OpenCharities

This text was generated using OCR and may contain errors. Check the original PDF to see the document submitted to the regulator. This document is also available as Markdown.

← Jigsaw Thornbury

2024-03-31-accounts

JIGSAW Thornbury Impact Report 2023-24

Registered Charity Number: 1172953

==> picture [162 x 172] intentionally omitted <==

Contents

Reference and administrative details Structure, governance, and management Objectives and activities Achievements and performance Connecting with our community Financial review Chair’s summary CEO’s summary Team reflections

Page 2 Page 2 Page 4 Page 6 Page 9 Page 11 Page 12 Page 12 Page 13

==> picture [334 x 315] intentionally omitted <==

==> picture [596 x 24] intentionally omitted <==

Page 1 of 13

Reference and administrative details

Registered charity name: JIGSAW Thornbury Charity registration number: 1172953 Principal office: 15-17 St Mary Street, Thornbury, BS35 2AB

The trustees during the period April 2023 – March 2024 were as follows.

Steve Hyndman Appointed September 2021
Appointed Chair January2023
Annie Holland Appointed September 2021
Appointed Vice Chair January2022
Helen Staff Appointed September 2021
Robert Cadman Appointed July 2019
Re-appointed January2023
EmilyWilton Appointed June 2023
Rachel Smith Appointed June 2023
Liz Farrell Appointed June 2023

Structure, Governance, and Management

JIGSAW Thornbury is a registered charity (1172953) governed by the Charities Act 2011. The charity is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation and the constitutional document used throughout this report period was adopted in July 2018, with the charitable objects being updated in October 2021.

The Board of Trustees meet quarterly at a minimum with additional meetings for specific purposes as required. A Trustee term is 3 years, at which point Trustees must be reappointed. Chair and Vice Chair roles are appointed or reappointed annually at the Annual General Meeting (AGM). The Board proactively recruits trustees who have skills and experience needed to make the best decisions for the charity. A self-assessment skills audit is carried out by Trustees and this information is reviewed to identify any skills gaps and inform decisions about trustee appointments.

We reviewed our governance structure and processes using the Charity Governance code in March – June 2021. An updated governance structure was approved by the trustees in March 2022. This has included the development of a scheme of delegation, a project management framework, and a monitoring and evaluation plan. Our updated governance structure is based on 3 layers of protection that help us to make sure we are able to achieve our charitable purpose and deliver benefits for the families we support.

A visual of JIGSAW Thornbury’s current governance structure can be seen below.

==> picture [596 x 24] intentionally omitted <==

Page 2 of 13

==> picture [447 x 225] intentionally omitted <==

The trustees delegate the day-to-day running of the charity to the CEO, who works closely with the management team. The CEO is responsible for Business Plan objectives, agreed annually, and delegates functional area objectives which feed into these.

This was the first year that we had a permanent full time CEO in post, following a year between May 2022 – May 2023 of having a part time interim CEO post. This full time post has helped to embed our improved governance structure and ways of working, ensuring everyone has a voice at the relevant times and information flows smoothly through all levels of the charity.

Throughout the year we were able to recruit into new staff roles, taking our total to 18 at the end of March 2023. This equates to 5.07 FTE, due to all roles being part time and some sessional. We were supported by 17 volunteers throughout the year, which included 3 new volunteers joining our team.

There were some changes within our team between January – March 2023, with one team member requesting to reduce their hours and one leaving for a career change. This prompted us to review our staff team structure to recruit the best people for the roles needed, rather than just recruiting like for like. We were pleased to successfully recruit 2 new staff team members towards the end of the financial year.

==> picture [185 x 155] intentionally omitted <==

==> picture [596 x 24] intentionally omitted <==

Page 3 of 13

Objectives and activities

Our charitable purpose, updated on 18[th] October 2021, is:

For the public benefit, the relief and education, of all children and young people with additional needs or disabilities, aged 0-25 years, and their families by the provision of therapeutic, educational, and stimulating activities, training, and services.

