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2025-08-31-accounts

Zoho Sign Document ID." 4AE4CF1A1-BW53VLOTPXMHW2EYHEXKVZFtU8TDSHZDOCPLTX55XUO Baby Umbrella Annual Report & Accounts 2024 - 2025 www.babyumbrella.org.uk info@babyumbrella.org.uk @bobyumbrella Kent Charity Awards Winner: Start-up 2022 Kent Mental Wellbeing Awards Registered charity number 1190745 HIGHLY COMMENDED 2024

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Contents

Welcome from our Chair of Trustees and Founders..................................................................3 What we do............................................................................................................................... 6 Vision, Mission and Values........................................................................................................ 7 Our strategic purposes and priorities............................................................................................................................. 8 Our strategic purposes........................................................................................................ 8 Our priorities to deliver our strategy...................................................................................8 Our finances 2024-25: Summary...............................................................................................9 Our year in review................................................................................................................... 10 Persevering, adapting and turning up consistently for families........................................ 10 Our services.......................................................................................................................13 Our Impact........................................................................................................................ 20 Our team........................................................................................................................... 22 Service support................................................................................................................ 24 Fundraising........................................................................................................................ 26 Looking forward to 2025-26.................................................................................................... 31 2025-26 Strategic Priorities............................................................................................... 31 Financial Results...................................................................................................................... 33 Legal and Administrative Information..................................................................................... 35 Objectives................................................................................................................................36 Public Benefit.......................................................................................................................... 36 Governance and Management................................................................................................37 Principal Risks..........................................................................................................................38 Statement of Responsibilities of the Trustees of Baby Umbrella............................................ 39 Independent Examiner’s Report to the Trustees of Baby Umbrella........................................ 40 Statement of Financial Activities.............................................................................................41 Balance Sheet..........................................................................................................................42 Notes to the accounts............................................................................................................. 43

Baby Umbrella (Charity Reg: 1190745) Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25

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Welcome from our Chair of Trustees and Founders

In August, at the end of this financial year, we celebrated five years of Baby Umbrella with a special Summer Party aimed at families of under 5s. Attended by over 100 families it was a remarkable experience of our whole community coming together to have fun and celebrate.

Over the past five years, we have supported thousands of local families through some of the most tender and transformative moments of early parenthood. This work has only been possible because of the incredible generosity, time, and heart of so many people: trustees, charity team, practitioners, volunteers, sponsors, funders, fundraisers - everyone has had their part to play.

We’re proud to have made a tangible impact on families with evidence based, compassionate expertise. We always aim to bring a sense of safety and confidence to what is often an overwhelming transition.

We can change this. Working together, we can prevent suffering, overwhelm and isolation, building our own communities of care and nurture. Spaces to hold families as they land in parenthood as well as provide support in the longer term. Spaces filled with trustworthy wisdom, and time to listen with kindness.

We need the support of our whole community to do this. Our charity has no government funding to deliver our high quality support. We are absolutely reliant on our community of volunteers, donors and fundraisers to make this change. This year we are proud to have raised 50% of our income through our community, and we aren’t finished yet.

By working together, we can build a different world, for ourselves and for our children, right here on our doorsteps in West Kent.

Join us.

Our world has changed. Families are now bringing babies into the world without a close community at hand. Extended families are often distant and parenthood is dislocated from work and social networks. Social media adds more pressure. Isolation, loneliness and overwhelm are endemic.

Karen Hickson-Smith

Chair of Trustees

Jennie Harvey

Education and Practice Lead

Karen McCully

Clinical, Community and Client Lead

Laura Shtaingos

Operations, Finance and Marketing Lead

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Baby Umbrella (Charity Reg: 1190745) Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25

Zoho Sign Document ID". 4AE4CF1A1-BW53VLDTPXMHW2EYHEXKVZFtu&rDSHZDQCPLTX55XLK) Our impact in numbers 1,115 1,714 423 families supported individual appointments social visits 1,556 2.815 1,098 individuals active subscribers volunteer hours donated In our Facebook community 96% 95% loo/ of our visitors felt of our visitors felt of our visitors would more confident less anxious recommend feedlng their baby our appointments Boby Umbrello Ichtsrity Reg.. lI￿)745)A￿l1Utr1 Report OndAct(￿nts2O24-25

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What we do

Baby Umbrella provides early parenting support services across West Kent. We are passionate about empowering families and communities through evidence based, compassionate support.

We deliver 1-1 and group support in Sevenoaks, Tonbridge, Tunbridge Wells and online 49 weeks a year as well as email, messenger, Facebook and WhatsApp.

We support over 1,000 families a year with breastfeeding, bottle feeding, expressing, introducing solids, and adjusting to parenthood, including parental mental wellbeing and infant sleep. We consider DEIB in everything we do and work with our community to co-create our services for under-served populations. Our strong professional networks ensure families can access the right support for their individual needs.

We offer specialist appointments from highly skilled and experienced Breastfeeding Counsellors and Lactation Consultants and drop-in peer support from our trained Volunteer Peer Supporters. We have a dedicated zoom Listening Service run by Breastfeeding Counsellors with additional counselling skills, for parents who are struggling with emotional wellbeing, and run quarterly journalling groups for mums.

We have a fantastic team of Specialist Practitioners, in-house trained volunteer Peer Supporters, and volunteer Group Hosts who together deliver exceptional support to families.

We curate free trustworthy online resources and webinars for both parents and professionals, covering topics such as feeding, infant sleep and perinatal mental health.

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Vision, Mission and Values

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Our strategic purposes and priorities

Our strategic purposes

  1. Provide free of charge, timely access to skilled support on breastfeeding, infant feeding, infant sleep and mental wellbeing across West Kent; and facilitate social connections.

