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2021-12-31-accounts

Charity no: 1165555

Annual Report and Accounts January 2021 – December 2021

Contents Page

Page
Charity Information 2
Vision, Mission, Values and Ethos 3
Governance and Management 4
Summary of Achievements 4
Plans for the Future 13
Accounts and Financial Review 15
Declaration 19

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Pregnancy Options Centre 2020 Annual Report

General Information

Charity name: Pregnancy Options Centre Other names charity is known by: Options Registered Charity Number: 1165555 Address: St Johns House St Johns Street Chichester PO19 1UU Website: optionschichester.org.uk Email: office@optionschichester.org.uk

Trustees

  1. Ashley Kuchanny (Chair)

  2. Sally Morgan

  3. Carol Grove

  4. Juliet Wood

  5. Dave Loveman

Advisors

Roy Twaites (Treasurer / Signatory) Suzanne Jones (Bookkeeper)

Independent Examiner

David Grove

Senior Staff

Anna Madge (CEO/ signatory)

Charity Structure

The overall responsibility for the Charity rests with the Trustees who meet approximately 4 times per year to receive reports on the charity’s activities. The CEO supported by other employees who are responsible for the day to day management. All staff are part-time.

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Pregnancy Options Centre 2020 Annual Report

Our Vision

  1. That no one has to faces crisis pregnancy, post-abortion or pregnancy loss alone.

  2. That children and young people are educated about healthy relationships, unplanned pregnancy and sexual health.

Our Mission Statements

Our Values and Ethos

As an organisation with Christian foundations, Pregnancy Options Centre’s foundational value is to respond with compassion, care and respect to our clients, regardless of their faith, race, income, sexual orientation or employment status. We are not a campaigning organisation, and we do not have a political agenda.

We recognise that abortion is a controversial issue that divides people in a polarising debate. As an organisation, we want to bring a non-judgmental approach by supporting clients at their point of need. Our goal is to provide accurate information, counselling and practical support so those in crisis can reach a healthy, well informed decision that is their own. We will safeguard our clients to ensure this decision is not influenced by coercion, manipulation, or misleading information.

We uphold the following values:

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Pregnancy Options Centre 2020 Annual Report

Structure Governance and Management

Options has a Constitution:

Trustee Selection Methods:

Constitution of a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) whose only voting members are its charity trustees. The Constitution was last amended on 19th January 2022. Apart from the First Trustees all charity Trustees must be appointed for a term of 3 years by a resolution passed at a properly convened meeting of the charity trustees. In selecting individuals for appointment as charity trustees, the charity trustees must have regard to the skills knowledge and experience needed for the effective administration of the CIO.

The current trustees are responsible for appointing new trustees.

The charity trustees will make available to each new charity trustee, on or before his first appointment: A copy of the current version of the constitution and a copy of the CIO latest Trustees Annual report and statement of accounts.

Public Benefit

As a small charity, below the Charities Act’s audit threshold, the report focuses on the main activities undertaken by the charity to further its charitable purposes for public benefit. The ‘Summary of the Charities Achievements of the Year’ provides a brief summary of the activities undertaken. The trustees confirm they have had due regard to the Charity Commission’s Public Benefit Guidance and will continue to follow this guidance in future plans.

Risk Management

The Trustees acknowledge they have a duty to identify and review risks to which the charity is exposed and to ensure appropriate controls are in place to provide reasonable assurance against fraud and error. Policies and procedures are reviewed regularly throughout the year, including a Risk Management Policy.

Summary of Charity Achievements in the Year

2021 continued to be a challenging year for our local community and our service users in light of the effects of the pandemic. This was reflected in another consecutive year of increased

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Pregnancy Options Centre 2020 Annual Report

referrals for our counselling service. Throughout 2021 we offered a hybrid service of telephone, online and face to face support. In February, we completed our in house post abortion training with 3 new volunteers. All 3 trainees passed the training threshold and joined our counselling team, which has helped increase capacity, reduce waiting list times and fill gaps where other volunteers had to temporarily step back. Our education project regained momentum after the school closures and covid restriction of visitors of 2020. Our Education Lead was on flexi furlough until mid-March whilst schools continued to recover and reopen for visitors. Although frustrating to not be delivering sessions directly to students, this rare quieter time enabled the team to create and pilot our new primary school stream of sessions. This project saw much interest from local primary schools and became a key area of delivery in 2021.

