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Ashdon Jazz Academy

TRUSTEES’ REPORT & ACCOUNTS FOR THE YEAR ENDING 30 SEPTEMBER 2021

Contact Details

Patricia Muirhead, CEO Ashdon Jazz Academy The Old Library, 14-16 Knights Hill, West Norwood, London SE27 0HY 07949875605

ashdonjazzacademy@yahoo.co.uk

www.ashdonjazzacademy.org.uk

Charity Number: 1161413

Empowering and Inspiring Young Women

WELCOME BY KEVIN HOWELL, TRUSTEE CHAIRPERSON

Welcome to our latest annual report. We are writing this review of 2020-21 at a time when charities like Ashdon Jazz Academy are needed now more than ever. As we all continue to recover from the Coronavirus pandemic and the national restrictions, we are aware of the increasing needs of the most vulnerable people in our communities.

During the last two years we have seen our charity adapt, be creative and use resources wisely. This has ensured we have not only maintained our services, but are now in a strong position to develop and grow our work even more.

We remain grateful to Patricia Muirhead for her hard work as the charity’s founder and CEO. Over the last 7 years she has developed a pool of around 30 trained mentors and ensured the weekly drop-in sessions and other events are held. We are grateful to all the volunteer mentors who support the young women they are matched with. We also express thanks to the other volunteers and supporters who help with facilitating events, fundraising and supporting the charity.

You will see in this annual report we have displayed some of the voices of the young women we support, their parents and the mentors. We proactively invite feedback; we listen and take action where needed. This helps us develop our services so we are continually improving and young women have a genuine say in the support they receive.

On behalf of the Trustees, we hope every young woman who contacts the Ashdon Jazz Academy and uses our services will be inspired and empowered and find their life enriched.

Kevin Howell Trustee Chairperson & Treasurer Ashdon Jazz Academy

INTRODUCTION

The Ashdon Jazz Academy (AJA) started following the tragic death of Ashdon Muirhead who ended her own life at just the age of 14 years. As a teenager Ashdon struggled with peer pressure, peer aggression at school and lacking confidence about being herself in a society that pressurises young women to be and act a certain way.

The charity has been running for 7 years. Our main focus is to engage vulnerable teenage girls to empower them to feel confident about themselves, develop personal life skills and deal better with the negative challenges they face. The aim is to enable teenage girls to find their place in society and mature as responsible young women. Although our offer is open to all girls across the four boroughs we work in, we note that 95% of our service users are from black and ethnic minority communities.

MISSION STATEMENT

“Our mission is to work in partnership with vulnerable and disengaged young ladies aged 11-21 and provide a dedicated emotional well-being service which in turn supports positive mental health from the boroughs of Lambeth, Lewisham, Merton and Croydon.”

AIMS

The charity aims to provide vulnerable young women aged 11-21 years with the insight, confidence and resilience to overcome the negative impact of feelings of isolation, peer pressure, bullying, family breakdown, stress and anxiety, the risk of or involvement in criminality and gangs and those who may be at risk of school exclusion.

The charity provides young women with the opportunity to build up a trusted and mutual relationship with a trained mentor for up to 12 months. We also run weekly drop-in sessions, outreach, school holiday projects, work in schools and female only events, such as, workshops, conferences and residential breaks.

By working in partnership with youth clubs, schools, children’s social care and other statutory and voluntary organisations, the charity is able to target young females who may benefit from being referred or may wish to self-refer directly for mentoring or to attend one of the events.

OVERVIEW OF YEAR (OCTOBER 2020 – SEPTEMBER 2021)

Mentoring Project

Mentors give the opportunity to build up a trusted and mutual relationship for up to 12 months. They will work alongside their mentee to work through their needs and discuss desired outcomes and how best to achieve them. During the agreed period the mentor will have regular dialogue with the mentee, whether in person, messaging or via phone calls.