  2. Improve knowledge and confidence in early parenting among parents, supporters and allied professionals.

  3. Connect the dots between services for parents in the area through signposting, collaboration and team building.

  4. Reach a diverse and inclusive population reflective of the community we serve.

Our priorities to deliver our strategy

Optimising, broadening, deepening and expanding our offering to better meet families’ needs

  1. Diversify our income stream to improve funding stability.

  2. Optimise our current operations to most effectively meet the needs of local families.

  3. Broaden and deepen our support to better meet client needs.

  4. Build links for collaboration and signposting.

  5. Represent and raise local families’ voices; embed diversity in everything we do.

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Our finances 2024-25: Summary

Income and expenditure growth

2024-25 income and expenditure

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Our year in review

Persevering, adapting and turning up consistently for families

Our major challenge of this year has been significant grant funding challenges. There are ongoing pressures on funding across the whole of the charity sector, and we have also had internal capacity challenges. Non-grant income has however seen an excellent 19% growth, and this year we have for the first time raised more than half of our income from our community. We have invested in our fundraising capacity, and the team has never been stronger going into 2026.

We have continued to show up as a consistent, predictable and calm presence for families. Each week, families arrive overwhelmed with feeding, wellbeing and sleep issues, and find a place they can land and find their feet. Support needs are often urgent, and a key part of our service is seeing families quickly without barriers to support. This year we are proud to have seen 88% of postnatal booking requests within 7 days of booking.

2024- 2025 Milestones

A priority for 2024-25 was to build additional flexible capacity. We have now recruited a further experienced practitioner to our team, grown our Zoom support, further embedded safeguarding processes, and made significant enhancements to our volunteer and Peer Supporter onboarding and training processes.

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Our perinatal mental wellbeing support is becoming more well known, and we delivered 23% more Listening Appointments year on year. We also developed our mental wellbeing journalling groups with 4-week courses and a new accessible pricing model.

Building engagement with our community has continued with various family events this year - many of which have served a fundraising purpose; and our Fifth Birthday which was a celebration for our whole community and was attended by over 100 families. We continued our work in Diversity, Equality, Inclusion and Belonging, with ten pilot WhatsApp communities for families with protected characteristics.

In terms of governance, our new team of trustees is now well embedded and we had three additional trustees join including a new Chair, and trustees with Marketing and Fundraising experience. The addition of our Finance and Risk, Safeguarding, and Marketing and Fundraising subcommittees has been instrumental in ensuring that we can balance the need for specialist board engagement with various topics, and strategic board oversight.

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Our services

We’re here throughout the early years of the journey through parenthood. Families can get to know us before their baby arrives and many then book in to see a Specialist Practitioner in the first few weeks. They are always welcome to drop-in to talk to our Peer Supporters and meet other families. Our website contains free to access articles and videos on various parenting topics. Many come back in to talk to us about introducing solid food, family sleep, going back to work and weaning. There’s always a safe space to process the rollercoaster transitions through parenthood in one of our creative groups or 1-1 in our Listening Service.

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Specialist 1-1 appointments for Breastfeeding and Early Parenting Support

Our Breastfeeding Counsellors and Lactation Consultants are available for bookable 1-1 specialist support in all of our in person groups, as well as on Zoom. During this financial year, we have completed 1,366 individual face to face appointments and 316 individual Zoom appointments, all with dedicated and tailored support from our specialist practitioners.

Although most families continue to choose face to face support, online Zoom support is important for convenience, for those who cannot travel after birth, have older children to care for, or feel anxious about coming into our group spaces. We have grown Zoom support by 34% this year.

Families come to us from across West Kent (and sometimes farther afield) for all sorts of urgent and overwhelming reasons.

The majority are first time parents and 98% are breastfeeding (with 28% feeding formula alongside and 4% feeding solids alongside).

30% are referred directly from midwifery, and 24% word of mouth.

35% book within 2 weeks of birth.

We are proud to welcome partners and supporters to all our sessions and 55% of

our attendees do bring someone with them for support (for 86% of them this was their partner and 12% bring their baby’s grandparent).

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Peer Support

The connection and support that parents experience from our weekly Peer Support groups have continued to be a lifeline for so many families. Our families really benefit from meeting other families in the area and accessing our trained Peer Supporters without the need for an appointment. Our in depth Peer Support training enables these volunteers to support parents with questions on normal breastfeeding and life with a baby in addition to mental wellbeing, sleep and making social connections.

“Volunteering with Baby Umbrella enables me to support families in a way that allows more time when needed, in an environment that leaves space for kindness and warmth” (Peer Supporter)

This year we trialled a pilot of small community WhatsApp groups, led by volunteer community builders. Our groups currently support Twin & Multiple parents, Asian parents, Hispanic & Latino parents, Ukrainian parents, Polish parents, parents with Long Term Health Conditions, LGBTQ+ parents, Dual Heritage families, Neurodivergent families and Black parents. This year we have developed and marketed these groups, created a sign up form from our website and worked with our Community Builders to encourage engagement and connection in their groups. A focus for 2025-26 is to work to understand why some groups are more active than others and to trial face to face meet ups to help co-create support that best meets their unique needs.

Alongside the social groups, we also run a public Facebook page , a closed Facebook group , and a WhatsApp group for each of our locations .

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Listening Service

Our Listening Service grew by 23% this year. These 75 minute Zoom appointments support parents who are struggling with their emotional wellbeing. They are run by experienced Breastfeeding Counsellors who have done additional training in advanced listening skills and perinatal trauma. They also receive specialist supervision and training to support them in this work.

Feedback has been really positive from this service with parents saying they have found it to be “an amazing resource”. They describe the importance of speaking to someone impartial from an organisation they trust, who is not personally involved with their care. They reported feeling validated, that the experience helped to alleviate some of the pressure of parenthood and valued the service being free and without a waiting list.

Following last year’s focus groups, work has continued to build understanding of what the service is and who can access it, through social media campaigns, posters in groups and increased awareness building within our practitioner and volunteer teams. We know that word of mouth is vital to the understanding and uptake of this service so in 2025-26 we aim to spread the word more widely amongst health professionals.