Despite the challenges of the pandemic, 2021 was another year of growth and development at Options, as the need for our services became even more evident. In particular, the CEO began researching and connecting with churches, services and supporters in South-East Hampshire to investigate the need of setting up a satellite service in the future. In preparation for growth of the Centre, our CEO complete a Level 5 Leadership and Management Course, qualifying with a distinction.

A more detailed summary of the work of each project follows:

Counselling Project

This project provides counselling for women and their partners and/or families facing unplanned pregnancy or struggling after an abortion or pregnancy loss. We use a bereavement support programme called Time to Heal , which enables our clients to address their painful issues of loss and find healthy ways of processing their experiences.

In 2021, we received 84 new client referrals, with 78 clients engaging in support for unplanned pregnancy, post abortion, miscarriage, post ectopic, still birth, termination for medical reasons and pregnancy support. This was an increase of 22% compared to 2020’s referrals. Referrals came from 83 females and 1 male during the year, which sadly is the lowest number of males we have seen for a number of years. We continued to support 4 clients from our 2020 caseload. 31 of our referrals in 2021 were for unplanned pregnancy support, similar to the 33 referrals in 2020. Referrals for this area of support continued to be high most likely due to the uncertainty the pandemic brought, as well as an increase in awareness and viability of our service in the community. In 2019, we received 14 referrals for unplanned pregnancy, out of a total of 49 referrals. This is 221% increase over 3 years.

During 2021, we completed our training course for post abortion and pregnancy loss support. In total we were able to deliver training to 10 new volunteer counsellors from 4 different Centers across the South East: Chichester, Folkestone, Burgess Hill and Horsham. This training has enabled other Centres to grow their capacity, increase their sustainability and meet the demand for their service users. It also provided the trainees with a sense of unity by meeting other people from across the South Coast who are doing similar work to them.

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Pregnancy Options Centre 2020 Annual Report

We use quantitative and qualitative monitoring tools which show significant impact, including using NHS approved psychometrics depression scores, record by PHQ-9 forms. In 2021, at the start of support, 90% of clients said they suffered from sorrow, guilt or anger from their experience, 68% suffered with flashbacks, 55% with nightmares and 40% had suicidal thoughts. By the end of support, only 36% continued to suffer from sorrow, guilt or anger, 18% continued to suffer with flashbacks, 9% with nightmares and 0% of clients suffered from suicidal thought. With our support, clients are able to move forward and build positive futures. In addition, we offer clients the opportunity to complete a Programme Evaluation and write about their journey. Feedback given shows that clients experience non-directive and non-judgmental support. Clients express feeling safe with their volunteer counsellor, are able to fully explore their painful experiences and found the counselling process provided healing.

Some feedback from clients is below:

“This is a great service and I’m grateful to the GP who told me about it. The volunteers are amazing. The programme has really helped having someone impartial to talk to as it has allowed us to talk completely free and openly without judgement. It has enabled me to work through the grief and to understand grief more and to be kinder to myself. It helped feeling less alone and to also let go off the initial resentment/anger I felt towards my husband. As a result we are able to move forwards and our relationship is stronger for it.” – Miscarriage Client

“One the biggest things I learnt was that grief and all the different emotions I had were normal. Learning that the sadness of pregnancy loss will never fully go away, our baby will be in my heart forever and actually I don’t want to forget them. I am ready however to move forwards knowing that sadness and happiness can coexist because I can grow my life around the loss. My counsellor was very approachable, authentic, non-judgemental and highly skilled. Cannot thank her enough.” – Miscarriage Client

“I was lucky enough to be contacted by my counsellor from Options, who immediately made me feel at ease and supported with no element of judgement, she just encouraged me to share my story. There were times that it was really painful to talk about certain aspects, even using the word ‘abortion’ to begin with was not something I could do without physically wincing. I cannot explain how much her patient and honest nature encouraged me to trust her and to not be afraid to 'bare my soul and deepest thoughts'. She never made me feel uncomfortable or judged and shared so many useful techniques. She spent time really trying to get to know me as a person and take notice of the areas of my life. This made me feel valued and we had a lovely rapport, to the point it actually felt like talking to a friend. In the beginning I had been petrified at the prospect of sharing details with somebody over the telephone who I didn't know but as time went on I looked forward to my sessions with her, despite some weeks coming away emotionally drained and unable to switch off for a while. My counsellor explained this was part of the process and I understood unearthing these memories would be difficult but absolutely necessary in my recovery. I am pleased to say at the end of the programme I feel more myself, the bitterness I felt towards others having what I wanted has almost disappeared and although the sadness and pain hasn't fully gone (nor do I believe it will) I can look to a brighter future, with some of my care free,