JIGSAW Thornbury is a charity that works with children and young people aged 0-25 with additional needs or disabilities, and their families. Everyone can join in, with or without a diagnosis. We provide friendship, support, compassion and fun, along with innovative services that empower the whole family to connect, fit in and thrive. Everything we do is driven by the passion of our staff and volunteers. As well as being life changing for the children, young people and families we support, our services are invaluable for the wider community too. We enhance inclusion by raising awareness to help everyone understand the challenges that those with additional needs or disabilities face and to celebrate the unique strengths and qualities they bring.

JIGSAW stands for Joining In, Growing Support, Awareness, and Wellbeing. These strategic areas come together to create an impact that each strand alone could not. It is the combination of building skills and knowledge for our service users and the community together that achieves our impact. Our vision is that children and young people with additional needs or disabilities and their families are empowered to connect, fit in, and thrive as themselves. We will achieve this through growing support for our cause, focusing on wellbeing, raising awareness with our users and in the community through events and training, and facilitating everyone joining in together.

It is not just about what we do, but also how we do it. Our impact starts with our core value of celebrating uniqueness, and it is the innovative, compassionate, communityfocused, empowering ways in which we work that make what we achieve impactful and makes us who we are. The main areas of impact we achieve are:

==> picture [596 x 24] intentionally omitted <==

Page 4 of 13

The services available for members between April 2023 and March 2024 were:

Our main service area of development has been our Youth Empowerment Services. We started a new monthly YES group in October 2023, which is led by our CEO. This ensures young members have a voice in JIGSAW and their community.

The trustees approved 11 objectives to be achieved between April 2023 and March 2024. These can be seen in the image below.

==> picture [452 x 231] intentionally omitted <==

==> picture [596 x 24] intentionally omitted <==

Page 5 of 13

Achievements and performance

A key focus is wellbeing, with 98% responding yes when asked 'Do you think your wellbeing has improved as a result of this session?' in our postevent feedback form. This is up from last year, when it was 94%. We also measure more in depth results based on our 5 wellbeing indicators. The overall response from all feedback forms completed can be seen in the pie chart to the right.

==> picture [240 x 149] intentionally omitted <==

Our online peer support Facebook group, JIGSAW Thornbury Connect, has grown in members and interaction throughout the year. 100% of survey respondents said that their wellbeing had improved as a result of being part of group. In the last year, we ran 350 events and recorded 2296 check-ins through CharitySuite. Families have shared with us how these events have improved their wellbeing and confidence.

==> picture [149 x 148] intentionally omitted <==

==> picture [144 x 144] intentionally omitted <==

==> picture [145 x 149] intentionally omitted <==

We have over 700 children and young people plus their family members on our database. CharitySuite helps us to keep all this personal data safe and members having access to update their information through the app means that we can ensure we are compliant with data protection law. We ran a ‘data cleanse’ during the year, asking all members to log in to their CharitySuite app and update their personal details. If there had been no activity throughout this process, then the member was archived. Re-instating a member as active is simple and can be done if members are looking to re-engage with our services.

==> picture [596 x 24] intentionally omitted <==

Page 6 of 13

==> picture [144 x 144] intentionally omitted <==

==> picture [146 x 148] intentionally omitted <==

==> picture [149 x 149] intentionally omitted <==

A breakdown of our membership numbers is below.

==> picture [452 x 308] intentionally omitted <==

One key strategic area of growth for service provision is to develop meaningful opportunities for young people to have a voice and participate more actively within JIGSAW and their community. Our new Youth Empowerment Sessions (YES) are a monthly group for young people aged 11-25 to explore their values, challenges, and strengths, and grow skills and confidence to form and share opinions about things that impact them. Our aim is to build self-advocacy for individuals in their own way. This has opened up an opportunity to work alongside South Gloucestershire Council

==> picture [596 x 24] intentionally omitted <==

Page 7 of 13

to deliver this group and promote youth voice locally, which has taken us on a journey of joint-working and skill sharing.

