## **2023-24** ## **Annual Report of Child & Parenting Support Oxon** **(ChiPS)** 2023-24 Annual Report of Child & Parenting Support Oxon (ChiPS) ## **Report Contents** ## **1. Reference and administrative information** **2. Trustees’ Annual Report to The Charities Commission** ## **3. Finance Report** ## **4. 2023-24 Annual Report of Activities to the Trustees** **2** 2023-24 Annual Report of Child & Parenting Support Oxon (ChiPS) ## **1 Reference and Administrative** ## **Information** **Child & Parenting Support Oxfordshire (ChiPS) is a charity (Charitable Incorporated Organisation or CIO) registered in England Charity Number 1177247** ## **Registered Office:** - 11 Oxford Road, Woodstock, OX20 1UN ## **The Board of Trustees:** Michael TEELING (Chair, from 2018 to present) Caitlin MORRISON (from 2018 to present) Kathy PETO (from 2018 to present) Nicola SELWAY (from 2018 to present) ## **Finance Contact and Programme Liaison:** Cait Morrison, Trustee & Secretary ## **Charity Programme:** Paula Evans, Programme Co-ordinator **3** 2023-24 Annual Report of Child & Parenting Support Oxon (ChiPS) ## **Bankers:** Arbuthnot Latham & Co Ltd +44 (0)20 7012 2500 Arbuthnot House, 7 Wilson Street, London EC2M 2SN **4** 2023-24 Annual Report of Child & Parenting Support Oxon (ChiPS) ## **2 The Report of the Trustees** ## **Overview** **Child & Parenting Support Oxfordshire (ChiPS) was established to deliver a whole-family parenting programme for young school-aged or pre-school children and their parents/carers for the benefit of people in Oxfordshire. The issues faced by schools currently have made it increasingly difficult to deliver the programme as prescribed, that is with a high adult-child ratio. In response, we have been developing delivery methods which will require far fewer teaching staff hours from the schools involved, and work is ongoing. Our small team spent the period covered by this report on continued development of an up-to-date wholefamily programme to deliver our stated public benefit. Further to this, we are developing an online suite of teaching resources to be accessible to facilitators working in their own settings, which will be offered free for the public benefit.** ## **The CIO’s Purposes for the Public Benefit** The CIO ChiPS was founded to deliver a whole-family therapeutic behavioural programme free to referred children and their parents/ carers. The Webster-Stratton Whole-Family Programme, along with other ‘gold-standard’ programmes, is proven to improve outcomes in vulnerable families and children, benefits which are lasting and long term when the programme is both delivered and attended with commitment. These programmes have also been shown to promote **5** 2023-24 Annual Report of Child & Parenting Support Oxon (ChiPS) protective factors such as consistent and resilient parenting, improved parent/child bond, and strengthened social and emotional competence and school readiness in children. ## **How the Activities of the Charity are Carried Out** The programme we have previously delivered is the WebsterStratton Whole-Family Programme, which is presented to children and their families as ‘Dinosaur School’. This programme comprises a set of evidence-based therapeutic learning courses, which have been developed to prevent and treat behaviour problems in young children. The programme is usually set in a local school, and coordinated and delivered by trained, experienced group work facilitators provided by us, alongside school teaching staff who work directly with the referred children. However, during this reporting period and the previous one, it has not been possible to deliver the programme as specified. Our current activity is focussed on developing ways in which the expertise of the small team can be harnessed to deliver on the stated aims of the Charity by using alternative effective methods. The aim is to develop an effective and practical whole-family programme that can be shared and disseminated online, free and on a charitable basis, including to other professionals working in the field in need of fully developed, high quality, teaching resources. **6** 2023-24 Annual Report of Child & Parenting Support Oxon (ChiPS) ## **Monitoring Outcomes to Ensure Charitable Purposes and Benefits are Met** - i) **Oversight** At least one trustee to maintain regular oversight meetings with the Programme Coordinator (in person, by phone or on video conference). Regular to mean at least monthly, and to mean at least weekly during the delivery of programmes or during any period of provision to, or engagement with, the public or service users. - ii) **Formalised Feedback** During active Programme delivery, the Charity will use statistically validated self-assessment questionnaires from parents/carers before, during and after attendance on the programme. Reports on each child’s progress will be produced for the referrers. There will be regular feedback between the programme deliverers and the referrers during each programme, and the deliverer will report back to trustees at appropriate intervals. The trustees will use these inputs, as well as feedback from referrers on outcomes, to ensure the charity is meeting the needs of beneficiaries and meeting the charitable purposes as stated. - iii) **Supervision of Facilitator** This should take place at least twice during the year, to ensure best practice and to maintain the integrity of the evidence based programme. ## **Deciding