Maternal Journal

After last year’s successful taster Maternal Journal groups, we extended this pilot with two four-week groups using a self-selected pay-what-you-can pricing model. We have identified the need for a free taster class before each structured group, to give individuals a chance to ‘try out’ the classes without further commitment.

These sessions create safe spaces for mothers to explore their journey to parenthood using creative journaling prompts, mindfulness and creating connections in small groups run by skilled practitioners. They have received excellent feedback from attendees, in particular reducing loneliness and isolation and increasing feelings of connectedness to the community. Mothers reported it being a mindful and healing way to process tough and taboo emotions, were grateful for a group that was for them but that welcomed their baby and felt that on completion of the group they felt calmer and more engaged as parents.

Mental Health continues to be a taboo subject in the perinatal period, with a large number of parents suffering in silence. By offering light touch support through various channels and activities, we are finding that different people can make initial contact in different ways, building confidence to access other forms of support both within Baby Umbrella and via our targeted external signposting.

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Online Resources

We have continued to evolve our Education offer this year, hosting a workshop with spoken word artist, Desree, welcoming specialist Carol Smyth for a talk on Reflux and unsettled babies and another visit from Lyndsey Hookway on sleep and older babies.

These talks join our existing ones and are available on our website to watch for free at babyumbrella.org.uk/education.

Resources on sleep continue to be the most consistently accessed talks on our website. We have now agreed a 5-year plan with speaker Lyndsey Hookway to enable these to remain available for free on our website during this time.

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Our Impact

Our impact continues to be both wide reaching and significant. We estimate that of the 3,275 babies born in Sevenoaks, Tonbridge and Tunbridge Wells districts in 2024-25, we see approximately one third of them coming through our service for support.

We request feedback from all those we support by email after their visit. This financial year we received feedback from 92 of our appointments, representing 8.5% of the individual families we saw. We are always looking at ways to improve upon this response rate and bring feedback methods into our groups. We receive consistently strong feedback and very high recommendation rates from those who review our service.

Through our appointments, we aim to support parental and feeding confidence, emotional wellbeing and also enable parents to socialise and receive peer support within our face to face groups. Our feedback shows unambiguously that we are meeting these aims. While all of our services meet these aims very well, some of them are particularly effective in specific areas. For example 1-1 Specialist and Listening support is most effective at reducing anxiety and boosting confidence, while Peer Support particularly improves mood and reduces loneliness.

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We also specifically monitor our impact on parent-infant relationships and infant mental health. Infants need secure, responsive relationships to thrive, ideally from their parents. The presence of a reliable, safe, supportive community around new families can transform their lives and build a foundation for future mental wellbeing.

It is clear that our appointments drive improvements in parents’ relationships with their babies, significantly reduce parenting stress, and help parents feel they can access trustworthy support.

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Our team

Board of trustees

In 2024-25 we welcomed a new Chair to our Trustee Board and the final founding members of the Board stepped down. We have had a lot of change on our board in a short period of time, but we have been very lucky with the calibre of applicants. In addition to impressive professional skills, all of our board have lived experience as mothers, and many are ex-beneficiaries of Baby Umbrella. We have successfully diversified the board, with more individuals who are experienced parents, though most still have primary aged children.

Our board sub-committees enable the board to support the management team with their individual areas of expertise. These include: Safeguarding, Fundraising & Marketing and the Finance and Risk Committee.

Management and Service Support team

Our management team have continued to cement their roles and in 2024-25 we have made further progress towards paying them in line with market rates and reducing their pro-bono support for the charity to promote equity and sustainability. Our four specialist part time contractors have grown to five and support the charity with book-keeping, operations, HR, marketing, bid-writing, and events. We work flexibly to ensure that all of our team can manage their workload around their families and other roles.

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Practitioners

Having said goodbye to two members of our team in 2024 and 2025, we began recruitment for a new specialist and we were delighted by the calibre of applications. We ask for a high level of qualification and training from our practitioners and we also look for individuals working to continually improve and learn through their practice. We provide ongoing support, development and training, as well as regular group and 1:1 supervision, to all of our practitioners to ensure their knowledge and skills are up to date. We currently have 8 practitioners in our core team.

Volunteer Peer Supporters

Fifteen trained Baby Umbrella Breastfeeding Peer Supporters volunteered for us during the financial year. These are volunteers who have breastfed their own babies and completed 14 weeks of training in Breastfeeding Peer Support, as well as additional training in perinatal mental health and infant sleep. Together, they volunteered 546 hours for us, offering breastfeeding support and information to families at our peer support groups.

Prompted by a need to offer more flexible, modular training

for families who are often returning to work sooner, we have this year revamped our Peer Support training programme. Our newly launched course blends a hybrid of online and offline training and is modular to increase flexibility, increase accessibility and mean that trainees can be recruited throughout the year. It consists of four face to face modules, six core online modules, observations and assessment, covering an increased breadth with additional listening skills and knowledge of bottle feeding, sleep and perinatal wellbeing, as well as breastfeeding.

The trainees are supported by our Education and Practice Lead throughout their training and receive feedback on all homework completed. We have had 12 new trainees begin training this year (all of whom have begun as Volunteer Hosts) and we look forward to evaluating their progress and the impact of the new course as they move through the programme.

Volunteer Hosts

Our fantastic and dedicated Volunteer Hosts continue to be at the heart of our in-person groups and this year we have been working to acknowledge their time and commitment and improve our onboarding processes. We developed and printed volunteering ‘Welcome’ cards for those joining our volunteering team and have launched an onboarding call for each new volunteer.

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These volunteers provide a crucial warm welcome when parents walk through the door, sometimes just hours or days after giving birth and at a time which can often feel very daunting and vulnerable. They ensure everyone is looked after and offered a hot drink and slice of cake, as well as completing all our paperwork and making sure sessions run smoothly. These generous individuals have contributed 552 hours of their time this financial year.

Behind the scenes, we also must mention our fantastic graphic designer - thank you Amanda!

