- Windmills Acute Bereavement Support for Children & Young People In Stafordshire
Registered Charity Number: 1187408
Registered Address: 62, Windermere Road, NewcastleUnder-Lyme, Staffordshire. ST5 3HN.
Annual Trustee Report
Trustees: Lindsey Wilmer, Scott Buckley, Helen McNicol-Buckley
Structure & Management including recruitment of Trustees
Founding Members: Zara Toussaint, Leeanne Clay & above stated Trustees.
(2) Eligibility for trusteeship
(a) Every charity trustee must be a natural person.
(b) No individual may be appointed as a charity trustee of the CIO:
• if he or she is under the age of 16 years; or
• if he or she would automatically cease to hold office under the provisions of clause 12(1)(e).
(c) No one is entitled to act as a charity trustee whether on appointment or on any re-appointment until he or she has expressly acknowledged, in whatever way the charity trustees decide, his or her acceptance of the office of charity trustee.
(d) At least one of the trustees of the CIO must be 18 years of age or over. If there is no trustee aged at least 18 years, the remaining trustees may only act to call a meeting of the charity trustees, or appoint a new charity trustee.
(3) Number of charity trustees
(a) There must be at least three charity trustees. If the number falls below this minimum, the remaining trustee or trustees may act only to call a meeting of the charity trustees, or appoint a new charity trustee.
(b) The maximum number of charity trustees is five. The charity trustees may not appoint any charity trustee if as a result, the number of charity trustees would exceed
the maximum.
(4) First charity trustees
The first charity trustees are as follows and are appointed for the following terms –
........................Lindsey Ann Wilmer............................ for 4 years .........................Scott Ian Buckley............................... for 3 years ........................Helen Isobel McNicol-Buckley........ for 2 years
10. Appointment of charity trustees
(1) Apart from the first charity trustees, every trustee must be appointed for a term of three years by a resolution passed at a properly convened meeting of the charity trustees. (2) In selecting individuals for appointment as charity trustees, the charity trustees must have regard to the skills, knowledge and experience needed for the effective administration of the CIO.
Above copied from the Charity’s constitution.
Day to day management by founding members with key decisions agreed by all Trustees both formally & informally. Covid-19 has significantly reduced the ability to have regular meetings, however minimum guidelines met.
Activities and objectives to include achievements & performance in relation to public beneft.
The idea for Windmills was born in 2017 and we started our journey towards registration by process mapping local and national services, speaking to the general public at feedback events and accessing nationally recognised child bereavement agencies/charities for support, advice and guidance.
This process validated that Windmills differs from any other Child Bereavement Charity as it solely focuses on supporting Children and Young People through the acute dying process and after the death has occurred.
Over the next several months we began to write our Governing Document and gather all the evidence we had in order to submit Windmills to the Charity Commission. Once this was done we had a tense few months waiting to hear whilst Windmills was assessed. We finally heard back on the 16 th January 2020 and Windmills was official!!
Governance
Priority was given to ensuring Windmills met governance procedures with policies written to include, safeguarding, equal opportunities, data protection and lone working to mention a few.
Windmills are also members of Child Bereavement Network & Support Staffordshire.
Both founding members are, as registered Nurses, governed by the Nursing & Midwifery Council.
Funding/fnance
Windmills was initially self-funded however following the global pandemic we were fortunately able to access multiple small grants successfully.
The pandemic also made the process of opening a bank account protracted to the effect of six months.
The first family to be officially referred to Windmills were incredibly generous in setting up a legacy donation in memory of their loved one which amounted to approximately £19,000 for our unrestricted use.
Brief examples of resources purchased include: memory boxes, craft items & child grief literature. Please see attached accounts for further details.
As a point of note Windmills does not have any debts, liabilities, assets or funds held as a custodian trustee.
Items of office furniture were donated free of charge.
Promoting Windmills
Website produced
Social media launched
Invited to join and participated in developing strategies for Staffordshire and Stoke-On-Trent Bereavement Network
Information shared with key departments within the local NHS trust
Pilot scheme pitched for and granted successfully – however the pandemic temporarily suspended this. We aimed to run the pilot for 6 months initially and to receive referrals from the local Hospitals Palliative Care Team and also Critical Care.
Direct communication from local Hospices which resulted in referrals into Windmills.
Volunteer processes – we joined forces with Keele University to offer a secondment for a Digital Media student to join us with the intention of launching our social media platforms.