Since October, our YES group has been working together to collate a united voice for children and young people with additional needs or disabilities. During their monthly sessions they have chosen a topic important to them – which is disabilities and accessibility. They have learnt about methods for collecting information, designed and launched their youth empowerment survey with a video message, categorised responses from 26 survey participants, created storyboards for the change they want to see based on what young people told them, and practiced adapting communication styles to different audiences. And of course, we have had lots of fun along the way. You would be surprised to hear how well they were able to communicate the benefits of beans on toast to Taylor Swift!

Grace, aged 14, said

‘We produced a survey and got lots of responses from some young people, here are some.’ “They don’t understand me and how hard it is for me to leave home” “I want to be treated like everyone else, I want to go on school trips, I want to be allowed to go to school” “teachers shout at me over nothing making me feel forced to be right” “JIGSAW actually appreciate you for who you are and they don’t try to ‘fix you’ ”. ‘Now there is ways to change all of this and making younger people feel ok about going out and enjoying life while they are still young, for example: having more opportunity’s to build confidence, communicate with others, build friendships, talk about your experiences and like us try and make a change. There are so many small things that can make a difference and by us speaking to you today we hope that we start to notice more children out and about, happy, safe and included. We know it’s a harsh world out there but we are young and we deserve a voice and we deserve a say.’

==> picture [141 x 141] intentionally omitted <==

==> picture [141 x 142] intentionally omitted <==

Grace was one of the young people who bravely stood up and shared their experiences with JIGSAW stakeholders at our annual JIGSAW June event in 2024. Others in the group created a flyer of YES survey responses to hand out. This group is going from strength to strength and we are excited to see what they achieve next.

We are encouraging more young people to get involved in volunteering and fundraising. There are supported opportunities through JIGSAW at our monthly youth-led community café and different community events throughout the year.

==> picture [596 x 24] intentionally omitted <==

Page 8 of 13

==> picture [124 x 124] intentionally omitted <==

Young people can also take on their own fundraising challenges. In just one day, Noah and his parents took a ride on every single tube line, including the DLR and Overground, passing through 98 stations and stopping at 20. Noah raised £670, enough to fund a 6 week block of the youth club he attends. In recognition of this achievement, we nominated Noah for the fundraising category at the Bristol Young Heroes Awards. We were very proud that he was selected as a finalist and attended the awards ceremony in July 2024!

A major project for the year was to improve the accessibility and functionality of our venue in the heart of Thornbury. The biggest impact was increasing the physical accessibility, likely due to the accessible toilet being in place (19% increase in people rating this as good or excellent). The percentage of people rating the functionality of the venue as good or excellent dropped by 5%. We think this is due to running services at a higher capacity now compared to when the baseline was taken mostly due to post-Covid restrictions and members being cautious, meaning it may feel like a smaller, busier space now. Informal feedback suggests that most members and our team are happy with the venue improvements. Further suggestions have been asked for and are being responded to as and when they are received, for example putting our accessible ramp out every day, rather than on request.

==> picture [130 x 127] intentionally omitted <==

==> picture [127 x 127] intentionally omitted <==

==> picture [130 x 130] intentionally omitted <==

Our venue remains a vital part of the impact we deliver, offering a safe space for families to be themselves without judgement, try new things, and grow connecitons.

Connecting with our community

JIGSAW Thornbury works closely with similar charities, schools, local authorities, community health services and local government. We also access support from other charities and organisations for training, advice, and up to date legal guidance. These include ACEVO, NVCO, CVS, VOSCAR, and ACAS.

We are well embedded within Thornbury as part of the local community, broadening the skills and experience we have access to through connections. We are represented on local networks which exist to identify common themes coming up for

==> picture [596 x 24] intentionally omitted <==

Page 9 of 13

young people and discuss how we can work together to best address these. Key groups include the Early Help Community Network, South Gloucestershire Youth Work Partnership, and voluntary sector networks.

We worked with 16 activity providers to deliver inclusive events for children and young people, parent carers, and the whole family together. These provided fun and enriching activities for our members to try, where they would not have been able to access mainstream offers.

This year, we have started to make use of new functionality in CharitySuite to manage stakeholder information and contact details. 80 stakeholders from 57 organisations and 200 schools have been uploaded to CharitySuite. Tags and notes within the system can help us manage stakeholders more effectively.