Service support

Supervision and Safeguarding

We are lucky to have a fantastic team around us, all of whom have lived experience of the issues we support families with, and all of who are totally passionate about making a difference in their experience in the first years of parenthood. However, working with new families in distress can at times be difficult. A key part of ensuring we keep our team and beneficiaries safe, is the support we provide them in the form of clinical supervision and safeguarding processes.

We provide clinical supervision in the form of quarterly practitioner supervision groups, quarterly peer supporter and volunteer supervision groups, and on demand individual supervision 1-1s. All of our frontline practitioners, peer supporters and volunteers must access a minimum of supervision every year. Supervision sessions aim to provide a space for reflection and supportive team-building, so that worries are not carried over into personal lives.

Our safeguarding processes are inextricably linked to our supervision function. Last year, we were focused on encouraging the team to raise all low level concerns within our note-taking system about any families who might need extra support. Our lead supervisor reaches out to any of our practitioners or volunteers who have raised these to check in on supervision needs. This year, we have focused on developing clear and effective processes for the small number of concerns which feel more urgent or worrying, for example concerning suspected domestic abuse or high levels of mental health distress. We have been working closely with our Safeguarding Board Subcommittee and specialist external partners, as well as Kent Children’s Services (Front Door) to support families effectively.

Internal Education and Training

Internal training programmes: We continue to provide our practitioners with training to support their work in breastfeeding, infant sleep and perinatal wellbeing. This year we have provided our new practitioner with training in sleep and mental wellbeing and one of our

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practitioners has completed an additional 5 module course in birth debrief and perinatal trauma by Mia Scotland.

We have continued to work with our safeguarding subcommittee to improve processes and confidence amongst our team. This year we have brought in external knowledge and skills working with experts in the referral and safeguarding processes to review our policies and increase our management team’s safeguarding training to level 5. In 2025-26 we aim to develop our own training video to increase the knowledge and confidence of raising concerns for everyone in our organisation.

Our support and supervision function is beginning to be noticed by other organisations and we have shared good practice in some of our networking. Our Education and Practice Lead has now defined the supervision function within safeguarding so that anyone raising a concern gets direct contact and supervision if required after every contact.

DEIB

Our Diversity, Equality, Inclusion and Belonging (DEIB) workstream has continued with improvements to our volunteer onboarding in place and our new hybrid Peer Supporter course. This year we piloted some small community WhatsApp groups which we hope to develop in 2025-26.

We continue to network and learn from other organisations how we can improve access to all our services.

Systems development

November 2024 saw the initial implementation of our new CRM system (Zoho), comprising all support booking actions and service delivery practitioner notes. This has reduced our risk of systems failure and increased our ability to manage, analyse and use our data to improve our service. Throughout the year, we have continued to add additional processes and data feeds, with the aim to have all of our beneficiary and donor related data reflected accurately within the system. During the year we migrated our marketing consents, monthly newsletter, social media scheduling, data analytics, and began testing WhatsApp booking support, all via the Zoho system.

We are developing a much better understanding of our beneficiaries and donors and aim to serve them with more individualised and timely information to better meet their needs. We are excited about the opportunities it will bring, particularly in terms of identifying beneficiary behaviours that suggest urgent support is required (e.g. multiple cancellations, or indications of high levels of distress) and building automated processes to bring these to our attention such that we can prioritise support and information delivery.

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Fundraising

Our major challenge of this year has been significant grant funding challenges, and thankfully we have had an excellent year in non-grant fundraising which has filled some of this gap.

Much of our struggles with grants have been due to ongoing pressures on funding across the whole of the charity sector, with many grant rounds closing early or changing eligibility criteria in the face of hundreds of applications. Last year we agreed to invest in our grants capability and March saw the addition of a new position to support grant applications. Unfortunately this fledgling team has had some challenges with illness and we had to readvertise the position in August. These changes have impacted on our ability at various times throughout the year to fill our application pipeline. However, we now have a strong team in place and we are very much hoping this will bring more success in grants for 2025-26.

Our non-grant income line has been growing steadily and this year with growth of 19% year on year accounted for over 59% of our income. It has long been an ambition to fund at least 50% of our needs from within our community. We knew it would take time to build awareness in our community, and to develop events and fundraisers that would work well for us. 5 years in, we feel there is still plenty of scope for growth in many areas of non-grant income and for the first time we will be adding a team member specifically to focus on non-grant income opportunities in 2025-26.

Our beneficiaries are in a lifestage that places unique restrictions on their disposable income and their free time, however our service makes an enduring difference to those who come through our doors. Although many are unable to pay for support when they desperately need it, they often do return to support us further down the line when they have more disposable income and time to give. For the first time, our CRM is now able to give us a full

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picture of the interactions of each of our families and is enabling us to deepen relationships over time and build a support network across our community.

We wish to thank all of our supporters this year for their generous contributions. If you feel you can help us meet this fundraising challenge in whatever way, large or small, we would love to hear from you. Please get in touch at info@babyumbrella.org.uk.

Grants

A large source of our income is from charitable trusts and foundations and we have been successful in gaining the support of various trusts over the past year.

We would like to extend our thanks and appreciation to the following trusts, foundations and local councils that have generously supported us this year:

The Philip and Connie Phillips Foundation

Sevenoaks Town Council Edenbridge Parish Council Kent Community Asda Foundation Kings Foundation: Hurst-Brown Hill Family Fund

Kent County Council

Sevenoaks Town Council Dunton Green Parish Council Hildenborough Parish Council Arnold Clark Wadhurst Parish Council Webmart

Kent Community Foundation: Glenn & The Royal Tunbridge Phyllida Earle Family Fund Wells Round Table Charitable Trust

Sevenoaks District Council

Another Way Women's Foundation Chapman Charitable trust Tonbridge Round Table Tunbridge Wells Poetry Festival

The Albert Hunt Trust Souter Charitable Trust Nisa Borough Green

Skinners Charity Foundation

Donations

The landscape for seeking individual donations has continued to be difficult, with families struggling to make ends meet at a time when they are often working reduced hours to care for their young family. Many families say to us they could never have afforded support like ours if they had had to pay and we are committed to providing services that are free for anyone to access no matter their circumstances.

