HOPE COUNSELLING SERVICE
READING, BERKSHIRE, U.K.
TRUSTEES ANNUAL REPORT for the period 18[th] September 2019 to 31[st] December 2020
Charity name: Hope Counselling Service (HCS)
Registered Charity number: 1185376
Constituted as: a Charitable Incorporated Organisation
Charity’s postal address: 233 Kings Road, Reading RG1 4LS
Office and Counselling rooms at: 229 Kings Road, Reading RG1 4LS
Names of Trustees: Elaine Holmes (Chair), Barry Young (Treasurer), Neil Hooley, Debbie Hunt, Alison Stewart.
Bank: NatWest, 131 Crockhamwell Road, Woodley, Reading, RG5 3XZ
GOVERNANCE AND MANAGEMENT
PERSONNEL
The Manager is Deborah Marsden-Kwan. The in-house Group Supervisor is Jane Clark. These two are part-time paid positions.
As at 31[st] December 2020 there were nine volunteer counsellors. Four of the Counsellors were qualified to Diploma level or above. Others were continuing their training and have a placement with HCS. A volunteer assists the Manager with some administrative tasks.
All personnel (including Trustees) , paid and voluntary, are required to have current D.B.S. certificates.
TRUSTEES’ WORK
Elaine Holmes’s one year term of office ended in March 2020. She offered to serve a further term until March 2023. This was agreed.
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Hope Counselling Service received Registered charitable status from the Charities Commission in September 2019 and opened the premises for counselling in October 2019. By the end of 2019, many of the main policies and guidelines needed for governance had been agreed. These were: ‘Safe Lone Working’, ‘Children and Vulnerable Adults Protection and Safeguarding’, ‘Health and Safety’, ‘Equality’ and ‘Environmental Policy’. During 2020, the Trustees also agreed the following policies and procedures: ‘Grievance, Disciplinary, Harassment of staff, Whistleblowing, Complaints and RIDDOR. All the policies and procedures are available in printed form in the office for reference as well as saved as Word documents. The counsellors are made aware of the policies as part of their induction to the Service.
Those policies which came up for an annual review were reviewed by the Trustees and any agreed changes to the wording was made and the print copy updated.
The Trustees’ work also included applying for grants and donations, overseeing the finances, and arranging for improvements to the premises. The Trustees also reviewed the wording of the website and the client application form and made changes to these.
Trustee, Neil Hooley, took on the role of Designated Safeguarding Officer and this information was communicated by email to all the counsellors and was also displayed on a notice on the office noticeboard.
RESPONSE TO THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC
Trustees were involved in the decision to close the premises to clients in March 2020, following the increasing Coronavirus infection rate. Trustees’ work included the writing and preparation of the Risk Assessment document. A grant from Reading Borough Council was received to cover most of the expenses of continuing to work in the context of the pandemic. All of the counsellors moved over to seeing clients by zoom during the lockdowns. Group supervision was held via zoom. The Service remained working throughout the pandemic and available to the public. Some clients were seen in person when the lockdowns eased. Some clients did not want zoom counselling so were put on a waiting list for when we reopened the premises.
While the premises were not in use during the first lockdown, the furnishings and layout of the counselling rooms and the office were adjusted to allow for a return of counselling on the premises when that was allowed. A cleaning check list document was produced in preparation for a return to the premises. With the premises not in use, the carpet in the office was replaced with a new one.
The Reading Borough Council grant, referred to above, also covered paying for our counsellors to attend a zoom training course run by Cruse Bereavement. The course was on Grief and Bereavement: the training to prepare our counsellors, manager and clinical supervisor to be more prepared for the possible effects of the pandemic.
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OBJECT AND ACTIVITIES
HCS OBJECT
Our ‘Object’ in our Constitution (as amended 12 September 2019) is worded as:
The object of the CIO is to promote and protect the mental health of people residing in Reading and the surrounding areas through the provision of a counselling service in accordance with the values of the Christian faith.
ACTIVITIES
Hope Counselling Service opened it’s doors to clients in October 2019. From the beginning, we have had people wishing to make use of our Service and at the time of writing we have a waiting list of people wishing to be seen. Applications for counselling have come via people self-referring, recommendations from others and people having been signposted to us from the NHS Talking Therapies and other Services.
