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2023-12-13-accounts

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TRUSTEE ANNUAL REPORT

14TH DECEMBER 2022 – 13[TH] DECEMBER 2023

About Us

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Basildon Parents4Parents are dedicated to enhancing the confidence and independence of families in Basildon by providing essential support, training, and practical assistance.

Our mission is to assure families that the challenges of raising children are common and to underscore the positive aspects of family life.

Through the establishment of nurturing connections, we engage with parents via groups, training sessions, and oneon-one meetings to foster a supportive environment.

Our commitment lies in empowering families to navigate the complexities of parenthood with resilience, confidence, and optimism.

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December 2022

To ‘Bridge The Gap’ with the current Cost of Living Crisis which is really affecting our families and their mental health and wellbeing, we continued our Family Hardship Voucher programme.

This involved initially co-ordinating the issue of £30 Food Vouchers to 100 families, who were referred into our service from school and local social care networks.

The aim was to support families that were particularly struggling with the COLC, creating high anxiety within their home environments.

Some of these families may not have access to government benefits, so they fall into the Just About Managing category with every penny counting for household expenses.

We also accessed additional £15 Food Vouchers, which were co-ordinated throughout the year through our school networks.

Our term-time projects closed in December 2022 at the end of the school Term. We will restart in January 2023 upon school openings.

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JANUARY 2023

We have established from all our networks that the Cost of Living Crisis is ongoing and is pervasive. Therefore, we will utilise any remaining Hardship Funds to support Emergency referrals from our schools, social care and our inhouse projects..

We continued with our ongoing term-time weekly projects. These include:

Conn-x Youth Neurodivergent Project

Community Art Café

Women’s ESOL Group

Teenzone Youth Neurodivergent Project

All these projects are now providing ongoing community support across a wide range of activities and

encompass a diverse range of parents/carers and their children.

They also allow us

to provide gateways throughout our Charity’s

offerings to support families as needed. In addition, by attending our range of projects and activities, very often parents/carers see how worthwhile our Charity cause is. This allows us to also recruit additional volunteers who are familiar with our ethos and want to support our outcomes.

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WOMENS ESOL GROUP

This is our most long standing project, supporting vulnerable women in our community. Last year, we introduced physical wellbeing into our ESOL Women’s Group, by hosting Yoga Workshops This was very well received as generally these women would not feel comfortable accessing a public class, so bringing this session into their ‘safe space’ meant they already had trust and were happy to take part.

We are now running Zumba workshops on monthly basis as the women felt that they wanted something active and fun. The instructor has also included cultural dances, based upon the groups feedback.

Discussing mental health is an extremely sensitive area for these women and very often difficult to bring into the open. Our volunteers are also providing a personalised outreach, via a WhatsApp Group and also meeting up outside of the session.

We now operate a variety of activities based on feedback from the group; so not only are these women practicing their English language, but they are also taking part in a variety of art/craft and outside activities to support their mental health and wellbeing, This has included Easter and Xmas Craft sessions, Walk and Talk, Visit to Southend and Sealife. They also shared their different cultures food, inviting our volunteers and Trustees.

Our team also communicated via a WhatsApp group to stay connected throughout the week. We have also supported with hardship vouchers and 1-1 support when needed. Currently we have a range of different ethnicities and nationalities supported including Turkish, Egyptian, Algerian, Russian, Pakistani, Cypriot, Ethiopian, Bulgarian, Polish, Iraqi, Moroccan, Russian, Indian and Togo.

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COMMUNITY ART GROUP

. This valuable project provides a much-needed space for parents to have time for themselves.

Within the group, we have a number of parents who have children with SEND and this space allows them to network with

other parents in similar situations to help their health and wellbeing.

We have a supply of different art and craft materials for them to choose and enjoy. Tesco are also strong supporters of our projects and have helped supply us with vouchers and food items, which have been used in outreach and also our inhouse projects as needed.

Conn-x Neurodiverse Youth Club

This project is now entering its 5th year of operation. We have decided to lower the entry age group to 6 years old as this is such a valuable project for local parents, who are very often at the initial stages of a diagnosis for their child. This can be extremely overwhelming for the whole family.