We are very grateful to those families who feel they can give back to us and aim to make it as easy as possible to do so. We have contactless donations at all our face to face services

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and donations can also be made at booking, in cash at our face to face services, via QR code, or online.

We would particularly like to thank Guy Butler Ltd and High Weald Marketing for their kind donations and Christ Church Tunbridge Wells who gave us a donation in kind worth £2,173 of rent this year.

Fundraising events

We run various fundraising events throughout the year and these often serve a dual purpose as a chance for families to get together or try something new while supporting us at the same time.

We had 10 brilliant runners sign up to run our third London Landmarks Half Marathon . Together they raised a fantastic total of £7,747. Go Team!

We took part in our second year of the Big Give Women and Girls Matched Crowdfunder challenge, successfully raising over £3,000 in individual donations and gift aid, matched with a further £2,500 by the Big Give.

We ran a final Christmas mini-photoshoot collaboration with Sarah Hart Photography , and we brought new photography partners, Emily Brown Photography and Rose Studios . Together these amazing local businesses have raised £3,400 for Baby Umbrella. Thank you!

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Zoho Sign Document ID". 4AE4CF1A1.BVi53VLOTPXMHW2EYHEXKVZFFU8TDSHZDOCPLTX55XUO Our fifth birthday celebration brought together over 100 of the families we have supported over the last five year5 in a Family Summer Party

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We entered the Tonbridge Dragon Boat Race for the first time, bringing together a boat of 16 supporters who raised £2,200! The event was also a great way to get our brand out in the wider community and build networks among local charities and corporates.

Our custom made Christmas Handprint Decorations and Father’s Day Mugs in collaboration with Eat Pray Print were again hugely successful this year, raising the charity £4,100. Thank you Joy!

Karen was face painting at four separate local community fairs, raising over £1,500 from donations. Thank you Karen!

Thank you to Tunbridge Wells Girls Grammar School , The Den Sevenoaks, Gymboree Sevenoaks, BoobieMilk, The Mummy Hub Tunbridge Wells, and Olivia Newstead Pilates who all ran community fundraisers for us.

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Looking forward to 2025-26

During our coming sixth year (2025-26) we are fully focused on community building and income generation.

2025-26 Strategic Priorities

1. Diversify income stream to improve funding stability

With a still unpredictable and very competitive funding environment, our highest priority has to remain fundraising. We will be continuing to apply for grants, large and small. An investment in data and systems will enable us to be smarter at individual donor activation. We will be bringing extra resource into the team to focus on building more proprietary fundraising events, local commercial partnerships and peer-to-peer fundraising through challenges and events.

2. Optimise current operations to most effectively meet the needs of families

We will continue to optimise our website and communications, to improve the understanding of the services we provide and ensure the experience and navigation is user friendly for all new and existing beneficiaries. Improvements to our data storage and processing will enable us to be smarter about how we provide information to various beneficiaries at various stages of their journey with us.

3. Broaden and deepen support to better meet client needs

We will be continuing to develop our safeguarding monitoring system to ensure we are doing all that we can for the most vulnerable families in our service. We are committed to the ongoing growth of our peer support program such that we can support families with smaller niggling problems who we know hesitate to take our specialists’ time away from tiny babies. We will continue to test group support formats such as Maternal Journal to support perinatal mental health, and drive awareness and understanding of our Listening Service. In parent education, we will continue to engage leading speakers to bring relevant topics to our local parents and build out the self service resources available on our website.

4. Build links for collaboration and signposting

Relationship building with local maternity services and health visiting will continue to be important. Continuing our strong links with allied services across West Kent enables us to signpost our beneficiaries effectively, understanding what free, affordable and private

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sector options exist for parents in areas such as paediatrics, osteopathy, tongue tie division, speech and language therapy, mental health support, physical rehabilitation after birth and much more!

5. Represent and raise local families’ voices; embed diversity in everything we do

We are looking forward to developing our WhatsApp groups by delivering some face to face meetups and working with our community facilitators to co-create support for these communities.

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Financial Results

Summary

During our fifth year of operation the charity raised £115,711 and spent £142,122. After allowing for the allocation of the appropriate expenditure in the year against restricted funds, there was a surplus of £45,821 of reserves; of which £45,409 was available as free reserves (excluding fixed assets).

Unrestricted funds

The charity raised £70,730 of general or unrestricted income. Expenditure of £81,050 was set against this, leaving a deficit of £10,320.

Restricted funds

We raised £44,982 of restricted income and the associated expenditure was £61,072, leaving a deficit of £16,090.

Sources of income

£46,682 was received from grants and trusts, £43,887 from individual donors and £24,130 from fundraising events.

Expenditure

Our main expenditure is on practitioner fees to run our client-facing charitable activities and operational support for our services. We also incur costs for venue rental; training, supervising and onboarding our team; equipment and refreshments; and technology and governance/ legal costs.

Reserves Policy

The Board of Trustees has agreed a reserves policy whereby the unrestricted funds not committed or invested in tangible fixed assets (the ‘free reserves’) held by the charity should provide sufficient funds to cover at least 4 months of full-scale operation. We anticipate that 4 months will give the board adequate time to come together and appeal for additional funding from both Trusts and Individual Donors.

At 31 August 2025 four months of full-scale operation equates to £44,272, leaving a surplus of £1,137 from our total free reserves of £45,409. As such, we have just onboarded new resources to both our grants and non-grants fundraising team to improve our ability to raise funds. We also have well considered contingency plans to curtail our services if needed to preserve our reserves.

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Investment Policy

Our funds are currently held in a current account and a savings account at HSBC.