“ ….. I am thankful and grateful for her (mentor) supporting me. She was able to support and help me a lot in trying to become more independent and confident.” (Mentee)

(my daughter) “…. is more open in terms of talking about feelings. She listens more. She is ……. much calmer and happier …… she is more brighter than before.” (Parent)

The Ashdon Jazz Academy mentors continue to be trained using the XLMentoring Project (XLP) which is a nationally accredited scheme. Mentors are appointed through rigorous recruitment (including interview by the CEO and two Trustees), vetting procedures and completing specialist training. Mentors are required to undergo further training each year, regular supervision (every 6 weeks) and attend mentor network meetings. Mentors are required to follow the charity’s Safeguarding Policy and Procedures, Code of Conduct and Working Alone Procedure. Quarterly evaluation summaries are being completed by mentees to help evidence the impact of mentoring.

“I have learnt how to actively listen and communicate with a young person, how to be honest and give advice without coming across as judgemental.” (Mentor)

During the year, 44 girls were referred for mentoring (with 5 being self-referred as a result of attending one of our events). 367 face to face mentoring sessions took place. However, due to the lockdown restrictions many other contacts to check-in on the young women’s welfare took place (e.g. video calling, phone calls). The girls come from the four boroughs we work in; Lambeth (25), Croydon (7), Merton (10) and Lewisham (2). 25 girls completed the mentoring programme during the year. Referrals were mainly made by the Wellness Centre (Lambeth) and Lambeth Children’s Social Care.

Evaluation	2015-16	2016-17	2017-18	2018-19	2019-20	2020-21
Percentage of girls with increased self- confidence/esteem at end of mentoring	[1]	100%	86%	89%	95%	76%
Percentage of girls meeting personal targets at end of mentoring	[1]	100%	100%	100%	92%	73%
[1] Not recorded as no girls had completed the mentoring programme in 2015-16.

Mentors	2015-16	2016-17	2017-18	2018-19	2019-20	2020-21
Number of vetted and trained mentors at end of year	10	14	21	20	25	31
Number of new vetted and trained mentors during the year	10	18	20	20	25	17
Percentage of vetted and trained mentors with up to date DBS	100%	100%	100%	100%	92%	100%
Percentage of vetted and trained mentors with up to date safeguarding training 2 years	100%	100%	100%	100%	92%	100%
Percentage of vetted and trained mentors receiving regular supervision once a month	[2]	78%	80%	80%	73%	100%

[2] Not recorded as service not fully established in first year.

We continue to see a positive impact as reported by the girls using an evaluation questionnaire at the start and end of the mentoring programme. We have noted the drop in performance for 2020-21 and consider this to be related to the extra difficulties our mentees found during the national lockdown.

Weekly Drop-ins and other Events

During the year, we facilitated 66 weekly drop-in sessions (some with a maximum of 15 participants to meet national guidelines during lockdown). When face to face meetings were not possible, 15 sessions were held with video group calling. Around 75% attending more than once - with many attending regularly each week.

Number of Drop-In	2015-16	2016-17	2017-18	2018-19	2019-20	2020-21
Sessions Held	15	37	55	57	65	66

Evaluation	2015-16	2016-17	2017-18	2018-19	2019-20	2020-21
Percentage of girls with increased self- confidence/esteem at end of drop-in, outreach or other event	38%	66%	88%	85%	90%	90%

----- Start of picture text -----
“I enjoyed that we got to relax and get to know
“I enjoy everything ‘cause it is useful.
ourselves and be comfortable within ourselves. And
‘Cause I got to take away stuff that I
I like that we could write about like what we thought
know. I mean, different strategies of
inside and we didn't have to like share it, cuz
dealing with emotions and stuff like that...
sometimes it can be quite difficult having to share
I think of how I can write my feelings and
like your own like personal thoughts and stuff. I
just like define why I'm feeling those
think I'll definitely take more time out and try and
things.” Young woman using Drop-In
do like the exercises ……. like the breathing one.”
Sessions, aged 16
Young woman using Drop-In Sessions, aged 14.
----- End of picture text -----

20 workshops were held involving 128 young women. The themes covered included:

 Acrylic nails (4)  Hairdressing  Film Making  Perfume making  Empowerment  Thorpe Park  Beach Visit  Floristry  Competition  Healing through meditation & discussion (3)

One residential was held involving 10 young women on the theme of women’s empowerment and co-facilitated by Lambeth Early Action Partnership. One fun event was held (after the national restrictions had been lifted) on Streatham Common and involved 40 young women, their parents and staff/trustees.