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Pregnancy Options Centre 2020 Annual Report

heart on my sleeve nature slowly replacing that anger and sadness. I can feel myself returning out of the black hole. What my counsellor and the programme have done for me is to allow me to look to the future, without being blinded by negativity, grief, and guilt. I am no longer trapped. Thank you so much, (thank you will never be enough)” – Post Abortion Client

“Thank you so much for your help, it's an amazing service.” - Unplanned Pregnancy client

“Thank-you so much for this service! Everything has just felt in such a muddle in my head and this has helped me see it more clearly.” – Unplanned Pregnancy client

“I just wanted to say thank you for getting me an appointment so quickly and to my counsellor for her time. The notes we wrote down were really helpful and helped my partner understand all my thoughts and feelings. You’ve helped me twice now when I felt so lost and scared. Thank you again.” – Unplanned Pregnancy

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Pregnancy Options Centre 2020 Annual Report Age Ranges 27 20-24 25-29 fjtthe start of 15 -19 r•wy guilt •r nger gboul their experien Irt the start 24WTr esteem 30-34 35-39 40-49 fell for all sh• has don• for me. I f•lt liste SUPPOrt•d and •ncourag•d to ¢wn up and b• h>n￿t about how I was f••liry. Sh• mad• m• f••1 50 comfortabl• with the most painful memories and •xp•ri•nr•s. 4Dd I know without h•r to guid• ond •vpport m• I would still b• stuck in th• bitt•r, angry and d•vastat•d turrnoil that m hod b•com•. Opti•n• h•lp•d m• t• h•al. R•port$ Of floshbu¢ks/ rted suicid t4hts ot lh• start ol su at th• start otth Pregnancy Options Centre Counselling Impact Report 2021 Reférrals ahnts-- Type of Support xarri W•bsil• Midwiv•s and GP'S Relurning Clients Mental H•alth Teams L￿01 Orgonisotions Edufotion work locations Pr•gMw iupprt Stillbirth po￿ Edopis.. Other En4uiri• W•st Suswx* South-Eost Hampthir• qr beyond O kl 20 30 40 UNPLANNED PREGNAN FEEDBACK FROM A MISCARRIAGE CLIEKr "I f•k v•ry alone unts1 ye%terduy• It wos re¢tlly nice to lalk to m•oM who didn't knw m• . p•r$Or￿lIy-. In to s(ry. Overtime I learnttoreurynise CHARITIlRI.F Tr[( HIWCF "- 8 | Page

Pregnancy Options Centre 2020 Annual Report

Education Project

Our education project provides interactive educational sessions for local schools, colleges and youth settings on topics surrounding healthy sex and relationships. Topics include: consent, internet safety, healthy friendship and partner relationships, sexual health, the pregnancy timeline and the three options of an unplanned pregnancy: abortion, adoption and parenting.

At the start of 2021, our Education Lead was on flexi furlough. During this time, her main focuses were: the creation and distribution of a 3-part virtual lesson resources for keeping safe online, a session on the dangers of sending ‘nudes’, as well as focusing on the project development of our new primary school sessions. After the Easter break, we were able to return to the classroom, with a full summer term of bookings. We held Parent Zoom sessions in partnership with the schools to communicate the importance of the sessions, their contents and held a Q&A. We had an overwhelming positive response, with parents and guardians expressing the benefit of communicating so openly about subjects many find challenging to discuss.

We continued to deliver our usual catalog of sessions to secondary school pupils with 33 sessions delivered between September and December, historically our quietest part of the year. These sessions are not highlighted in the infographic below, as they will be part of our 2021/22 academic year statistics. In Jan - Dec 2021, we reached 1625 young people, delivering 59 sessions on: healthy relationships and consent, contraception and STIs, the pregnancy timeline, puberty external and internal changes, menstrual wellbeing, reproduction and a parent and guardian information zoom.

