# The PeerTalk Charitable Foundation Registered charity no. 1169830 Annual Report 2022 This report describes the activities related to the purposes of the charity from 1st April 2021 to 31st March 2022. The audited and approved accounts make up the centrefold insert. PeerTalk support groups are attended by people who live with depression, anxiety and related distress. The groups are facilitated by trained volunteers. On 31st March 2022 PeerTalk were hosting 14 support groups. PeerTalk's vision is to establish a national network of support groups across the UK. ## **PeerTalk’s Charitable Objects - Reg Charity 1169830** To promote and protect good mental health amongst people who live with depression, their families and carers, in particular by the provision of support and support networks including facilitating peer support groups and by providing mental health and related information and educational material in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. ## **Meg Munn - Chair of Trustees** The last year has again been challenging for us all with the continuation of the coronavirus pandemic. Many people are struggling with their mental health at a time when our NHS is under great pressure. Our weekly groups are more important than ever, providing much needed help and support. Unlike many services, there is no need for a referral and no waiting list; newcomers are always welcome. We know that our groups are valuable – research and evaluation by Sheffield Hallam University clearly demonstrates the benefits. With the restrictions eased new groups are starting to bring the confirmed benefits of peer support to more people. We are delighted to welcome many new volunteer facilitators to PeerTalk to support existing and new groups. We continue to raise our profile and work hard to obtain new funds. I am grateful to our staff and dedicated volunteers, without whom PeerTalk could not continue. If you think you could help PeerTalk, as a volunteer, a trustee or a fundraiser – we would love to hear from you. ## **The Headlines** Four new PeerTalk support groups were established during the year located at Leeds Beckett University, Huddersfield, Knowsley and at The University of Sunderland. The group meeting on the campus of **Leeds Beckett University** started on the 9th November 2021 and aims to serve both the university and the wider community. The **Huddersfield** group started on 25th November 2021. This group had previously been scheduled to start in 2020. The group at **Knowsley** began on 23rd February 2022 and has been funded by the charity Mental Health Matters, supporting their project based in the Old Schoolhouse in Huyton. We are delighted to be working with them.. The group at **The University of Sunderland** was due to start in Spring 2020 and following the lifting of the university’s Covid restrictions eventually started in their City Space building on 8th March 2022. This group serves the university and the wider community. During the year we held five volunteer training days at which we trained **68 new Support Group Facilitators** . These volunteers were to facilitate the new groups but also to strengthen the volunteer base across all our other groups. Maintaining a team of eight volunteers per group is essential to sustaining the regular weekly provision throughout the year. At the year end 31st March we had 121 active volunteer Facilitators. **We are grateful to Kate Chartres, Irene Muh and Dr India Amos** who provided the clinical input at our training events. Our Support Group Facilitators do not offer counsel, advice or their own opinions but the clinical input provides an overview as to the possible background of attendees. In July 2021 our support group based in Batley moved to the more centrally located and new **Jo Cox House** . In March we were pleased that Jo Cox’s sister Kim Leadbeater MP came to meet all our Batley volunteer Support Group Facilitators. ## **Governance and Policies** PeerTalk is a charitable incorporated organisation with only the trustees as the members. The charity’s governing document is its constitution which is based on the Charity Commission’s model. Trustees are appointed to complement the organisational requirements based on knowledge, experience and skills. All trustees have been appropriately inducted and trained. ## **The PeerTalk Charitable Foundation Trustees** |||**Joanne**
**Malcolm**|**Joanne**
**Malcolm**|**Joanne**
**Malcolm**|**Emma**
**Bradley**|**Roger**
**Buterfeld**|| |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| |||Highly Specialist Speech
and Language Therapist
working in the
Neuro-developmental
Autsm assessment Team
within a Community NHS
Trust. Extensive
experience and
knowledge in Autsm
diagnostcs|||

Having been a Director
of Nursing and Patent
Experience and Deputy
Prisons and Probaton
Ombudsman Emma is
now Performance
Improvement Manager
for South Central
Ambulance Service.|Solicitor with 38 years
experience working for
local authorites and
several years experience
of providing advice and
training to local
authorites.|| |||**Graham**
**Ilif**|||**Andrew Varley**|**Nabihah**
**Kauser**|| |||
Graham spent many
years as a senior
manager and Marketng
Director in the telecoms
industry and more
recently has lectured in
Marketng andBusiness
in higher educaton.|||
A Fellow of the
Chartered Associaton of
Certfed Accountants
with a background of
working in
manufacturing and
constructon. Currently
Group Accountant with
The Casey Group Ltd.|
Nabihah is currently
studying for her
Doctorate in Psychology.