Stronger Minds

In October 2020 we started our Stronger Minds programme of mental health resilience sessions in 2 schools and one youth club. 3 more schools wished to engage with the programme by the end of the year. We have run 16 sessions and supported 77 young women through this initiative.

“Really fun, love all of the interesting/educational things we do. I’ve recently got into debating and I think it would be fun to do some debates.” (Young women, aged 18)

Ambassadors

Ambassadors are either previous mentees or girls who have attend our events who are recognised as being positive role models and want to give something back to their community. They represent our charity at public events and may even become a peer mentor to other girls. We work to develop their life, leadership and team building skills, entrepreneurial talents and social responsibilities.

Due to the national lockdown, it was very difficult to maintain the young women’s commitment to our Ambassador Scheme. However, two spoke at the London Youth Mayor Event in July 2021 in conjunction with Merton Connected and one completed her Duke of Edinburgh Silver Award in summer 2021.

summer 2021.
Ambassador Events	2015-16	2016-17	2017-18	2018-19	2019-20	2020-21
Number of Ambassador events	0	3	7	16	18	[3]
Number of girls as Ambassadors during year	0	16	22	24	24	11

[3] Unable to hold any events due to national lockdown restrictions.

Gambia

As a demonstration of our commitment to expand our beneficiaries’ horizons, we started planning to take a group of young women to Gambia in July 2020. Due to the worldwide Coronavirus this had to be cancelled and delayed again in 2021. It is planned to take 15 young women in July 2022. This initiative is for our group to meet disadvantaged young women in Gambia and offer them friendship and presents (e.g. soap which our girls have made when attending an Ashdon Jazz Academy event in England). On return, our young women are expected to give at least one presentation (e.g. to their school or college, youth club, faith group) on the challenges they faced, how they overcame these and what they learnt. On site risk assessments have been carried out. Our young women have been involved in funding their flights, accommodation and other costs through their own fundraising. We anticipate this becoming an annual event and will be another opportunity we can offer young women who engage with us. The girls will all take part in the Gambia ICE project (International Correspondence Exchange) and have each been partnered with a pupil from the Mansa Colley School in Gambia. The girls have all exchanged a number of letters and video footage in preparation for the forthcoming trip.

Our Capacity and Capability

The charity continues to develop as a mainly volunteer based organisation through charitable trusts’ grants, our own fundraising and personal donations. These have all helped the charity to grow and be maintained over the last 7 years for which we are grateful. To enable us to reach more young women, we will need to be ambitious in our funding strategy over the coming years.

All our staff work part time. The charity is managed by Patricia Muirhead (CEO). Claire Douglas is the Mentoring Coordinator. Christine Bramwell started as the Outreach Worker in March 2021. Laura Pearson is the Mentoring Admin Support Worker. Kate Burry is the Admin Worker for the charity and started in October 2020.

During the year, four Trustees served on the Board meeting quarterly to make decisions, review policies and conduct financial reviews. Sabrina John stepped down as Chairperson in Summer 2020. The trustees (as at 30 September 2021) were Kevin Howell (Chairperson and Treasurer), Linda Neal, Michelle Nicholas and Pauline Thomas. All Trustees have a current Disclosure & Barring Scheme check and have attended safeguarding training in the last 2 years.

We are grateful for Donna Fraser for being our patron for the last 3 years. Her standing as a well-respected former British athlete and role model for young women has been invaluable to our charity.

