## **Annual report Frome Birth Talk charity no. 1175641 Annual report and accounts 01/03/2020 to 28/2/2021**
## **Governing document**
Frome Birth Talk (FBT) is a charitable incorporated organisation (CIO) established on 8[th] November 2017.
The charity is governed by its CIO constitution.
## **Aims, objectives and activities**
Frome Birth Talk exists to support birthing parents of all ages and circumstances to make the transition to parenthood confidently and positively, raising awareness of and combating the stigma associated with anxiety, low mood and mental ill health in the perinatal period. We do this by providing free professional counselling, gentle exercise led by skilled practitioners and a welcoming, judgement-free space to facilitate friendships and support networks.
The Board of Trustees present their annual report and accounts for the year ended 28[th] February 2021. The objective of the charity is for the public benefit by the relief of sickness and the preservation of health of pregnant women and new mothers in Frome and the surrounding area by the provision of a free counselling service and wellbeing events and activities.
## **Appointment and training of trustees**
The voting members of the charity are the board of trustees and their number must be not fewer than three and not more than twelve. The number of fouryear consecutive terms of office that a trustee may currently serve cannot exceed three, thereby limiting continuous membership to twelve years. After a gap of one year a trustee who has served three terms is eligible to request to re-join the board.
The board seeks to meet the needs of Frome Birth Talk by recruiting and retaining trustees with relevant skills and expertise. The trustees who served from 01/03/2020 to 28/2/2021 are:
- Suzy: a local mother with a third sector background, bid-writing knowledge, volunteer recruitment and retention and community fundraising experience. Suzy leads on our community fundraising and organisation of our member feedback sessions and ‘away days’.
- Jane: a local mother and sales manager with experience of running businesses and associated bookkeeping. Jane is FBT’s treasurer.
- Lucy: a local mother who works for a larger counselling organisation in a communications role and has extensive admin and event management experience. Lucy coordinates the counselling service and served as chair throughout the year.
- Karen: an experienced midwife, who brings clinical knowledge to the team and recently completed a Masters by Research at the University of Southampton on the Continuity of Carer model being implemented across the UK following the government’s ‘Better Births’ report in 2016. Karen is our safeguarding lead.
- Fiona is a local mother, doula and birth worker, shiatsu practitioner and facilitator of groups for pregnant and postnatal women over many years. Fiona manages our website and social media.
We also enjoy the support of regular volunteers Emilie, who runs our postnatal yoga class, and retired midwives Sarah and Jackie, who help to run our weekly group. The work of our volunteers has been severely hampered by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, however.
## **Governance and organisational management**
The board of trustees met five times during the year ending 28[th] February 2021.
FBT is not currently an organisational member of the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) but chooses to follow its Ethical Framework for Counselling and Psychotherapy guidelines, in line with our selfemployed counsellors’ practice and that of the Bath College of Psychotherapy and Counselling (BACP), for whom we are an agency for trainee counsellors on placement.
## **Public benefit**
The board of trustees confirm they have had regard to the Charity Commission’s guidance on public benefit and have complied with their duty under section 4 of the Charities Act 2011 when reviewing the charity’s aims and objectives; and in implementing current and planning future activities.
The Charities Act 2011 sets out 13 different aims which are recognised as charitable purposes, and Frome Birth Talk fits within the aim of the relief of sickness and preservation of health. We have referred to the guidance contained in the Charity Commission’s general guidance on public benefit when reviewing our aims and objectives and continue to be committed to providing all our services free of charge, although donations are welcomed.
## **Financial sustainability**
FBT has been sustained largely by grant funding from the National Lottery Communities Fund during this financial period. This grant covers our core costs and will last for another four years. Nevertheless, we have been active in fundraising to provide FBT with unrestricted income through raffles and sponsored challenges. In addition, we have been supported by a number of local businesses, who have donated products and services to us. We continue to implement our endorsement policy to vet, approve and manage support from private business and do not endorse any product or service over another.
## **Safeguarding**
All counsellors and trainee counsellors have enhanced DBS checks, renewable every three years and organised and paid for by the charity. Safeguarding training has been provided for counsellors and trustees and will be repeated at least every three years. We have a safeguarding children and vulnerable adults policy which will be reviewed and ratified annually, along with named safeguarding officers. Our safeguarding procedure is backed up by a ‘due diligence’ process where any concerns not necessitating a full escalation are
discussed with the safeguarding lead, recorded and stored in a passwordprotected folder.
