Trustees Annual Report and Accounts
For the period: 24th March 2020 - 1st April 2021
Registered charity number 1188740 (England and Wales)
Administrative details
Charity name: Faiths Against Child Sexual Exploitation Also known as: FACES
Registered charity number: 1188740 (England and Wales) Principal address: Hope Church Luton, Villa Road, Luton, LU2 7NT
Structure and governance
Trustees:
Peter Adams 24th March 2020 - current Tony Thompson 24th March 2020 - current Rehana Faisal 24th March 2020 - current Sujel Miah 24th March 2020 - current
Structure: Charitable Incorporated Organisation
Governing document: Constitution
New trustees are selected in consideration of the skills, knowledge and experience they have, and are appointed by resolution passed by the existing trustee’s. All trustees must read and understand all organisational policies, which reflect statutory and legal requirements and good practice procedures.
Faiths Against Child Sexual Exploitation was set up as a local coalition of Christian and Muslim places of worship and charities. These partner organisations are Azalea, Discover Islam, Inspire FM, Lantern, Luton Counil of Mosques, Luton Sunni Council of Mosques and St Mary’s Centre for Peace and Reconciliation and Youthscape in July 2016.
Although an independent organisation, it has operated as a project under Hope Church for financial purposes since its inception and for the duration of the period of this annual report.
The charity has 7 members on the steering group including its trustees, and had 1 paid member of staff during this period.
Faiths Against Child Sexual Exploitation (FACES) Registered charity number: 1188740 (England and Wales) faces.org.uk | admin@faces.org.uk
Objectives and activities
Charitable objects:
1) The promotion of religious harmony for the benefit of the public by:
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a) Educating the public in different religious beliefs including an awareness of their distinctive features and their common ground to promote good relations between persons of different faiths.
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b) Promoting knowledge and mutual understanding and respect of the beliefs and practices of different religious faiths.
2) To advance in life and help safeguard young people through:
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a) Providing support and activities which develop their skills, capacities and capabilities to enable them to participate in society as mature and responsible individuals.
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b) To develop the capacity and skills of the members of the socially disadvantaged community of Luton in such a way that they are better able to identify, and help meet, their needs and to participate more fully in society.
Projects
Overview
During the pandemic we were acutely aware of the needs people in our communities were facing. Many of these challenges were pre-existing in relation to poverty and other inequitable outcomes, which were exacerbated and highlighted by the circumstances
Faiths Against Child Sexual Exploitation (FACES) Registered charity number: 1188740 (England and Wales) faces.org.uk | admin@faces.org.uk
surrounding the pandemic. We heard the impact of the negative rhetoric and blame that was directed at minoritised communities in the media, mirroring the unfair narratives we speak about in relation to child sexual exploitation and grooming.
The disproportionate nature of disadvantage and loss was underlined and affected a large proportion of the audience our work is directed at. This includes families, faith leaders and professionals working in schools and other organisations.
Organisations which we would usually engage with through training or youth workshops were restructuring how to continue their activities, and working with young people in schools or other settings was necessarily paused.
At the same time, safeguarding needs were increased as children were at home with less engagement from services and increased online activity. We offered an online safeguarding forum to bring together people from different sectors to share and discuss the new circumstances we were in in regards to safeguarding.
A significant part of our work revolves around bringing people from different faith and other backgrounds together to create spaces for shared learning and understanding, in particular around the topics of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Although we were not able to run in-person events in the usual way, this did create opportunities to trial online training and events and reach a wider audience from across the country.
It was necessary to prioritise and refocus how our leadership team supports our usual beneficiaries - our communities - in responding to the impact of Covid-19. We worked tirelessly to address urgent practical needs, provide religious guidance and support, and deal with the unprecedented amount of death and loss. This meant we decided to furlough our only paid member for a significant period.
In this period we directly worked with 221 people through our training, online events and research activities which are detailed below.
New Identity and Inclusion training
The global Black Lives Matter protests and unique circumstances of the pandemic in which they took part supported our decision to revisit how we talk about racial inequity and support professionals and organisations to understand and account for it throughout our work. During this time we were approached by local charity NOAH Enterprise to develop an
Faiths Against Child Sexual Exploitation (FACES) Registered charity number: 1188740 (England and Wales) faces.org.uk | admin@faces.org.uk
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion training course for their leadership team, to be later delivered to all staff and volunteers. We offered a 4-hour session packed with content addressing bias, social norms, ‘phobias’ and ‘isms’, intersectionality, racism, privilege and power, which was then expanded and reformatted into a 9-hour, 3-session course.