Our Education Lead continues to develop and refine sessions. We use feedback from staff and students to shape our service. In one local school, 102/161 students request our pregnancy timeline session be longer. After this feedback, we extended the session to be 1.5 hours and included more content on; menstruation, conception, pregnancy, birth, abortion, adoption, parenting, miscarriage and still birth. Feedback from one school request support with sessions around pornography, after witnessing more derogatory behaviour towards girls from the boys. This may have been an impact from Covid with young people spending more time online. Therefore we began developing a ‘Dangers of Pornography’ session to be part of our offer, with the aim to deliver the first session in 2022.

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Pregnancy Options Centre 2020 Annual Report

Reporting methods to schools has improved this year. Documents sent to schools after sessions include a review of the workshops delivered, its relevance to the government RSE curriculum, students’ learning progression and feedback. The creation of ‘distance travelled’ information has become a method of demonstrating students’ understanding at the start of sessions compared to the end of sessions (shown by infographic on the left).

Qualitative feedback is also collected after sessions and has been exceedingly positive from staff and pupils. All feedback and data is used to evaluate our work and enable us to adapt materials where necessary, to meet curriculum guidelines, as well as addressing key issues that are relevant to young people.

Student and Staff quotes:

“It was really good. I liked it that you made it all less embarrassing, thank you” - Year 5/6 student

“This lesson has made me feel less worried about starting my period, I will understand what will be happening to my body and what I can do to cope with It” - Year 5/6 student

“I have learnt so much over the 5 weeks :-) Thank you!” - Year 5/6 student

“Excellent course- very informative and professionally delivered. Good relationship between Natalie and the pupils” - Teaching Assistant

“The whole set of sessions has been fabulous and the children have learnt a lot. We'd love to work with you again in the future if possible, Thank you” - Class teacher

“Your enthusiasm shone through! Really well delivered- I could tell the children really enjoyed it and understand the content” - Class teacher

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Pregnancy Options Centre 2020 Annual Report

“I have learnt the different options available when faced with an unplanned pregnancy. I have also learnt about the pregnancy timeline and what this involves.” – Year 9 Student

“Thank you so much Natalie for delivering such an amazing session, as always! We really appreciate you working with us, our students get so much from your sessions, and you deliver a service we cannot, this is so valuable.” – Teacher

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Pregnancy Options Centre 2020 Annual Report Schools and S•(1￿. Colle9es Sessions delivered Year visited Chi<h•st•r ur￿￿r￿itY SE Total Sessions per group tudents see Chl unl 10 20 96 graded the deli STAR T Primary sessions launched bwEJLLEJNTT Pregnancy Options Education Work Staff said: Sessions delivered Gr•&t dhd i•wi¥on withd• Impact Report Jan- Dec 21 66 wd.ph¢h•d Fanta￿1( ddiv•ry Id•Uorb¥hlps & C Pr•hts nd CMrs und h•lplul l abwkn•lywll b• b•oking h•M MiiOn kn •v•ry yqar andorn to diXuSi•PtIo rKS21KS3 t4fr. i•all r•ally irnpwknt Contrt Onlln• Prtyi•nty Trmt Pwlrnary S<ore #esslom FrtshÈrs Falr itis rfdl• liW•bilxury .1 really liked the open discussion. PIIPILPI "h was gr•ot to talk o11tyrt Sfjf• S•x' th• knd juÈ&pul• n¢lDrn onl) larn 9Diry iomii# CHARITIlRI.F Tr[( HIWCF "- 12 | Page

Pregnancy Options Centre 2020 Annual Report

Summary of Operations

The central work of 2021 was to continue to respond as flexibly as possible to the challenges posed by Covid-19. The use of Office365 and Zoom meant we carried on working remotely from home as well as in the office when able to so. Covid response funds including Sussex Community Foundation Recovery Fund, and our first grant from the Hampshire area - Hampshire & IOW Community Foundation helped us pay for core costs including salaries and rent as well as begin our journey to respond to need in South East Hampshire. The website and our social media platforms were key to keeping partners and the public updated that our services were still operational.

Successful fundraising, particularly grant fundraising, and making some use of the Government’s flexi furlough scheme for our Education Lead, have resulted in Options finishing the year in a strong position. The second half of a legacy, amounting to £15,602.48, was donated in January. This is the charity’s first legacy, which we were very honoured to receive. This boost in our income is an exciting development and the CEO, alongside the Trustees, have been working on a strategic plan to ensure these funds are used purposefully in the coming years. The legacy has been agreed by the Trustees to be used towards the expansion of the service into South-East Hampshire.