## **Location:**
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic we were not able to hold our activities in Frome Community Hospital as usual for most of this year. Counselling has been taking place online via Zoom, over the phone or at Frome Therapy Rooms. We were also able to host some groups at Christchurch Parish Hall.
## **Background**
Frome Birth Talk was formed in early 2017 in response to the loss of funding for an existing counselling service operating in Frome Community Hospital. Although the service was open to any users of the hospital, uptake had always been overwhelmingly from users of Frome Birth Centre. Three local women started to fundraise for a new service specifically for pregnant and postnatal women. This was successful, but the increase in profile led to a huge increase in referrals and it was clear that we needed to add grant funding to our community fundraising activities.
## **Our funders**
Frome Birth Talk has been well supported by local and national funders, as well as community fundraising. In April 2020 we were delighted to receive the first instalment of a grant from the National Lottery Community Fund, which will cover our core costs for five years. This funding has helped us keep our services running throughout the pandemic at a time when our capacity for community fundraising was severely hampered. Nevertheless, we have continued to grow and by the end of this period were providing 13 professional counselling sessions per week. All our activities are geared towards one goal: to promote emotional wellbeing in women during pregnancy and the first year of motherhood, a time when at least one in five women experience anxiety, depression and low mood and a small but significant percentage become seriously unwell. Early intervention during this period has huge potential for good – helping women make a positive and confident transition at this unique and intense stage of life can have farreaching benefits, not least a strong bond with their baby.
## **How we know we make a difference**
We constantly monitor the effectiveness of all our services, requesting feedback from counselling clients and class attendees via an online questionnaire. The responses we get provide us with vital information about the aspects of our services that work and any gaps in provision, as well as serving to raise awareness and uptake.
In order to further measure the impact of our counselling service, we use a clinically validated evaluation tool, Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation (CORE).
The CORE System is for manages and practitioners working in psychological therapy services and is in use by a wide range of professions and sectors. It provides a framework for responding to the increasing demand in health and other sectors to provide evidence of service quality and effectiveness. It is freely available under **copyright** and supported by over a hundred **academic**
## **publications** .
The tool uses 34 statements and respondents grade each statement from 0 to 4 depending on how accurately they feel it describes their feelings in the preceding week. The statements are designed to measure functioning, problem, wellbeing and risk. Not only does this provide us with useful data about percentage improvements in client wellbeing to go alongside narrative feedback, it also helps us practise safely and can help our counsellors recognise where there is a risk of harm and the need to involve other health professionals.
## **Providing opportunities**
We have two counsellors in training working for FBT and plan to recruit a third. Counselling students have to complete initial training before seeing clients, then accrue clinical hours for full professional registration. By using trainee counsellors, we more than double the number of sessions we can offer to women, for the cost of professional supervision (provided in-house by our qualified counsellors) and mileage/travel costs.
## **What next?**
As for many small charities, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on our charity. We (a group of volunteers with demanding jobs and children) have had to adapt quickly to ever-changing circumstances as well as coping with additional pressures such as lockdowns and home-schooling. For this reason, we did not recruit our first employee, a director, as we intended to this year. Recruitment took place in the spring, however, and we are confident that having a paid person in this role will allow us to consolidate the work we have done, as well as develop new projects to support our community. Depending on the progress of the pandemic, we are keen to create another drop-in group that is accessible to parents with toddlers and return to the Community Hospital for counselling and groups.
FROME BIRTH TALK
**Receipts and paymen For the period 03/01/2020 from**
## **Section A Receipts and payments**
**Unrestricted Restricted funds funds**
**National Lottery Community Fund - RC South West Region**
## **to the nearest to the nearest £ £**
## **A1 Receipts**
**----- Start of picture text -----**
GRANTS 288 24,000
ANON FAMILY TRUST GRANT - UNRESTRICTED
DONATIONS 1,346
FUND RAISING EVENTS 105
1,739 24,000
Sub total (Gross income for AR)
A2 Asset and investment sales, (see
table).