From January to March 2020, we were invited to offer counselling to guests who were attending Bed for the Night which is a service provided by a branch of FAITH charity and Reading Borough Council for people who are homeless. Two HCS Counsellors volunteered to serve in this way.
We interviewed and accepted three additional Counsellors before the lockdown began. All three of these started working during the lockdown. In late September 2020 we interviewed and accepted a further two trainee Counsellors who had applied for a placement with us. We are bearing in mind trying to keep a balance in our numbers of qualified Counsellors and trainee Counsellors.
A second supervision group was started during 2020, with Jane Clark as the Supervisor.
FINANCIAL REVIEW
We received donations from clients, individual supporters and Trust donors as well as the grant from Reading Borough Council. Reading Borough Council’s grant was specifically for use to help with our work during the Coronavirus lockdown, preparing for opening again and for Counsellor training. We applied for a couple of other grants and were not successful.
Reading Borough Council paid HCS for their counselling service in the Bed for the Night provision.
We invite clients to donate towards their Counselling sessions. There is no fixed sum suggested – it is according to their ability and willingness to give. We inform clients that the cost of providing a session is estimated at £35 per session. During lockdown we moved to enabling clients to donate via bank transfer. We purchased a debit/credit card reader for use on the premises.
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We received a donation of £720 for the start of a ‘Training Fund’ – money to be used to pay for or subsidise future training for the Counsellors working with us.
A local Counselling Service closed its work and donated £3000 to HCS following its closure in 2020.
We are grateful to our landlord for giving us a three-month rent holiday over the summer of 2020 in light of the closure of our premises due to the Coronavirus.
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HOPE COUNSELLING SERVISE | HOPE COUNSELLING SERVISE | HOPE COUNSELLING SERVISE | HOPE COUNSELLING SERVISE | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Receipts | andpayments | accsunts | |||||||||||
| Fortheperiod from |
ffit49n019 | To | 31t12n020 | ||||||||||
| Unrestricted funds |
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Endowment funds |
Total | funds | Last year | ||||||||
| to | thenearest ff |
to the nearestf | to | the | nearest € | tothenearestf | tothenearestt | ||||||
| Giftsl Grants | 10,340 | ||||||||||||
| Caunsellins Donations | 9,399 | ||||||||||||
| Subtotal fGross | incomefor | ||||||||||||
| 19,739 | |||||||||||||
| A2Asset and investmentsales, | |||||||||||||
| (see table). | n | ||||||||||||
| Totatrxeiprcl SUStotal |
- | ---Tqzltlf-- | J |
f-l | I | rs.zssI | :m | ||||||
| A3P nts a |
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| Rent | 2,28A | 2,280 | |||||||||||
| Manager | 6,72A | 6,720 | |||||||||||
| Decorating | --- | 422 | 422 | ||||||||||
| Equipment | 1,366 | 1,366 | |||||||||||
| CounsellingSupervision | --- | 1.110 | f.110 | ||||||||||
| lnsurance | 214 | 214 | |||||||||||
| Telephone/Postage | 558 | 558 | |||||||||||
| General Expenses | 1,360 | 1,360 | |||||||||||
| Training | 600 | 600 | |||||||||||
| S.r&fofal | 14,630 | 14,fi30 | |||||||||||
| A4Asset and investment | |||||||||||||
| purchases,{see table} | |||||||||||||
| SUStotal | |||||||||||||
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| Unrestricted | Restricted | Endowment | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| funds | funds | funds | |||||
| tonearestf | tonearestf | tonearestf | |||||
| Bank | Balance | 11,597 | |||||
| Chequesstilltoclear | 1,36'l | ||||||
| Totalcasfifrrr?ds | 1S,225 | ||||||
| (agree balanceswithreceipts and payments | |||||||
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| Unrestricted | Restricted | Endowment | |||||
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| i | i- | ti'i:'ti | i:::.' | tonearestf | tonearestf | tonearestf | |
| 82Other monetary assets | |||||||
| Cast {optional} | Current value | ||||||
| 83lnvestment assets | |||||||
| Gost {optional} | Current value | ||||||
| 84Assetsretainedforthe | |||||||
| charity'sourn use | |||||||
| Amountdue | When due | ||||||
| B5Liabilities | |||||||
| Signedbyoneor twotrusteeson bhlf f |
$ignature | Name |