Her previous experience
as a PeerTalk support
group Facilitator makes
a valuable contributon
to the trustee team.|| |**PeerTalk Policies and Procedures**|||||||| |_Unchanged_|||_Reviewed or Revised_
_April 1st 2021 - March 31st 2022_||||| |Bullying and Harassment
Policy|Equality, Diversity
& Inclusion Policy|||Inducton for New Trustees||Terms of Reference - Trustees|| |Complaints Procedure|Financial Policy|||Receipt of Donatons Policy||Trustee Code of Conduct|| |Confdentality Policy|Governance Risks|||Recruitment and Selecton Policy||Volunteer Code of Practce|| |Conficts of Interest Policy|Grievance Procedure|||Safeguarding Policy||Volunteer Facilitator Role
Descripton|| |Data Protecton Policy
& Privacy Notce|Health and Safety Policy|||Secure storage, handling, use, retenton and
disposal of Disclosures and Disclosure
Informaton Policy||Volunteer Policy|| |Disciplinary Procedures|Home Working Risk Assessment|||Statement of Values||Volunteer Facilitator Agreement|| |Equal Opportunites Policy|Lone Working: Policy, Procedure and
Practce Guidance|||Terms of Reference for Advisory
Commitee||Whistleblowing Policy|| |||**PeerTalk Policies and Procedures**|**PeerTalk Policies and Procedures**|**PeerTalk Policies and Procedures**||| |---|---|---|---|---|---|---| |_Unchanged_||||_Reviewed or Revised_
_April 1st 2021 - March 31st_|_2022_|| |Bullying and Harassment
Policy||Equality, Diversity
& Inclusion Policy|
|Inducton for New Trustees||Terms of Reference - Trustees| |Complaints Procedure||Financial Policy||Receipt of Donatons Policy||Trustee Code of Conduct| |Confdentality Policy||Governance Risks||Recruitment and Selecton Policy||Volunteer Code of Practce| |Conficts of Interest Policy||Grievance Procedure||Safeguarding Policy||Volunteer Facilitator Role| |||||||Descripton| |Data Protecton Policy||Health and Safety Policy||Secure storage, handling, use, retenton and||Volunteer Policy| |& Privacy Notce||||disposal of Disclosures and Disclosure||| |||||Informaton Policy||| |Disciplinary Procedures||Home Working Risk Assessment||Statement of Values||Volunteer Facilitator Agreement| |Equal Opportunites Policy||Lone Working: Policy, Procedure and||Terms of Reference for Advisory||Whistleblowing Policy| |||Practce Guidance||Commitee||| ## **Principal Risks** The availability of volunteers every week is critical to maintaining clinical credibility. Every week there is the risk of a volunteer becoming unavailable. There is a risk that we don’t secure enough funds to deliver our commitments for the next year. There is a risk of loss of organisational intelligence. There is a risk that volunteers disregard PeerTalk’s policies and procedures. Trustees maintain a risk register with mitigations in place if necessary. THE PEERTALK (HARITABiE FOUNDATION INDEPENDENT EKAMINER'S REPORT FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2022 Independent examinerfs report to the trnstees of The PeerTalk Charitable Foundation I report to the charity trustees on my examination of the accounts of The PeerTalk Charitable Foij ndation (the Foundation} forthe year ended 31 March 2022. Responsibilities and basis of report A5the charitytrusteesof the Foundation you are responsibleforthe preparation of the accounts in xcordance with the requirement5 of the Charities Act 2011 (the Act). I report in respect of my examination of the Trusvs accounts carried out under section 145 of the Act and in carrying out my examination I have followed all applicable Directions given by the Charrty Commission under section 145{5)Ibl of the Act. Independent examiners, ststement I have completed my examination. I confimi