We have not yet taken any other volunteers on who will be interacting with our families as yet but will ensure a robust screening and interview process once our volunteer programme is established.
Referrals
Anyone can refer into Windmills and we provide a 24/7 service.
Intervention varies from client to client as we provide bespoke, focused and supportive acute bereavement care.
Unfortunately, its certain that we will all experience death at least once in our lives. Our little people and youngsters deserve to not only understand what death is and means but also to learn that it is normal to experience a range of emotions. We use crafts to reinforce existing memories whilst building new ones so that death and grief is not perceived to be a traumatic event, never to be spoken of.
Memory making is a key part of what we do during the first few sessions with our families – when someone dies, we all worry that we will lose our memories of our loved one - this is no different for a child or young person. By gathering and saving special memories in a memory box, a child/young person can
go back into the box and reconnect with those memories - happy or sad - when they are ready.
While we are making the memory boxes with children/young people we talk about what their loved one may have liked, and us being able to talk about the one they have lost and to say their name confidently means they can too. This continued acknowledgement allows memories to be kept alive and hopefully helps them move forward.
All the conversations we have whilst making memories/doing crafts, verbal or not, allows for loved ones to be thought about in a safe space. They can open up about things without having to make eye contact - it’s often easier for them to be honest that way.
Part of our role is supporting schools. We receive many requests from schools regarding how to even broach the subject of death and loss with their pupils. Many struggle with knowing how to support and what to say and are extremely grateful when Windmills attends to provide 1:1 support to a child or young person. We desperately need to actively empower school faculty to open conversations around death and dying whilst providing support through education and normalising bereavement for the benefit of their pupils. We hope to deliver sessions in person to both the school faculty and pupils whilst also providing written resources and quite possibly electronic resources.
Despite the pandemic we continued to operate - as health care professionals we are able to still go into hospital settings (although far less frequently due to safety) so can collate and facilitate memory making on behalf of the families we look after, arrange for Zoom calls and also see families in their own surroundings (social distancing rules aided by at all times) to continue the memory making, breaking the bad news to children/young people and to support them through the next few weeks of their journey.
In relation to our contingency plan in the event we become over capacity we offer phone support at the bare minimum with the aim to do a face to face meeting (if required) as soon as possible.
As we are new it is difficult to estimate the growth/demand for this service, however previous experience of service delivery means we can negotiate on a case by case basis with complete honesty and transparency.
Public beneft case study
Adam and Sienna’s story
Sienna was just 4 years old when her mum, Chloe, died from a brain haemorrhage after collapsing at home. Devastated and exhausted from the overwhelming shock of the sudden and unexpected nature of his wife's illness, Dad, Adam had no idea how to help his daughter understand and process that her Mummy was never coming home.
“Windmills Charity helped me. They were there with me when I brought Sienna to the hospital to see Chloe when we knew it was the end. I didn’t have the strength or the words to tell my 4-year-old that her Mummy had died and was never coming home.
But I didn’t have to do it alone – the ladies from Windmills were there with me every step of the way.”
“Windmills continued to be there for me and Sienna after Chloe died, making her smile and giving me time to do things I needed to get done. They are there when I need someone to listen, and they offer me guidance when I get worried about doing it wrong.”
FINANCIAL SUMMARY Windmills Charity 1187408 For the year ended 31/03/2021
| Income: | |
|---|---|
| Donations - restricted | £3,500 |
| Donations - unrestricted | £21,203.21 |
| Intrest income | £0 |
| Other revenue | £0 |
| Total turnover | £24,703.21 |
| Charitable activities | |
| Salaries | £0 |
| Support sessions | £1,000 |
| Memory making activities | £968.84 |
| Total cost of charitable activities | £1,968.84 |
| Gross profit | £22,734.37 |
| Administrative costs | |
| Advertising & marketing | £0 |
| Bank fees | £34.00 |
| Book keeping | £0 |
| Employers National Insurance | £0 |
| Fundraising | £0 |
| IT equipment | £1,132.20 |
| Office Supplies | £50 |
| Postage, freight & courier | £51.76 |
| Rent | £2,190 |
| Salaries | £0 |
| Telephone & internet | £12 |
| Travel | £600 |
| Utilities | £50 |
| Website | £150 |
| Total administrative costs | £4,269.96 |
| Operating profit | £18,464.41 |