Our team

support parents with a listening ear, and they also give hints and tips on how to support the child with their neurodiverse challenges. We have been able to create Peer Mentorship scheme for the older children.

This project serves the 6-12 age group, and we can now gateway the children into our TeenZone Project (13 to 18) when they are ready to move into a different setting.

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TeenZone Neurodiverse Youth Club

This is now entering its 2[nd] year of operation and has established itself as a support for both the Teens who attend and the parents/carers too. Our team offer hover support as the aim is for the young people to interact with their peers at their own pace.

We have a wide range of good quality gaming and art materials for them to use.

We have also included simple cooking skills, so that they gain confidence in the kitchen and also it helps them try

new tastes and textures. The team have established a good rapport with the children helping them to try different activities at their own pace.

The volunteer team are providing empathetic peer support/guidance needed for parents. The calm environment also supports them, as we set up a large table for them to network with each other and our team.

We are also able to offer them hot refreshments if they wish.

We encourage them to interact with their child, so we are creating a positive and relaxed family atmosphere as we know this may be the only social interaction they may be experiencing outside of their homes. They may also become disconnected with their child when they

are overwhelmed with dealing with negative behaviours, so this supports a reconnection.

All these term-time projects are now an established support network for vulnerable families and children across our borough.

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PAEDIATRIC FIRST AID COURSES (PFAC)

Based up the success of last year, we also coordinated Paediatric First Aid Courses running across January/February 2023.

These were in collaboration with the Workers Educational Association

From our community feedback initiatives, we understood that parents were anxious about their children’s health and what to do in an emergency situation..

Therefore, we launched a further Paediatric First Aid course, in collaboration with the WEA who supplied the tutor. We paid for the PFAC Manuals from our unrestricted funding.

This is not only an essential lifesaving skill course to support families; It will also help parents who may wish to enter the workplace as they can move onto an accredited course with the knowledge obtained.

Due to huge demand, from families, we have now co-ordinated 10 PFAC courses throughout the year in community hubs and our school networks.

FEBRUARY 2023

We continued our valued Paediatric First Aid Courses. These are offered FREE to all attendees.

We also co-ordinated a Youth Mental Health First Aid Course, which is certified by YMHFA England.

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Youth Mental Health First Aid

We realised that young people’s mental health is a prevalent issue within our community. Generalised anxiety, self-harm and eating disorders are becoming commonplace within our young people and are impacting on the need for high level service

intervention. These services are currently overloaded and have long waiting lists.

With this in mind we collaborated with Interact to deliver a number of accredited Youth Mental Health Training courses throughout the year. This will help parents to recognise and support Mental Health Challenges within themselves, their family, and their community.

As an accredited course, it will also support any parent aiming to enter any school

or college workplace to support youth mental health. If parents understand how to manage early intervention techniques and know where to get support – this will ease the pressure on the need for Tier 2 and 3 services.

We collaborated with Interact, who supplied the course tutor, and we accessed funding to cover the cost of the YMFHA manuals that are essential to complete the course. This course would normally cost £300 and due to project co-ordination input, we were able to ensure that there was no cost to parents to attend this course.

We have now engaged 60 parents over a number of courses run throughout the year..

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MARCH 2023

Paediatric First Aid is proving to be a highly valued and well attended course for us, so we co-ordinated another course in collaboration with the WEA during March.

.We co-ordinated another YMHFA Course in collaboration with Interact. This course is proving to fully support parents within their families to understand Mental Health challenges

and use the tools and techniques to help their children. Our aim is to help them with early intervention techniques, to avoid the progression into overloaded Social Services.

APRIL 2023

Project and Planning.

. Term-time Projects close for Easter School Holidays

MAY 2023

With funding from Active Essex, we offered a Music, Movement and Meditation session to help parents with the health and wellbeing. This is an internationally recognised modality, hosted by an accredited facilitator.

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JUNE 2023

We co-ordinated an additional Paediatric First Aid Course in June.