Fundraising Policy

We aim for best practice in fundraising to ensure our donors feel safe, valued and well supported, taking care that our fundraising activities are within the WHO Code for the Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes as well as adhering to the Fundraising Regulator and other professional fundraising bodies.

We never buy or sell people’s personal information and we work hard to respect people’s wishes about how they want us to communicate with them. We have embedded the General Data Protection Regulation into the way we work.

We do not use cold calling or cold mailing to raise funds and do not employ external companies to fundraise on our behalf, with the exception of two individual grant writers. We are registered with the Fundraising Regulator and we have received no complaints about fundraising in 2024-25.

Donors, funders and fundraisers

The Trustees would like to thank all trusts, organisations and individuals who generously supported the work of Baby Umbrella. With your support we’ve been able to make a huge difference to the lives of families who come to us at one of the most vulnerable times of their lives.

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Legal and Administrative Information

The Trustees present their annual report for Baby Umbrella CIO for the year ended 31 August 2025.

The financial statements comply with the Charities Act 2011 and Accounting and Reporting by Charities: Statement of Recommended Practice applicable to charities preparing their accounts in accordance with the Financial Report Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102) issued October 2019 (effective 1 January 2019).

Status

Baby Umbrella is a registered charity (CIO), charity number 1190745, registered in England and Wales.

Trustee Board

The members of the Board during the year and up to the date of approval of this report:

Bronwen Halfpenny-Ray term ended 26/10/2024 Alison Day term ended 26/10/2024 Alissa Brumby term ended 26/10/2024 Chloe Gastrell term ended 26/10/2024 Nicola Kirkwood term ended 27/04/2025 Ema Saunders term ended 27/04/2025 Catherine Hardwick Jaime Phipps Rebecca O'Dwyer Marissa Conway Katherine Barnes appointed 18/10/2024 term ended 13/04/2026 Amy Tippen-Smith appointed 18/10/2024 Karen Hickson-Smith appointed 15/04/2025 Amy Semple appointed 23/03/2026

Management Committee

The members of the Management Committee during the year were: Jennifer Harvey; Karen McCully; Laura Shtaingos

Principal Office: 5 Woodside Road, Tunbridge Wells, Kent, TN4 8QA, United Kingdom

Independent Examiner: Tonbridge Accountants Ltd, 27 Old Gloucester Street, London, WC1N 3AX

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Objectives

The objectives of the CIO are:

The advancement of health for the public interest by providing easily accessible skilled support for postnatal physical and mental health in and around West Kent.

1) By providing open access community groups with skilled, non-judgemental professionals (including Lactation Consultants and Breastfeeding Counsellors) and trained volunteers in order to support breastfeeding and parenting, reduce postnatal social isolation, and improve postnatal mental health;

2) By providing education, training and volunteering opportunities, building expertise within the sector and supporting parents to increase confidence and return to work;

3) By working in partnership with NHS, Local Authority, Third Sector and Private Sector services to ensure continuity of parent-centred responsive care;

4) By increasing accessibility and inclusivity of support services to address inequality.

Public Benefit

We have referred to the guidance contained in the Charity Commission’s general guidance on public benefit when reviewing our aims and objectives and in planning future activities. In particular, the Trustees have considered how planned activities will contribute to the aims and objectives they have set. Our activities are set out in more detail elsewhere in this report but in summary, we provide breastfeeding and early parenting support in three physical locations as well as online and through social media and messages every week, and have provided group social support in person and online to enable parents to meet. We also provide a perinatal Listening Service, facilitated journaling groups, and regular online educational parenting talks. These are in the public interest and benefit parents and new parents in particular.

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Governance and Management

Board of Trustees

Members of the Trustee Board who served during the year and up to the date of this report, are set out on the previous page.

The Trustee Board is responsible and accountable for Baby Umbrella’s policies and activities to the Charity Commission, to Funders and beneficiaries, and for compliance with charity law. It is responsible for the financial and strategic affairs of the charity, for the Annual Budget and the Annual Report and Accounts.

Diversity

We are committed to ensuring our services are accessible to, and accessed by, all parents in need of them. We continue to develop our Diversity, Equality, Inclusion and Belonging project which aims to build a strategy and activities to ensure our services are accessible to all and that all voices can be heard.

Trustee Recruitment

Appointment to the board of Trustees continues to be via an open and formal recruitment process. Every trustee must be appointed for a term of between two and five years by a resolution passed at a properly convened meeting of the charity trustees.

Trustee Induction and Training

An induction programme is in place for new Trustees. Any training needs may be identified for both new and established Trustees in collaboration with the Chair of Trustees.

Trustee Meetings

The Trustees meet as a full Board 4 times a year. The Trustees also hold an Annual Strategy Away Day which includes the Management Committee.

Management Committee

The Management Committee is responsible for the day-to-day delivery of the activities and services of Baby Umbrella. It meets formally twelve times a year as well as working collaboratively on a day-to-day basis. The Management Committee is accountable to the Board of Trustees and presents regular reports against the charity’s agreed strategic aims and plan.

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Principal Risks

The Trustees reviewed the risks to which the charity could be exposed and are satisfied that the charity has taken all reasonable steps to minimise risk and that it has policies and procedures in place to manage risk effectively in all areas of the charity’s work. The key risks were identified as follows:

Financial Solvency/ Fundraising

Steps to mitigate:

Inadequate safeguarding

Steps to mitigate:

Loss of key staff & Staff illness/ burnout

Steps to mitigate:

IT - systems fail to meet operational requirements

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Statement of Responsibilities of the Trustees of Baby Umbrella

The Trustees are required by charity law to prepare financial statements for each year which give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the charity and of the surplus or deficit of the charity for that year. In preparing these financial statements, the Trustees are required to:-

(a) Select suitable accounting policies and then apply them consistently;

(b) Make judgements and estimates that are reasonable and prudent;

(c) Prepare the financial statements on a on going concern basis unless it is inappropriate to presume that the Charity will continue in operation;

financial position of the charity and to ensure that the financial statements comply with the Charities Act.