that no material matters have cometo myattention in connection with the examination giving me cause to believe that in any material respect: (l) accounting records were not kept in respect of the Foundakn"on as required by section 130 of the Act. or 12) the accounts do not accord with those records; or 13) the accounts do not comply with the applicable requirements concerning the form and content of accounts set out in the Charities (Accounts and Reports) Regulations 2CQ8 other than any requirement that the accounts give a true and fair view which is not a matter considered as part of an independent examination. I confirm that there are no other matters to which your attention should be drawn to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached. MrA Twright 3 Meeting House Row Homby Road Wray Lancaster LA2 8QN **----- Start of picture text -----**
The PeerTalk Charitable Foundatio
1st April 2021 to
**----- End of picture text -----**
|RECEIPTS|2021/22 totals|2020/21 totals
62729.38
2300.00
15945.68
143.68
832.14
586.84
82537.72| |---|---|---| |**Grants: restricted funds**|62127.93|| |_Tudor Trust - staff salaries_
25000.00||| |_HM Govt - Suicide Prevention Fund_
31567.00||| |_One Community Foundation - Kirklees_
1442.00||| |_Co-op Local Community Fund - Preston_
1390.43||| |_Bradford VCS Alliance - Bradford_
500.00||| |_Warrington Charities Trust - Warrington_
228.50||| |_Albert Hunt - staff salaries_
2000.00||| |**Grants: unrestricted funds**||| |_Forrester Family trust_
5000.00
5000.00||| |||| |**Commissioned Work**||| |_Mental Health Matters - Knowsley_
6424.00
6424.00||| |||| |**Donations: restricted funds**
6100.00||| |_Settle Methodist Circuit -Craven_
100.00||| |_John Rigg Charitable Foundation -Guildford_
6000.00||| |||| |**Donations: unrestricted funds**
9108.42||| |_regular giving_
1745.80||| |_one-off gifts_
7362.62||| |||| |**Fund raising**
2858.90
2858.90||| |||| |**HMRC Gift Aid**
1735.59
1735.59||| |||| |**Interest**1
876.73||| |_unrestricted_
876.73||| |||| |||| |sub-total - restricted
74651.93||| |- unrestricted
19579.64
94231.57||| |**Balances 1.4.21**||| |CAF Bank
8772.21||| |Central Finance Board
90047.10||| |Shawbrook Bank Ltd Fixed Saver
60000.00
158819.31||| |||| |**TOTAL**
**253050.88**||| |**1**Interest - due to very low interest rates, treated as negligible and placed in unrestricted funds||| The Charity shall aim to hold in reserve expenditure sufficient for a minimum of one quarter of a financial year and be available at a minimum of 30 days' notice. This shall be based on non-exceptional expenditure - i.e. oneoff projects are excluded **----- Start of picture text -----**
on - Receipts and Payments Account
o 31st March 2022
**----- End of picture text -----**
|PAYMENTS|sub-totals|2021/22
totals|2021/22
totals|2020/21
totals|2020/21
totals| |---|---|---|---|---|---| ||||||| |**Core organisational costs**|||42063.33||50513.32| |_staff/contractor costs - restricted_
28698.54|||||| |_- unrestricted_
6874.49|35573.03||||| |_Admin. website, annual fees - restricted_
2958.27|||||| |_- unrestricted_
1777.74|4736.01||||| |_General publicity - restricted_
391.00|391.00||||| |
_Staff & key volunteer general travel - restricted_
625.33|||||| |
_- unrestricted_
282.15|907.48||||| |_Trustees meeting costs - restricted_
262.20|||||| |
_- unrestricted_
193.61|455.81||||| |**Support Group maintenance costs:**|||84896.32||70682.79| |_staff/contractor costs - restricted_
51048.29|||||| |_- unrestricted_
5888.56|56936.84||||| |_support group venues - restricted_
13168.70|||||| |
_- unrestricted_
78.10|13246.80||||| |_group volunteer travel - restricted_