We have committed to supporting our families with Mental Health awareness and understanding. Therefore we provided an additional two YMHFA courses in June 2023.

Due to the success of the previous session, we offered an additional Music, Movement and Meditation session to help local parents with . their wellbeing

One of the best sessions I have been to! If I could go on a regular basis then I would be less stressed and able to manage life better.

This is the most peaceful I have felt in a long time. Jackie is amazing and the made the experience

Absolutely amazing session! Jackie was understanding of everyone’s needs ad explained everything well

. Everyone had an amazing experience, would definitely recommend to others.

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JULY 2023

.We also co-ordinated our last Paedqatric First Aid course for the Summer Term in July 2023.

YMHFA was also offered in July 2023, the last course

of the Summer Term. We will continue to offer this in the upcoming Autumn/Winter terms as these are proving to be an essential component for parent/carer’s understand of mental health challenges.

Our term-time projects close at end of Summer Term

AUGUST 2023

Project Co-ordination Evaluation, Reporting and Planning Activities.

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SEPTEMBER 2023

We re-opened all our Term-time Projects. We also have WhatsApp groups for all of these, so that families are supported throughout the week. This also helps them network with each other and they also organise meet ups throughout the year too.

As many of these parents/carers do not always have the opportunity to socialise with like-minded individuals, this is a lovely example of how valuable our projects are.

YMFHA was again co-ordinated due to having such a high take up from parent/carers in the community. This has been possible due to funding from 360 and Basildon Council.

With funding from Swan Housing, we hosted our specialised Non Violent Resistance 10 week course for parents who were struggling with behavioural challenges within their homes.

This runs throughout the winter terms until December 2023.

“ This course has completely changed my whole home environment, the relationship I have with my boys and my mental health

“This course gave me the strength to keep going when I had given up, I am so positive that I am on the right track to get * the support he needs and our relationship is so much closer now”

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OCTOBER 2023

We launched our SEN Tea and Talk Project in October 2023. This was to support local parents who are struggling to support their Neurodiverse children.

We provided a listening ear, signposted them into existing support projects and also collaborated with local specialist charities to host sessions in the upcoming months.

our

We hosted an additional YMHFA

Course in October 2023 to cope with the demand and waiting lists for this highly sought out and Accredited course.

NVR Course continues throughout October 2023.

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NOVEMBER 2023

In collaboration with MYOTAS and Team around the Family, we hosted a specialist SEN Tea and Talk activities for local families.

Conn-x Youth Club needs funding for Core Costs of Hall Hire and Storage. We therefore organised a community night to help us create specific funding for this.

This was enhanced by a generous donation by Essex Protection Services who supported us with an additional £300 donation.

We also co-ordinated our last YMFHA course of 2023. However, we will think this is so valuable, that we will endeavour to offer in 2024 where possible, subject to funding and tutor availability.

NVR Course continues through November 2023.

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DECEMBER 2023

On 11[th] December, we hosted a Holistic Health and Wellbeing session encompassing meditation, dance and creative

expression using a licensed facilitator.

This had previously been offered as part of

Active Essex Funding last year and had been well received by participants.

On 13 December 2023, the Women’s ESOL

Group invited the BP4P Team to their venue to share a community lunch, with a selection of

homemade food included. This is our most

longstanding project, supporting many different nationalities. This was a lovely gesture and shows how they have grown in confidence with the support from our ESOL Volunteers. They also created some beautiful gifts with a Xmas Craft Workshop, hosted by our volunteer team.

The highly successful NVR Course closed in December 2023.

All Term-time projects and accounts were closed at the end of the school year for re-opening in January 2024.

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END OF YEAR SUMMARY

CHAIR : It has again been a successful year for BP4P. We have supported hundreds of families across the Basildon borough over the last with a mixture of Cost of Living Support, our valuable, term-time activities and also lots of specialised projects to enhance confidence and skills.

We have also included different ways to support health and wellbeing, with movement activities such as Chakradance and Zumba. The NVR programme is an amazing addition and very well received. We will continue to expand our offerings with various and interesting way to support mental health.