Feedback when asked: Which parts of the course did you fnd most useful? Why?
“Understanding of intersectionality, and the importance of mentors (we can take action to provide mentors). Most importantly though, challenging my own thinking (I thought I had most of the answers but didn’t).”
Identity and Inclusion Online
Following the development of our new training course, we trialled online course delivery for the first time with a 2-day course and 1-day course for 2 different cohorts.
Feedback
“I enjoyed the course yesterday and some of the comments were very interesting and thought provoking.”
Faiths Against Child Sexual Exploitation (FACES) Registered charity number: 1188740 (England and Wales) faces.org.uk | admin@faces.org.uk
‘They believe this’
Taking pupils’ religious backgrounds into account in Relationships and Sex Education
Between March 2020 and April 2021 the research project finished its data collection and analysis. The final report has been written since then and will be published in September or October 2021.
Online survey
Six research sessions were held across three schools/colleges in Luton in Feb/March 2020, and a total of 131 pupils completed the survey in a school or college context. When the first national lockdown was announced in March 2020, no further in-person visits were allowed, and further planned visits to other schools could not progress. Our steering group concluded that it was not ethical to approach schools to ask them to participate in this research while they were adapting to online provision, or when schools returned in person.
At this stage fewer Christian young people had completed the survey in a school context than Muslim young people, so the online survey was circulated to Christian youth workers via Youthscape, a national Christian youthwork charity, to pass on to young people in their networks. A further 26 young people completed the survey, taking the total responses to 157. Participants attended a total of 29 different secondary schools.
Faiths Against Child Sexual Exploitation (FACES) Registered charity number: 1188740 (England and Wales) faces.org.uk | admin@faces.org.uk
Focus groups
The third and final phase of the research comprised four online focus groups with Muslim and Christian young people aged 18-21, exploring their views on RSE within secondary schools and how it could be more faith sensitive. Two of the four focus groups were with Christian young people and two with Muslim young people. Across these groups there were ten Muslim participants (four young men and six young women) and six Christian participants (three young men, three young women).
Community Safeguarding Forum
We ran 2 online Community Safeguarding Forums, connecting teachers, social workers, charity workers and independent trainers from across the country. Various topics were covered including the increased challenges in identifying abuse, supporting parents to strengthen online safety for their children while at home, the impacts of pornography in relation to exploitation, mental health, and working with faith groups.
Relationships and Sex Education Online Parents Consultation
After an initial in-person session with Denbigh High School discussing the importance of Relationships and Sex Education and exploring the curriculum with parents, planned in-person consultations with other schools were postponed or cancelled due to Covid. During this period we were invited to join an online consultation for parents of Dallow Primary School parents, which was very well attended.
Podcast
We launched our podcast where we discuss different aspects of our work and how they interact; from faith-based interfaith work and building community resilience, to keeping young people safe and addressing inequities in safeguarding risks and responses.
Our podcast is on YouTube:
Faiths Against Child Sexual Exploitation - FACES podcast launch in #InterFaithWeek 2020: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYIHz jYsAPg&t
Faiths Against Child Sexual Exploitation - Community Welfare and Safeguarding During the Pandemic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aTH Z9JT2dY
Faiths Against Child Sexual Exploitation (FACES) Registered charity number: 1188740 (England and Wales) faces.org.uk | admin@faces.org.uk
Thanks to our funders
A massive thank you to Tudor Trust for core funding, ensuring we can continue our work by employing staff, and to Near Neighbours for supporting the delivery of our new Identity and Inclusion course.
Future plans
The challenges of this year have underlined the necessity of our mission to build resilience in faith communities against different types of harm. We’re working to promote a broader understanding of safeguarding to better equip organisations and communities to keep children and young people safe, and know what to do where harm is occuring.
Our aim for the next year is to increase our staff capacity to deliver courses and engage with young people, and expand our engagement with the community through our online presence and research.
Training
We’ll expand our work with families and professionals, promoting learning around risk and different types of harm; and inequity in relation to identity and people’s experiences of harm, and responses from services, institutions and society. We’ll explore ways to offer remote learning opportunities while still bringing people together and keeping the shared-learning aspect central to our work. Securing further funding to deliver courses will also ensure we can engage with and reach organisations and communities where the work matters most.
Faiths Against Child Sexual Exploitation (FACES) Registered charity number: 1188740 (England and Wales) faces.org.uk | admin@faces.org.uk
Research and Relationships and Sex Education
We’re excited to launch our research report over the next year to share what young people said about their experiences of Relationships and Sex Education. We plan to utilise these insights to engage with schools and families in meaningful ways that helps build stronger partnerships. We also plan to carry out further research.