1859.70|||||| |
_- unrestricted_
0.00|1859.70||||| |_staff travel to cover facilitating groups- restricted_
1313.05|||||| |
_- unrestricted_
321.75|1634.80||||| |_support group coordinator expenses - restricted_
175.92|||||| |
_- unrestricted_
149.07|324.99||||| |_volunteer facilitator ongoing training - restricted_
670.44|||||| |
_- unrestricted_
216.10|886.54||||| |_training new volunteers - existing groups - restricted_
3411.55|||||| |
_- unrestricted_
406.62|3818.17||||| |_existing volunteers DBS - existing groups - restricted_
72.00|||||| |
_- unrestricted_
12.00|84.00||||| |_local publicity - restricted_
1389.40|||||| |
_- unrestricted_
14.00|1403.40||||| |_volunteer facilitator support meetings - restricted_
2335.17|||||| |
_- unrestricted_
365.88|2701.05||||| |_volunteer and staff wellbeing vouchers - restricted_
2000.03|2000.03||||| |
**Growth costs:**|||23186.89||11576.12| |_staff/contractor costs - restricted_
12835.74|||||| |_- unrestricted_
3341.18|16176.92||||| |_training days - restricted_
1838.37|||||| |
_- unrestricted_
332.25|2170.62||||| |_group launch costs - restricted_
1704.89|||||| |
_- unrestricted_
7.50|1712.39||||| |_Evaluation - restricted_
126.96|||||| |_- unrestricted_
3000.00|3126.96||||| ||||||| |sub-total - restricted|114049.80||||| |- unrestricted|23261.00|150146.54||132772.23|| |**Balances 31.3.22**|||||| |CAF Bank|39895.29||||| |Central Finance Board|63009.05||||| |Shawbrook Bank Ltd Fixed Saver - account closed|0.00|102904.34|||| ||||||| |**TOTAL**||**253050.88**|||| With the agreement of the Trustees the Reserves can be used: i) to cover a fall in the Foundation's income thereby allowing on-going work and projects to be maintained ii) to cover a cash shortfall whether anticipated or unexpected iii) to fund an unanticipated opportunity to promote and/or pursue the aims of the Foundation. ## **The PeerTalk Charitable Foundation** ## Statement of Assets and Liabilites at 31st March 2022 ||_Restricted_|_Restricted_|_Unrestricted_
_(designated)_|_Unrestricted_
_(designated)_|_Unrestricted_
_(reserves)_|_Unrestricted_
_(reserves)_|_Unrestricted_
_(reserves)_|_Unrestricted_
_(reserves)_| |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| |||||||||| |**Cash funds:**_see notes_|||||||102904.34|| |||||||||| |**Other monetary assets:**||4970.00|||||4970.00|| |||||||||| |**Investment assets:**|||||||None|| |||||||||| |**Assets retained for the charity's own use:**||||||||| |1 x laptop & printer for staf||||||||| |1 x projector for presentatons||||||||| |
2 x roller banners for publicity||||||||| |4 x mobile phones for staf||||||||| |||||||||| |||||||||| |**Liabilites:**|||||||1221.18|| |
_support group venue hire - March_||530.00||||||| |_HMRC- Tax & NI related to staf salaries_||578.19||||||| |
_payroll administraton - March_||_55.69_||||||| |
_volunteer facilitator travel_||224.19||||||| |_Volunteer facilitator support meetng costs - March_||16.50||||||| |
_evaluaton_||1260.00||||||| |||||||||| |**Assets less liabilites**|||||||**105209.77**|| |||||||||| |**Notes:**||||||||| |Remaining funds for||Restricted||Unrestricted
(designated)|||Unrestricted
_(reserves)_