In January 2020, the CEO and Trustees of Options had agreed the strategic direction for the subsequent three years was to focus on three aspects:

Strategic Aim 1 – To build an effective and stable organisation Strategic Aim 2 - Increase our profile with professionals and the local community. Strategic Aim 3 – To grow, develop and refine Pregnancy Options Centre’s services and expertise.

Many of the plans laid out in our operational plan to achieve these strategic aims had to go on hold in 2020 as an immediate crisis response took priority. For much of 2021, Options continued to ensure that it was a stable organisation that could come out of the pandemic stronger and more resilient. However, the impact of the pandemic highlighted new key areas for the charity to focus on, therefore the CEO adapted the strategic plan to follow in the direction the organisation found itself organically moving towards. This included expanding our geographical area to South-East Hampshire in order to help meet the gap in provision for our specialist services, specifically beginning to focus on a satellite service in Portsmouth.

Plans for the Future

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Pregnancy Options Centre 2020 Annual Report

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Pregnancy Options Centre 2020 Annual Report Accounts Pregnancy Opts(￿5 Centre Reytertd Ctty 1165555 &20Y26 1.459m 1.4n.44 57N1￿1 43.1>•)29 1314A6 1.459m 1&95QLII 41m Gr•rt5 4)114 Trainwy 1.713.40 15.60141 43)Al G*l Athl 81144 70.43457 61 4].1￿ •3.4ll61 lJ5X iJdo lis 1.19&12 753.19 459A8 13&01 55.1 19 J5 1.15gJ2 47 459A• V9n 70332 .15352 593AII Paypal Ftts ijao 3llg9 1328 6TL99 583 Rates Rert Stsff Costs 11645.18 169.95 4)AIS.93 407.xl .IILJi 44&90 43113 Travel 643.42 743.41 211m 649. 1.03850 757J4 13JIL55 3&133JI 40.029J5 4&698JS 1&943. 53.610.75 IOA61. 64.27255 .6TrA9 15 | Page

Pregnancy Options Centre 2020 Annual Report Pregnancy Options Centre R*￿Ad No 1165555 64Jl l. 29JYJ si. 6417UI 4• I￿￿• 110457 124.97 T&Y&M 2L TOTAL ASSErs 63 649.6• 40 610.0• 16 | Page

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Pregnancy Options Centre 2020 Annual Report

Financial Review

Total incoming resources amounted to £83,623 for the year to 31 December 2021 (2020: £70,434). Total resources expended over the same period was £60,030 compared to £46,698 in 2020. The net position for the year amounted to a surplus of £23,593 (compared with a surplus of £23,736 for the year to 31 December 2020). Net resources at the end of the year were £64,273 of which £53,611 is unrestricted and £10,662 is restricted.

Options is reliant on gifts from grant-making trusts and foundations, as well as individual and donors. We would like to thank the following donors for their support in 2021: Hampshire & IOW Community Foundation, Chichester District Council, Ian Askew Charitable Trust, Postcode Society Trust, The Woodger Trust, Southover Manor General Educational Trust Ltd, Sussex Community Foundation, The Boltini Trust, The Arnold Clark Community Fund, LUSH Wholesness Fund, St Johns Trust, and Movement for Good Awards.

The charity holds its reserves in a current bank account. It is the policy of the trustees to maintain three months’ expenditure in reserves. The financial management of the charity is supervised and monitored by CEO, Treasurer and the Trustees.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank a long standing supporter of Options for a legacy left to the charity in 2020/21. This is the charity’s first legacy and we are truly honoured to be left this gift. The CEO and Trustees recognise the significance of such a gift and therefore are stewarding this legacy and our surplus unrestricted funding to the expansion of our services over the Hampshire border as well as increasing our sustainability. Resources needed to action these plans include maintaining a bookkeeper, increasing our CEO’s hours to build new partnerships, employing local staff, marketing and training new volunteers to meet the anticipated increase in demand.

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Pregnancy Options Centre 2020 Annual Report

Trustee Declaration

The Trustees Declare that they have approved the trustees’ report above.

Signed on behalf of the charity’s trustees

Signature

Full Name: Ashley Kuchanny

Position: Chair of Trustees

Date: 8/7/2022

Signature

Full Name: Sarah Morgan

Position: Trustee

Date: 8/7/2022

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