We continue to collaborate with a large number of local partnerships:

	Rathbone Youth Club		Filmantrophy			West Norwood Library
	Garden of Treats		Dwaynamics			Birds Eye View
	Merton Connected		Lambeth Wellness Centre			Energie Fitness
	Still we Breathe book	project		Lambeth Early Action Partnership

Artists: Ezra Lloyd-Jackson (perfumer) and Viktoria Spittler (Designer)
Schools | Clubs : Park Campus, Beckmead College, Rathbone Girl Night

Our main funders

We are extremely grateful for the donations or grants given by our supporters during the year. We note the importance of emergency grants awarded by various charitable trusts during the Coronavirus pandemic. This helped us maintain our services at a time when other sources of income were not possible.

BBC  Covid 19 Response Fund  Merton Giving Fund
Merton Connected  HAF Fund Merton  Lambeth General Fund  Rosa Fund  LEAP Confronting  Albert Hunt  UK Youth Fund  Jack Petchey  Croydon Mayor  Streatham Baptist Church  Arnold Clarke  The Leathersellers’ Company

Business Planning

We have followed through on many areas of our business plan – despite the uncertainty of the Coronavirus epidemic. Our priority was to increase the management, outreach worker and administration capacity to meet the increased demands.

Business Plan 2020-23	Progress
 Employ an Administrative Assistant to assist with admin duties (e.g. book keeping, gift aid, maintaining activity and evaluation data, producing publicity, such as, flyers and posters)	10 hour post created (October 2020).
 Increase the hours for an Outreach Worker to facilitate the drop-in sessions and visit schools, youth clubs and other organisations	22 hours maintained and will increase subject to new funding.
 Consider the best way to remunerate the CEO for hours working as the charity develops and expands	28 hours maintained and will increase subject to new funding.
 Relaunch our website and promotional materials	Website relaunched with new web address in oct 2020. The charity has Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts.
 Consider gaining access to a vehicle to assist with trips and workshops	Not progressed due to uncertainty of securing grants and generating own fundraising during national lockdown.
 Continue work with other organisations across the boroughs (e.g. Norwood Consortium)	Continued engagement with the Norwood Consortium until March 2023. Continued engagement with Merton Connected.
 Review the methods for evaluating impact (e.g. commence using Outcome STAR to better assess services being delivered)	In November 2020 the Rossenberg accredited self esteem scales started to be used across mentoring and the drop-in sessions. An evaluation framework will be drafted by March 2023.
 Agree a fundraising strategy to generate and sustain income for projects over next 3 years	Not progressed due to uncertainty of securing grants and generating own fundraising during national lockdown.
 Increase number of girls involved with the various programmes of support (target: double number of girls needing mentoring to 40 by end 2022).	This may not be achievable as the number of women applying to be mentors has lockdown has tailed off during the coronavirus pandemic.
 NEW – added during 2021: All policies reviewed and signed off by lead trustees with review dates by March 2022	Ongoing.

The Trustees declare they have approved the Trustees’ report above.

Date: 30[th] July 2022 Date: 30[th] July 2022

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ASHDON JAZZ ACADEMY STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL ACTIVITIES FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30 SEPTEMBER 2021

Unrestricted Notes Funds Incoming Resources Incoming resources from generated funds 2 0 Incoming resources from charitable activities 3 10,398 Other Income 4 5,366 Total incoming resources 15,764 Resources Expended Charitable activities Mentoring 5 0 Projects 6 10,779 Support costs 7 6,290 Others 0 Total Resources Expended 17,069 Net expenditure for the year/ Net movement in funds -1,305 Fund balance at 1 October 20,117 Fund balances at 30 September 18,812	2021 Total 95,766 11,148 5,366	2020 Total 35,782 13,484 7,311
15,764	112,280	56,577
0 10,779 6,290 0	39,831 10,779 29,954 0	20,322 12,974 8,173 0
17,069	80,564	41,469
-1,305 20,117	31,716 30,256	15,108 15,148
18,812	61,972	30,256

ASHDON JAZZ ACADEMY BALANCE SHEET AS AT 30 SEPTEMBER 2021

Notes CURRENT ASSETS Debtors Cash at bank and in hand CREDITORS: due within one year 10 TOTAL ASSETS LESS CURRENT LIABILITIES INCOME FUNDS UNRESTRICTED FUNDS General purpose fund RESTRICTED FUNDS Funding	2021 £0 £68,654 £68,654 £6,682 £61,972 £18,812 £43,160 £61,972	2020
		£0 £37,291
		£37,291 £7,035 £30,256
		£20,117 £10,139
		£30,256

The accounts were approved by the Trustees on 30/07/2022.