Podcast and Forums
We are confident that our faith is part of the solution in responding to injustice and inequity and keeping people safe from harm. We’ve seen that widespread narratives - from grooming gangs to blaming the disproportionate impact of Covid on the people in the communities themselves - can frame faith and minoritised communities who are often people of faith, negatively. In order to improve good safeguarding practices among services that engage with faith communities, these narratives must be challenged and unpacked. This is also true of the impact of internalising these messages within communities themselves and how this shapes safety and cohesion within broader society.
We plan to grow our online presence and explore how to best capture the voices of the community and their views on faith, safeguarding, issues relating to young people, and other relevant current events and stories.
Financial review
As a newly registered charity, our finances continued to be managed by Hope Church Luton Trust (registered charity no. 1133954, company no. 07131310) for the duration of the period.
Reserves
An amount of reserves are kept in order to safeguard the charity from unexpected financial implications, including to:
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Ensure any urgent unexpected expenses can be met
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Prevent the interruption of existing operations due to a delay in receiving expected funds
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Ensure the charity can meet essential ongoing administrative costs for a period of 3 months if no other funding is received
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Facilitate options for urgent projects in response to beneficiary needs and
Faiths Against Child Sexual Exploitation (FACES)
Registered charity number: 1188740 (England and Wales) faces.org.uk | admin@faces.org.uk
circumstances
Our current reserves limit is £14000. This means any amount of unrestricted funds (ie. funds that are not designated to projects or other existing costs) up to and including £14000 may be reserved by the charity, for the reasons set out above.
Declarations
The trustees declare that they have approved the trustee’s report above.
Full name Signature
Tony Thompson
Rehana Faisal
Peter Adams
Sujel Miah
Date: 31.01.2022
Faiths Against Child Sexual Exploitation (FACES) Registered charity number: 1188740 (England and Wales) faces.org.uk | admin@faces.org.uk
Receipts and payments accounts
Charity name: Faiths Against Child Sexual Exploitation Also known as: FACES Registered charity number: 1188740 (England and Wales) For the period: 24th March 2020 to 1st April 2021
Receipts and payments
| Receipts | |||||
| Unrestricted funds (£) |
Restricted funds (£) |
Endowment funds (£) |
Total funds (£) | Last year (£) | |
| Donations and legacies |
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Grants | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Fundraising events |
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Fees for services |
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Other | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Sub total | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Sale of fxed assets |
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Sale of investments |
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Loans received |
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Sub total | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Total receipts |
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Faiths Against Child Sexual Exploitation (FACES) Registered charity number: 1188740 (England and Wales) faces.org.uk | admin@faces.org.uk
| Payments | |||||
| Unrestricted funds (£) |
Restricted funds (£) |
Endowment funds (£) |
Total funds (£) | Last year (£) | |
| Salaries and related costs |
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Rent/hire | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Insurances | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Telephone and internet |
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Stationary, printing and ofce supplies |
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Subscriptions, including digital and online packages |
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Bank charges | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Website costs | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Volunteer expenses |
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Trustee expenses |
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Advertising and promotion |
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Other project costs |
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Sub total | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Purchase of fxed assets |
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Purchase of investments |
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Faiths Against Child Sexual Exploitation (FACES) Registered charity number: 1188740 (England and Wales) faces.org.uk | admin@faces.org.uk
| Loans repaid | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sub total | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Total payments |
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Unrestricted funds (£) |
Restricted funds (£) |
Endowment funds (£) |
Total funds (£) | Last year (£) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Net of receipts |
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Transfer between funds |
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Cash funds last year end |
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Cash funds this year end |
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period
| Details | Unrestricted funds (£) |
Restricted funds (£) |
Endowment funds (£) |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bank account | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total cash funds | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Other monetary assets |
0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Investment assets |
0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Assets retained for the charity’s own use |
0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Liabilities | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Faiths Against Child Sexual Exploitation (FACES) Registered charity number: 1188740 (England and Wales) faces.org.uk | admin@faces.org.uk
The trustees declare that they have approved the accounts above.
Full name Signature
Tony Thompson
Rehana Faisal
Peter Adams
Sujel Miah
Date: 31.01.2022
Faiths Against Child Sexual Exploitation (FACES) Registered charity number: 1188740 (England and Wales) faces.org.uk | admin@faces.org.uk