We enjoyed hosting our annual JIGSAW June events, with the 3[rd] one in June 2024. Each year, we invite funders, corporate supporters, regular donors, people and groups who have fundraised for JIGSAW Thornbury, and organisations we work alongside to deliver a shared purpose. This is an opportunity to celebrate our impact, thank supporters for their role in this, and see how we can work together to achieve further benefits for local families.

Our 10[th] birthday year, which kicked off in March 2023 with our fundraising ball, has been a good opportunity to bring the community together and work with local groups and businesses in different ways. We hosted a birthday party at our home in the heart of Thornbury in July. This was carnival themed and happened alongside Thornbury Carnival, offering a quieter alternative for families who couldn’t access the main carnival and a safe space in town for those who did but needed a break from the main event. We offered a youth chill zone

==> picture [130 x 130] intentionally omitted <==

==> picture [139 x 138] intentionally omitted <==

within the main carnival and at the other main summer community event in Thornbury, Krunch Summerfest. This is a friendly space with beanbags, games, and of course a therapy dog! JIGSAW’s home was used as the wellbeing zone at the 3[rd] annual Thornbury Fun Palaces event. These events have helped the families we support to join in more with local offers and raise awareness of our cause. We have had lots of great feedback with over 80% of people feeling part of their community at the events.

Community fundraising has been a big part of connecting with local groups and people. We launched our ‘Jolly JIGSAW Get Together’ campaign to tackle loneliness and encourage connections in January 2024. The launch was held in Tesoro Lounge, with the team there providing cakes for free. We also had a stand in the local Co-op to promote the pack of resources that is available on our website, which is intended to help any local person host a get together to fundraise for us.

==> picture [596 x 24] intentionally omitted <==

Page 10 of 13

We marked the end of our 10[th] birthday year with a sponsored walk, including 5km and 10km options. 19 people took part and together raised £1252. We were pleased to have 2 local groups organise major fundraising activities for our charity, in celebration of our 10[th] birthday. The Elite Fitness team raised £4931.96 plus £781.07 of gift aid through the #JIGSAW10For10 national 3 peaks challenge! They completed 23 miles of walking; 3,064 metres total ascent; and 50,333 steps, which is the equivalent of 1,135 times up and down the stairs in your house. £9126.20 was raised for us by the Bristol Wanderers during their 10[th] year of fundraising through a charity golf day and rugby game.

==> picture [155 x 152] intentionally omitted <==

==> picture [156 x 149] intentionally omitted <==

Financial review

The financial year of 2023-24 saw another increase in budget, with rising wage costs having the most significant impact. Our accounts show a large deficit, however the ‘real’ deficit was £19k once delayed budgeted grant income, received in April 2024, and spend on venue improvements budgeted in the previous financial year are factored in.

Our grant income was £24k below our budgeted amount, which is a reflection of the charity landscape with grant funding pots reducing and becoming harder to gain. This deficit was slightly made up by exceeding our fundraising target by £6k. This is a reflection of our increased community fundraising events, which have been very successful especially with our 10[th] birthday celebrations.

We had the unexpected cost of our heating system breaking at the start of the winter period. This added £3k to our actual premises costs over our budgeted amount. We ran a fundraising campaign throughout November – January and were overjoyed by the response, reaching our fundraising target with support from Thornbury Roundtable, Thornbury Lions, Thornbury Town Council, and some one-off donations from individuals.

We ended the financial year with £47,000 of reserves. This is within our new reserves range, which was reviewed to be a more robust to guide decision making and approved by the Trustees in May 2024. The full policy can be seen on request.

==> picture [596 x 24] intentionally omitted <==

Page 11 of 13

We start the new financial year with good news of being awarded 5-7 years of funding for youth work as part of South Gloucestershire commissioning and a successful application to the Postcode Lottery, providing a £25k boost to our unrestricted funds.