-
- -
Sub total - -
Total receipts 1,739 24,000
A3 Payments
COUNSELLOR FEES 9,648
COST OF FUNDRAISING 40
COST OF BREATHING & RELAXATION CLASSES
ROOM RENTAL 300
STUDENT SUPERVISION 840
STUDENT TRAVEL COSTS 104
PRINTING 19
COMPUTER PURCHASE 743
SUBSCRIPTIONS 240
COST OF DEVELOPMENT & PLANNING 91
TRAINING 225
COST OF POSTNATAL GROUP
DBS CHECKS 60
STORAGE 196
INSURANCE 317
**----- End of picture text -----**
FBT MOBILE PHONE COST **66** EQUIPMENT - YOGA MATS AND BLANKETS **59 12,830**
## **A4 Asset and investment purchases, (see table)**
**-** _**Sub total**_ **-** _**Total payments**_ **59 12,830** _**Net of receipts/(payments)**_ **1,680 11,170 A5 Transfers between funds - - A6 Cash funds last year end 1,730** _**Cash funds this year end**_ **3,410 11,170**
## **Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the e**
## **Categories**
## **Details**
## **B1 Cash funds**
Unrestricted National Lottery Friends of Frome Community Hospital Somerset Community Foundation Magic Little Grant Awards for All
## _**Total cash funds**_
(agree balances with receipts and payments account(s))
## **Details**
## **B2 Other monetary assets**
## **Details**
## **B3 Investment assets**
## **Details**
## **B4 Assets retained for the charity’s own use**
NETITUDE HP PRO BOOK
## **Details**
## **B5 Liabilities**
Signed by one or two trustees on behalf of all the trustees
Signature
1175641 **nts accounts 02/28/2021 To Restricted Restricted Restricted Restricted funds funds funds funds FRIENDS OF SOMERSET FROME MAGIC LITTLE AWARDS FOR COMMUNITY COMMUNITY GRANT ALL GRANT FOUNDATION HOSPITAL**
## **nts accounts**
**----- Start of picture text -----**
to the nearest £ to the nearest £ to the nearest £ to the nearest £
500
- - 500 -
- - - -
- - - -
- - - -
- - 500 -
728
420 146
236
276
26
**----- End of picture text -----**
**728 276 420 408**
**----- Start of picture text -----**
- - - -
- - - -
- - - -
728 276 420 408
- 728 - 276 80 - 408
- - - -
4,028 295 3 834
3,300 19 83 426
**----- End of picture text -----**
## **end of the period**
**----- Start of picture text -----**
Unrestricted Restricted Endowment
funds funds funds
to nearest £ to nearest £ to nearest £
3,410 -
11,171 -
3,300
19
83
425
- - -
3,410 14,998 -
OK OK OK
Unrestricted Restricted Endowment
funds funds funds
to nearest £ to nearest £ to nearest £
- - -
- - -
- - -
- - -
- - -
- - -
**----- End of picture text -----**
**Fund to which Current value Cost (optional) asset belongs (optional)**
**----- Start of picture text -----**
- -
- -
- -
- -
- -
**----- End of picture text -----**
**----- Start of picture text -----**
Fund to which Current value
Cost (optional)
asset belongs (optional)
NATIONAL LOTTERY 743 -
- -
- -
- -
- -
- -
- -
- -
- -
Fund to which Amount due When due
liability relates (optional) (optional)
-
-
-
-
**----- End of picture text -----**
Print Name
## **CC16a**
## **Endowment Total Last year funds funds**
**----- Start of picture text -----**
to the to the
to the nearest £
nearest £ nearest £
24,788 8,000
- 750
1,346 190
105 1,832
- 0
- 0
- 26,239 10,771
- - -
- - -
- - -
- 26,239 10,771
- 10,376 8,281
- 40 549
- 566 -
- 300 -
- 1,076 383
380 1,205
- 45 104
- 743 -
- 240 -
- 91 45
- 225 -
- - 29
60 -
196 -
- 317 317
**----- End of picture text -----**
**----- Start of picture text -----**
66 90
- - 302
- 14,721 11,303
- - -
- - -
- - -
- 14,721 11,303
- 11,518 -532
- - 0
- 6,890 7421
- 18,408 6,889
**----- End of picture text -----**
Date of
approval
## **Independent examiner’s report to the trustees of Frome Birth Talk**
I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of Frome Birth Talk (the Trust) for the year ended 28 February 2021.
## **Responsibilities and basis of report**
As the charity trustees of the Trust you are responsible for the preparation of the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 (‘the Act’).
I report in respect of my examination of the Trust’s accounts carried out under section 145 of the 2011 Act and in carrying out my examination I have followed all the applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5)(b) of the Act.
## **Independent examiner’s statement**
I have completed my examination. I confirm that no material matters have come to my attention in connection with the examination giving me cause to believe that in any material respect:
1. accounting records were not kept in respect of the Charity as required by section 130 of the Act; or
2. the accounts do not accord with those records.
I have no concerns and have come across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in this report in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.
Signed: B Goddard
Name: Beverley Goddard
Relevant professional qualification or membership of professional bodies (if any): Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants
Address: 25 Leaze Road, Frome, BA11 3EY
Date: 20 December 2021