The Trustees are also responsible for safeguarding the assets of the charity and hence for taking reasonable steps for the prevention and detection of fraud and other irregularities.

The Trustees confirm they have referred to the guidance contained in the Charity Commission's general guidance on the public benefit when reviewing the charity's aims and objectives and in planning future activities.

(d) State whether the policies adopted are in accordance with the Charities Act 2011 and with applicable accounting standards and Statements of Recommended

Practice, subject to any material departure disclosed and explained in the financial statements;

Approved by the Board of Trustees on 23rd April 2026 and signed on its behalf by

Karen Hickson-Smith (Chair of Trustees)

(e) Observe the methods and principles of the Charities SORP.

The Trustees are responsible for keeping proper accounting records which disclose with reasonable accuracy at any time the

Rebecca O’Dwyer (Treasurer Trustee)

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Independent Examiner’s Report to the Trustees of Baby Umbrella

I report to the charity trustees on my examination of the accounts of Baby Umbrella for the year ended 31 August 2025.

Responsibilities and basis of report

As the charity's trustees, you are responsible for the preparation of the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 (“the Act”).

I report in respect of my examination of the Charity’s accounts carried out under section 145 of the 2011 Act and in carrying out my examination, I have followed all the applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5)(b) of the Act.

Independent Examiners Statement

I have completed my examination. I confirm that no material matters have come to my attention in connection with the examination which gives me cause to believe that in, any material respect:

I have no concerns and have come across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in this report in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.

01 May 2026

Laughton Ross

Tonbridge Accountants Limited

27 Old Gloucester Street, London, WC1N 3AX

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Statement of Financial Activities

For the period ended 31 August 2025

Notes
Income
Donations and legacies
3
Investments
Other trading activities
Total
Expenditure
Raising funds
Trading activities
Charitable activities
5
Total
Net income/ (expenditure)
and net movement in funds
Reconciliation of funds:
Total funds brought forward
Total funds carried forward		 2024-25
2024-25
2024-25
2023-24
Unrestricted Restricted
Total
Total
£
£
£
£
45,587
44,982
90,568
113,073
1,014
-
1,014
345
24,130
-
24,130
18,191
70,730
44,982
115,711
131,609
10,766
1,877
12,642
9,244
9,488
-
9,488
6,875
60,797
59,195
119,991
97,510
81,050
61,072
142,122
113,629
(10,320)
(16,090)
(26,410)
17,980
56,141
20,684
76,825
58,845
45,821
4,593
50,415
76,825

The statement of financial activities includes all gains and losses recognised in the year. All income and expenditure derive from continuing activities.

Figures are stated in pounds sterling and rounded to the nearest £1. Accordingly, totals may not agree exactly with the sum of the individual items shown.

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Balance Sheet

As at 31 August 2025

Notes
Fixed Assets
Tangible assets
7
Intangible assets
8
Total fixed assets
Current assets
Debtors - accounts receivable
Debtors - prepayments
Cash at bank and in hand
Total current assets
Creditors: amounts falling due
within one year
9
Net current assets
Total assets less current
liabilities
Total net assets
Funds of the Charity
Restricted income funds
Unrestricted funds
Total funds		 2024-25
2023-24
£
£
244
557
168
200
412
757
3,224
18,241
2,497
1,321
53,496
67,013
59,217
86,574
9,215
10,506
50,003
76,068
50,415
76,825
50,415
76,825
4,593
20,684
45,821
56,141
50,415
76,825

The notes on pages 40 to 47 form part of these accounts.

Approved by the Trustees on 23rd April 2026 and signed on their behalf by:

Karen Hickson-Smith Rebecca O’Dwyer (Chair of Trustees) (Treasurer Trustee)

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Notes to the accounts

1. Accounting policies

The principal accounting policies adopted in the preparation of the accounts are as follows:

Basis of preparation and assessment of going concern

The accounts have been prepared under the historical cost convention with items recognised at cost or transaction value unless otherwise stated in the relevant note to these accounts. The financial statements have been prepared in accordance with the second edition of the Charities Statement of Recommended Practice issued in October 2019, the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102) and the Charities Act 2011.

The trustees consider that there are no material uncertainties about the charity’s ability to continue as a going concern.

The trust constitutes a public benefit entity as defined by FRS 102.

Funds

Unrestricted income funds comprise those funds which the trustees are free to use for any purpose in furtherance of the charitable objects. Unrestricted funds include designated funds where the trustees, at their discretion, have created a fund for a specific purpose.

Restricted funds are funds which are to be used in accordance with specific restrictions imposed by the donor or trust deed.

Further details of each fund are disclosed in note 10.

Income recognition

All income is recognised once the charity has entitlement to the income, it is probable that the income will be received, and the amount of income receivable can be measured reliably.

Donations are recognised when the charity has been notified in writing of both the amount and settlement date. In the event that a donation is subject to conditions that require a level of performance before the charity is entitled to the funds, the income is deferred and not recognised until either those conditions are fully met, or the fulfilment of those conditions is wholly within the control of the charity and it is probable that those conditions will be fulfilled in the reporting period.

Other trading activities comprise income from non-primary purpose activities to raise funds for the charity.

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Expenditure recognition

Liabilities are recognised as expenditure as soon as there is a legal or constructive obligation committing the charity to that expenditure, it is probable that settlement will be required and the amount of the obligation can be measured reliably. All expenditure is accounted for on an accruals basis. All expenses including support costs and governance costs are allocated or apportioned to the applicable expenditure headings.

Support costs have been allocated between governance costs and other support costs. Governance costs comprise all costs involving the public accountability of the charity and its compliance with regulation and good practice. These costs include costs related to the independent examination and legal fees together with an apportionment of overhead and support costs.

Cost of raising funds

The cost of raising funds comprises costs incurred in generating grant funding and online and offline fundraising activities to generate individual donations.