Chair’s summary

2023/24 has been positive year for JIGSAW Thornbury. We have seen consolidation and stability of services, processes and leadership providing continuity and consistency for our members and staff, that has been welcomed. Equally, we have pushed forward with our 14+ agenda that has reaped rewards with our older Members achieving things that would never have believed at the start of the year from public speaking to running a dog show. Our ambition in this area has also opened up new avenues of funding and support through youth partnerships, and JIGSAW has made itself a recognised part of the Community within Thornbury. 2024/25 offers the opportunity for building on the good work of this year continuing to grow JIGSAW Thornbury. The Trustees are proud to be part of JIGSAW Thornbury and proud of what our staff and volunteers have achieved.

Written by Steve Hyndman

CEO summary

We are proud to have supported children and young people with additional needs or disabilities for 11 years, engaging with over 1000 families during this time. Our charity is at a pivotal moment, having seen 298 local families, including 427 children and young people, join JIGSAW in the last 2 years. This is the equivalent of 14 full classes of 30 students, and their families, all seeking support, connection, and fun from our charity in a relatively short space of time. At the end of March 2024, we had just over 700 children and young people, along with their parent carers and siblings, registered with us in total.

This report celebrates the impact we have had and progress we have made during the 2nd year of our 5 year strategy and business plan. Everything we deliver stems back to our 4 strategic objectives. The 4 areas that make up the acronym JIGSAW – Joining In, Growing Support, Awareness, and Wellbeing. These are not only what JIGSAW stands for as an acronym, but also what we stand for as a charity in what we deliver for families and the community.

JIGSAW Thornbury offers a safe space for young people with additional needs or disabilities to be themselves without judgement. A place where they can connect with others, have fun, and share experiences. A place where everyone fits in. Over the last year, we have had a focus on growing skills and confidence in young people to have a say in matters that are important to them. This has enhanced opportunities for our members and helped us be the space families need, on their terms. It is such an exciting time for our charity, stepping forwards alongside empowered young people who can lead future developments to grow our impact. I want to say a heartfelt thank you to all our supporters who have joined in with our 10[th] birthday celebrations and played such a valuable role in shaping the charity we

==> picture [596 x 24] intentionally omitted <==

Page 12 of 13

have become. Whether you deliver activities with us, volunteer for JIGSAW, or help to fund our work – your support is powerful and it really does change lives.

Written by Hattie Clayton

Team reflections

Each year, the staff team reflect on our proudest moments and lessons we want to share with each other. This was done in early September 2024 following the summer holidays, as most of our activities are planned in line with the school calendar year. This year, the team are proud of the growth and development of us as a team, themselves as individuals, and of our members attending services. Of course these are things we are proud of every year, but this year has felt even more special as we have reached a level of stability in our governance and ways of working that we haven’t experienced since before covid and the benefits are clearly being felt. We are continuing to learn and make changes to how we benefit members, for example noticing that the dynamics between group members needs to be carefully managed and planned for sometimes.

Most importantly of all, many team members have reflected that we really do know what we are doing, that change is good, and we are thriving!

==> picture [596 x 24] intentionally omitted <==

Page 13 of 13

CHARITY COMMISSION FC ENGiAND AND WALES Recei tsand nts accounts 31103rJ)24 CC16a Section A Receipts and payments Unrestricted Restricted Endowment L•t ￿•r Al R•c•l FL*ndraisi Grants DonatKJns Activi 1￿C￿ne Investment I￿(￿ 15 AR) 14.071 Direct aclivil costs and volty￿eeT costs Premises cosls Traini Fundrais Office WKI IT Oth 2,131 48,752 11.021 123 94.108 31759 8254 44.780 636 4.314 1.1101 10201 ui 1.165 Sub fy)tal 74113 137.647 2117eO Sub tolal 74113 137.mr 211710 Netofrncelpts1(payn￿tsJ . A6 Cash fvnd> l•st yw end 41 CCXX R1 ISS)

Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period Cat*gorie fvnds B1 Cash fvnds 24054 14 2312 24054 funds D•l•+l• 1750 3.750 DetLiiIs B5 Llabllltle• CCKX R2 Issi 2112r2ir24

FOR ￿lAND ANO WALES 2fj11 P￿Atry H£(L f<PA