who benefits** The programme and related support given by the Charity continues to be offered free to programme attendees, who are currently referred by the state school providing the resources and the venue for the delivery of the programme. **7** 2023-24 Annual Report of Child & Parenting Support Oxon (ChiPS) When not engaged in delivering a programme, the Charity will continue to consider and develop other means of delivering the benefit of its activities to the public. This is an area of focus, as our ability to provide for the public benefit through direct programme delivery being so impacted by the present situation in schools, where there is no longer sufficient teacher-hours to make staff available to attend and support the children during sessions. This was an essential aspect of our mode of delivery, and an alternative format for delivery is under discussion. ## **Managing risk of harm** **Child Safety and Vulnerable Service User Safety** There has been no direct contact or interaction with children or families during this reporting period and has no plans to do so. **Safe Working** Although there was no Programme delivery in schools during this reporting period, our policy is that schools are required to provide their working risk assessment document to the ChiPS team, to enable them to adapt it to the programme and the delivery location in the school. Any safety concerns identified by the delivery team leader are reported to the head of school, or the designated primary contact person (usually the SENCO), and suitable adjustments to programme arrangements agreed with them. **Mental Health and Well-being** . There has been no working directly with families or in schools in this reporting period. The Programme coordinator has been writing a new revised parenting programme, and has been doing this from her home. The trustee with direct responsibility for communication with the Programme Coordinator has regular face-to-face, online and telephone contact **8** 2023-24 Annual Report of Child & Parenting Support Oxon (ChiPS) with her, to support and provide resources as required. Independent professional supervision is also provided as required. ## **3 Finance and Annual Accounts** The Charity’s income is small, and in this reporting period was negligible. The accounts are not therefore required to be independently examined or audited. The trustees have reviewed the accounts of the Charity for this reporting period, and present them with this report to the Charities Commission. ## Cash Accounts ChiPS 2023-34 **9** 2023-24 Annual Report of Child & Parenting Support Oxon (ChiPS) Expenditure Accounts ChiPS 2023-24 Income Accounts ChiPS 2023=24 Note: There was no income in this reporting period **10** 2023-24 Annual Report of Child & Parenting Support Oxon (ChiPS) ## **4 2023-24 Report of Programme** ## **Activities** **Our capacity to conduct activities in this reporting period was significantly reduced due to challenging personal circumstances within our small team. However, we remain motivated to provide parenting support to families in Oxfordshire, and have continued to develop our future offer during this reporting period.** ## Activities The effect of challenging personal circumstances for our small team has been that it has been necessary to conduct a lighter workload with lots of support on offer from the Trustee team. This has been the appropriate way to work during this period, and has included some periods of inactivity due to ill-health. However, when back together working on developing the in-house parenting programme, the enthusiasm and commitment to providing this resource to the wider community is evident. Currently in development are plans to initiate this provision with a selection of the more accessible learning points of the new programme. The plan is to create simple and condensed visual resources to introduce these points to the wider community via a new website and social media. The longer term goal is to create a visually attractive and accessible website with a full parenting programme, constructed in a modular structure, which can be easily downloaded and shared. We need to bring in an able and affordable web developer to assist us in this next phase. When we have a spec and multiple quotes for the website and social media platform for the new programme, we will share these with the trustees, and decide next steps. **11** 2023-24 Annual Report of Child & Parenting Support Oxon (ChiPS) Maintaining safety and standards in professional practice Paula had one supervision session with an external professional Parenting Practitioner during this reporting period. ## Future proposals We are continuing to consider whether a consultancy role, provided free on a charitable basis, might be provided to primary schools to help them embed the strongest aspects of the Webster-Stratton children’s programme into the classroom for their most vulnerable pupils. This would not involve any direct contact with children, and would therefore not require the high level of resourcing that our previous practice has required. Reported to the trustees by Paula Evans, Programme Coordinator Cait Morrison, Trustee and Programme Liaison Report by the Trustees: Michael Teeling, Trustee, Chair Cait Morrison, Trustee, Secretary Kathy Peto, Trustee Nicola Selway, Trustee Signed on behalf of the trustees by ………………………………………………………… CAITLIN MORRISON, TRUSTEE **20 May 2025** **12**