**total**|| |||||||||| |_Staf salaries1 _||_8152.63_||_20322.40_||||| |_Contnuaton of any pre-existng work_||_0.00_||||||| |_Bordon group_||_122.70_||||||| |_Bradford group_||_333.80_||||||| |_Craven groups_||_696.18_||||||| |_Guildford group_||_3896.36_||||||| |_Kirklees groups_||_1099.02_||||||| |_Knowsley group_||_5750.13_||||||| |_North East groups_||_5210.71_||||||| |_Preston groups_||_332.86_||||||| |_Warrington_||_1475.94_||||||| |_West Yorkshire groups_||_938.34_||||||| |_Future years3 _||_31665.07_||||||| |_Redundancy reserve_||||_4115.00_||||| |_Any charitable purpose_||||||||_21098.63_| |total||59673.74||24437.40||||21098.63
**105209.77**| |1includes grant for part 22/23||||||||| |2grant for 22/23||||||||| |3includes grant for 2023||||||||| |||||||||| |||||||||| ## **Our PeerTalk Volunteers** During the year to March we trained 68 new volunteer Support Group Facilitators at five training days. Our current number of trained Facilitators is 145 not all of whom are currently active Developing local community support where our groups meet is a priority for the trustees. An aim throughout the year has been to identify new volunteer roles in social media output, fund raising and local networking. We were delighted to be chosen to be supported by a Preston Co-op. ## **About our Attendees** We conducted an evaluation exercise between Sept-Dec 2021. Respondents were predominantly male (75%), and self-described as ‘White British’. Ages ranged from 22, to over 60: 6% were aged 22-25 13% were aged 26-30 25% were aged 36-40 6% were aged 41-45 19% were aged 51-55 6% were aged 56-60 25% were aged 60 and over. We were pleased that Kim Leadbeater MP asked to meet our Batley Support Group Facilitators at Jo Cox House. ## **Our Evaluation** External research was undertaken by the evaluation consultancy Think:LearnDo with PeerTalk Support Group attendees through an internal survey to understand the areas where Peer to Peer interaction in the groups makes a difference. This data fed into a review, supporting the development of an outcomes framework. Peers value attending groups for a number of immediate and long-term reasons. We wanted to know more about why peers attend, and how they use the support in their daily lives. Two questions related to the experience of attending ( **satisfaction** ); one question related to the practical effect attending had for them ( **impact** ); one question related to reasons for attending and future plans ( **engagement** ). _"It's helped provide an additional space outside of a therapy room to talk about my issues. I'm a big believer in therapy but see it as one tool in the toolkit. Being able to go to a PeerTalk group proves massively beneficial as others give me suggestions of things that can help. I feel it's a great complement to therapy and has often helped pull me out of dark places"_ _"Practically, I've gained friends and a like-minded community, that meets even outside of PeerTalk" "Personal, mental, emotional, no more feeling suicidal. The power of group"_ ## cafonline.org ## **Our PeerTalk Support Groups** **----- Start of picture text -----**
Settle
Not restarted since Whitley Bay
Covid pandemic
North Shields
Starting summer 2022
Skipton
Gateshead
Bradford
University of
Sunderland
Preston Central
Leeds Beckett
Preston Intact University
Batley
Knowsley
Huddersfield
Warrington
Guildford
Farnham
Starting summer 2022
Bordon
**----- End of picture text -----**
A huge **Thank You** to all the grant making bodies, trusts, businesses, community groups, churches and many generous individuals who support our work. All gifts and contributions are gratefully received. Donate here: CAF Bank PeerTalk ## Thank You To all the trusts, organisations, fund raisers and individuals who have supported PeerTalk through the year. To all our volunteer Facilitators who make the groups happen each week. To all our trainers and advisers for their help and support To the trustees and staff for their continued commitment. The PeerTalk Charitable Foundation Reg: 1169830 For further information email enquiries@peertalk.org.uk