As always, the BP4P team have risen to the challenge going above and beyond for the local community. We look forward to the next year supporting local families.

TREASURER: This has been an incredible year for external fundraising to support and sustain our projects. Due to our consistent approaches to the health and wellbeing of local families, we are now in a position to access substantial funding avenues to continue our work.

We also want to thank our local fundraisers and volunteers who created a lovely community fundraising event for us to obtain the resources needed to continue our term-time projects. Without their continued input, we could not do what we do for our community.

PROJECT CO-ORDINATORS: This has been another busy and productive year for BP4P as we have supported our local community with a wide variety of health and wellbeing projects, cost of living crisis support and also specialised training to develop their knowledge, confidence, life skills and to help get them back into work if relevant.

Our BP4P team have worked extremely hard imparting their knowledge and providing an empathetic approach to support the families throughout all our projects. We are also continued to develop parents within our projects into volunteer roles, providing DBS checks and training for their role. In addition, we have also collaborated with BBWCVS to obtain additional volunteers through their networks.

We have actively fundraised through community quiz nights and secured specific project funding to continue to offer no cost events, activities, and workshops to our families.

We feel this year we have sustained and expanded our offerings to the community. We have been able to assess the needs of our families through our feedback avenues and thus have provided them with projects that are specifically relevant to their challenges.

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We also feel we have now established ourselves as a ‘go-to’ for many school and social networks, who come to us for parent support.

We feel very confident that we are able to respond to the needs of local families and access funding to create sustainable projects that best support them.

We are extremely thankful for all our funding supporters and local collaborators who have enabled us to continue our valuable work.

FUTURE AIMS

• To continue to connect and collaborate with other local support services, so that we best support families utilising our combined skills and knowledge.

• To continue to expand our volunteer teams, so we sustain our charity services and activities within the local community.

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ANNUAL ACCOUNT SUMMARY

14 December 2022 - 13 December 2023

OPENING BALANCES 14 DECEMBER 2022 Bankbalance **£13,619.11 ** Petty Cash £97.44
EXTERNAL FUNDING
24/02/2023 EssexCommunityFoundation(Unrestricted) Inward £1,400.00
31/03/2023 BasildonCouncil Youth Mental Health Training Inward £1,750.00
12/04/2023 Community360Youth Mental Health Training Inward £1,500.00
18/08/2023 EssexCommunity (940701) Inward £9,000.00
13/11/2023 Swan HousingAssociation Inward £1,660.00
12/12/2023 ChequeDeposit (forConn-xclubfrom Essex Youth Trust) Inward £1,500.00
TOTAL EXTERNAL FUNDING £16,810.00 £0.00
LOCAL FUNDRAISING/INCOME £938.59 £157.09
TOTAL YEARLY INCOME £17,748.59 £157.09
BP4P WORKING BALANCE £31,367.70 £254.53
EXPENSE BREAKDOWN
VOLUNTEER PROJECT EXPENSES £2,317.12
UNRESTRICTEDGENERAL EXPENSES £1,427.14 £163.67
TESCOBAGS OF HELP YOUTH PROJECTS £900.33
TEENZONE NEURODIVERGENT YOUTH PROJECT £45.58
LITTLE LIVESYOUTH PROJECT(CONN-X) £411.88
ACTIVE ESSEX £682.99
ARNOLDCLARK £712.54
ECF PROJECTCO-ORDINATION 2 £5,167.50
ECF PROJECTCO-ORDINATION3 £1,404.72
ECF PROJECTCO-ORDINATION 4 £3,660.00
NVR TRAINING £1,609.97
YOUTH MENTAL HEALTH FIRST AID TRAINING £1,440.00
TOTAL EXPENSES £19,779.77 £163.67
YEAR END FINAL BALANCES C/FORWARD £11,587.93 £90.86

Project Account Breakdown : Jackie Stein

Bank transactions authorised by: Margaret Emergy Treasurer Petty Cash Authorised by: Margaret Emery Treasurer Treasurer Sign off: Margaret Emery 02.02.24