Signed on their behalf by:

…………………………………………….. Signature Chair/Treasurer: Kevin Howell

…............................................................. Signature

Trustee: Linda Neal

ASHDON JAZZ ACADEMY NOTES TO THE ACCOUNTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30 SEPTEMBER 2021

1 ACCOUNTING POLICIES

1.1 Basis of preparation

The accounts are prepared under the historical cost convention.

The accounts have been prepared in accordance with the statement of recommended practice, "Accounting and Reporting by Charities" in accordance with the Financial Reporting Standard issued in July 2014 and the provisions of the Charities Act 2011

1.2 Incoming Resources

Incoming resources are recognised in the statement of financial activities when entitlement has passed and the amounts are certain and measurable.

1.3 Allocation of costs

Direct activity cost are those costs which contribute directly to an activity and are allocated to the relevant activity. Support cost are those cost that are necessary to deliver an activity but in themselves do not deliver an activity, include cost incurred to meet statutory and constitutional requirements.

1.4 Funds

Restricted funds represent income received that is subject to donor restrictions on use. General funds are available for furthering the cause of the organisation.

2 GRANT AND SIMILAR FUNDING Lambeth General BBC Children in Need Rosa Fund B O'sullivan London Youth Fund Merton Voluntary Service Leather Sellers Leap Confronting Albert Hunt Arnold Clarke Covid 19 Response 3 CHARITABLE ACTIVITIES Croydon Project/Mayors Streatham Baptist Church Magdalen Hospital St James City Of London Jack Petchy 4 OTHER INCOME Fundraising Paypal Donations Interest 5 Mentoring Facilitation & Supervision Advertising & Promotion Resources & Expenses Training Workshop expenses	2021 £15,849 £5,000 £7,760 £20,000 £22,887 £6,900 £1,500 £600 £1,000 £500 £13,770 £95,766 2021 £9,600 £798 £0 £0 £0 £750 £11,148 2021 £2,138 £0 £3,215 £13 £5,366 2021 £36,065 £0 £3,145 £614 £7 £39,831	2020
		£10,909 £13,024 £9,660 £0 £0 £2,189 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0
		£35,782
		2020
		£2,899 £0 £2,000 £2,500 £5,335 £750
		£13,484
		2020
		£4,156 £0 £3,039 £16
		£7,211
		2020
		£17,466 £306 £749 £0 £1,801
		£20,322

ASHDON JAZZ ACADEMY NOTES TO THE ACCOUNTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30 SEPTEMBER 2021

6 Projects Facilitation & Supervision Ambassador & Gambia Venue Hire Events Resources & Expenses 7 Support costs Rent for office Staff Accounting software Office supplies & Stationary Subscriptions Insurance Postage & Printing Travel & Transportation Expenses Phone cost 8 Employees The average number of employees and volunteers Staff Volunteers and Mentors Employment cost Wages and salaries 9 Debtors Other debtors 10 CREDITORS: AMOUNTS FALLING DUE WITHIN Other creditors	2021 2020 £10,474 6,523 £0 £1,005 £0 £435 £0 £1,356 £305 £3,655 £10,779 £12,974 2021 2020 £5,910 £4,200 £18,778 £0 £0 £71 £920 £1,322 £701 £72 £449 £320 £1,806 £742 £519 £1,446 £871 £0 £29,954 £8,173 2021 2020 during the year was: 5 0 31 40 36 40 £7,940 £0 2021 2020 £0 £0 £0 £0 ONE YEAR 2021 2020 £6,682 £7,035 £6,682 £7,035	2020
		6,523 £1,005 £435 £1,356 £3,655
		£12,974