFICER** At the start of 2021, the Covid pandemic was still having a significant impact upon people and organisations across the globe. In our local communities, the roll-out of the Coronavirus vaccine had increased resistance to the virus and had certainly reduced the severity of the symptoms of those who had become infected, but hospitals such as Northwick Park and Hillingdon, were still reporting high levels of Covid patients; and anything but essential face-to-face contact was strongly discouraged. Following the rising Covid rates over the Christmas and New Year periods, however, it was agreed that a 'hybrid' work pattern would be adopted at Bereavement Care, with just one or two days per week in the office in Harrow. At the same time, I started to work a reduced number of hours in accordance with my request to the Trustees towards the end of 2020. There were some initial concerns that Bereavement Care should continue to have the office telephone answered Monday - Friday 'office hours' and for the first six months, my non-working day (Friday) was covered by a rota of Trustees using the remote divert facility on our telephone line. In effect, there were usually no more than two or three callers and it was agreed that in July, when my working hours were further reduced to 3 days per week, that callers could leave voicemail messages and these would be picked up and responded to on the next working day. July also saw the start of our Executive Assistant, Sana Shaikh, who was employed under the Government's "Kickstart" initiative. The aim of the scheme was to provide new jobs for young people on Universal Credit who were at risk of long term unemployment. This was a six-month, fixed term contract with the salary provided by the Department of Health and Social Security, in return for organisations giving applicants the opportunity to gain "real life" skills and experience. It was agreed that Bereavement Care would provide a small proportion of additional funding to raise the Minimum Wage provided to the London Living Wage. Sana proved to be a most helpful and amenable colleague, and suggested a potential way forward in staffing (subject to funds being available). Bereavement Care volunteers had successfully negotiated nine months of 'remote' working throughout 2020 and the first event of 2021, the annual Quiz, was 're-shaped' to an online event which took place on 6[th] March. Meetings, Training Courses and Group Supervision also relied upon remote working and everyone soon became very proficient in using Zoom (our chosen form of remote video communication). - 9 - By the end of April, national Covid restrictions were starting to ease and it was agreed that I would return to work in the office. There were also some tentative returns to face-to-face visiting, drop-ins and meetings - although as part of our Risk Assessment, Lateral Flow Testing had become a 'normal activity' before attending any face-to-face meetings and social distancing was essential. The number of client referrals received in our office in 2021 was very similar to the previous year with 175 (2020: 179) Adult referrals and 39 (2020: 32) Child & Young People referrals. The number of clients attending the Bereavement Drop-ins was considerably lower than prepandemic times, as these did not start to re-open until half way through the year when the Covid risk had significantly decreased and volunteers felt that they were able to provide a relatively safe space for people to gather in accordance with Government guidelines. Securing funding remains a major priority; yet despite applications to a number of trusts and organisations our efforts were unrewarded. We were therefore even more grateful for a grant of £2,900 from the Jewish Joint Burial Society which was used primarily to offset our core costs of maintaining the Bereavement Care office and the communications and technical infrastructure to enable remote working and online meetings and training. We are always most grateful to the Jewish Joint Burial Society for their continuing support. Having started in 2020, we were better placed to continue online training throughout the first half of the year. As Covid rates decreased, we tentatively re-commenced face-to-face training in August in venues where appropriate social distancing and adequate ventilation could be maintained. We are grateful to Hatch End Baptist Church, Holy Trinity Church Northwood, The Lighthouse Centre (Harrow & Hillingdon Methodist Circuit) and St. Luke’s Hospice for the use of their premises. Fund-raising activities could not take place due to Covid restrictions until much later in the year. It was therefore agreed to use a Grand Draw (Small Society Lottery) to compensate for the lack of fund-raising. Dr Lewis Owens, Founder and CEO of St. Martin’s Challenge, secured a donation of a holiday in Mauritius as a First Prize and tickets were printed and sold (and also sold online) during the autumn and winter. Although showing receipts of £1,950 in the accounts (see financial statements), the total raised from the sales totalled £4,166 by the date on which the draw was held in 2022. Barnet Walking Football Team raised £600 in a Quiz for their members. Thank you to all who made donations, which were the sources of our largest income. We were delighted to welcome Holy Trinity Northwood as a Corporate Member during the year; but sadly saw the demise of Bereavement Groups at St. Alban’s North Harrow, St. Michael and All Angels Harrow Weald and the Coffee Shop Drop-in at Cannon Lane Methodist Church. Whilst not 'officially' within the reporting period of this Annual Report, it would be remiss not to mention the sad passing of some of our long-term supporters in 2022: Cyril Tompkins (June); Jack Lynes (August); Helen Tanner (September) and Mary Holmes (October). We are indebted to them for their unstinting service in supporting Bereavement Care and those who look to us for support. Our sincere condolences to their families and friends. As we look ahead to the future, we can but hope that we will be able to continue providing this most vital of services in our local community; and on behalf of all the children and adults that have received support from many of you, may I offer sincere thanks for all that you do. ## **David Griffiths, Executive Officer** - 10 - **INDEPENDENT EXAMINER’S REPORT** 12 - 14 - 11 - ## **BEREAVEMENT CARE** ## **Registered Charity Number 1157002** ## **FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31st DECEMBER 2021** ## **RECEIPTS AND PAYMENTS ACCOUNT** Signed for and on behalf of the Trustees Neena Bedi (Chair of Trustees) L Pappoe (Honorary Treasurer) Date: Date: - 12 - ## **BEREAVEMENT CARE** ## **Registered Charity Number 1157002** ## **NOTES TO FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31st DECEMBER 2021** - 13 - **BEREAVEMENT CARE Registered Charity Number 1157002** **NOTES TO FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31st DECEMBER 2021** - 14 - **GROUP STATISTICS** for the year ended 31st December 2021 - 15 - **GROUP STATISTICS** for the year ended 31st December 2021 - 16 -