Expenditure on charitable activities

Expenditure on charitable activities include direct costs of provision of breastfeeding and early parenting support; governance costs and support costs.

Tangible fixed assets and depreciation

Tangible assets compromise computers used in the charity and are depreciated over 3 years, being their expected useful life.

Intangible fixed assets and amortisation

Intangible fixed assets comprise the cost of trademarking the name of the charity and is amortised over 10 years, being its expected useful life.

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2. Related parties and Trustees’ expenses

The trustees give their time and expertise freely, and without any remuneration; benefit in cash or in kind; and the trustees do not claim expenses for personal costs incurred for the charity.

Related parties: Key management personnel

Key management personnel remuneration (for both management and clinical services) is detailed as follows:

Relationship to charity Total annual remuneration Total annual remuneration
2024-25 2023-24
£ £
Management team 70,020 50,556

3. Income

The charity offers free breastfeeding and early parenting support as its primary activities. The free provision is supported by voluntary donations from individuals that use the service; trading activities from events and fundraisers and charitable grants from government and other charities.

Notes
Donations and gifts
Gift aid
General grants provided by
government/ other charities
4
Total		 2024-25
2024-25
2024-25
2023-24
Unrestricted
Restricted
Total
Total
£
£
£
£
40,057
-
40,057
35,473
3,830
-
3,830
3,383
1,700
44,982
46,682
74,217
45,587
44,982
90,568
113,073

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4. Government grants

4. Government grants
2024-25
funds
Grant Description granted
Kent County Council Peer and Specialist Support, formation of DEIB £14,767
whatsapp groups, Maternal Journal, Listening
Service
Tonbridge & Malling Core activities (Tonbridge) £2,259
Borough Council
Sevenoaks District Council Volunteer Training and Maternal Journal £3,004
(Sevenoaks)
Sevenoaks Town Council Core activities (Sevenoaks) £1,500
Tonbridge & Malling Maternal Journal and Volunteer Training £1,430
Borough Council
Tunbridge Wells Borough Peer Supporter and Volunteer Training £1,290
Council (Tunbridge Wells)
Edenbridge Parish Council Core services (Unrestricted) £400
Sevenoaks Town Council Peer Supporter and Volunteer Training £400
(Sevenoaks)
Dunton Green Parish Core services (Unrestricted) £300
Council
Hildenborough Parish Core services (Unrestricted) £200
Council
Wadhurst Parish Council Core services (Unrestricted) £100
Grant Description 2023-24
funds
granted
Kent County Council Peer Support, Maternal Journal, Listening service £5,396
Tonbridge & Malling Core activities (Tonbridge), Training & Maternal £3,689
Borough Council Journal
Kent County Council Antenatal support pilot £3,228
Sevenoaks Town Council Core activities (Sevenoaks) £2,600
Tunbridge Wells Borough Peer Supporter and Volunteer Training £1,290
Council

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Sevenoaks Town Council Core activities (Sevenoaks) £500
Otford Parish Council Core services (Unrestricted) £480
Dunton Green Parish Council Core services (Unrestricted) £300
Westerham Parish Council Core services (Unrestricted) £200
Marden Parish Council Core services (Unrestricted) £200
Wrotham Parish Council Core services (Unrestricted) £200
Brasted Parish Council Core services (Unrestricted) £200
Horsmonden Parish Council Core services (Unrestricted) £100
Eynsford Parish Council Core services (Unrestricted) £100

5. Charitable activities – costs

The charity undertakes its charitable activities through use of Lactation Consultants, Breastfeeding Counsellors, qualified volunteer Peer Supporters and volunteers.

2024-25 2023-24
Notes Total Total
£ £
Direct costs - practitioners 43,493 40,711
Charity support administration 33,407 22,938
Project administration 14,725 12,377
Direct costs - rent 10,720 10,336
Governance, IT and marketing costs 6 7,998 5,607
Supervision, Training and Volunteers 7,043 3,606
Direct costs - refreshments and equipment 2,607 1,935
119,991 97,510

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6. Governance and support costs

Governance and support costs are allocated across restricted and unrestricted funds on a usage basis. No general apportionment is made across the two funds.

IT costs
Advertising & Marketing
Bank charges
Insurance
Travel, postage and expenses
Depreciation
Legal and professional fees
Accountancy and independent examiner
Total		 2024-25 2023-24
Total
Total
£
£
2,689
1,998
1,456
1,296
804
790
822
459
763
231
345
313
341
339
780
180
7,998
5,607

7. Tangible assets

Cost
At beginning of the year
Additions
At end of the year
Depreciation
At beginning of the year
Depreciation
At end of year
Net book value at the beginning of the year
Net book value at the end of the year		 Fixtures, fittings
and equipment
Fixtures, fittings
and equipment
2024-25
2023-24
£
£
1,088
600
-
488
1,088
1,088
531
250
313
281
844
531
557
350
244
557

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8. Intangible fixed assets

8. Intangible fixed assets
Cost
At beginning of the year
Additions
At end of the year
Amortisation
At beginning of the year
Amortisation
At end of year
Net book value at the beginning of the year
Net book value at the end of the year		 Patents and
trademarks
Patents and
trademarks
2024-25
2023-24
£
£
320
320
-
-
320
320
120
88
32
32
152
120
200
232
168
200

9. Creditors

Trade creditors
Accruals
Creditors: due within one year		 2024-25
2023-24
£
£
8,975
10,326
240
180
9,215
10,506

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10. Analysis of funds

10.1. Analysis of funds held in Current Reporting Period (2024-25)

Fund Fund
balances balances
brought Gains and carried
forward Income Expenditure Transfers losses forward
Fund Type* Purpose and Restrictions £ £ £ £ £ £
Core services R Core services of breastfeeding support, £16,866 28,309 45,150 26 - 52
delivered face to face and online in
Sevenoaks, Tonbridge and Tunbridge
Wells
Mental Wellbeing R Improving our ability to support £1,071 14,570 11,983 883 - 4,541
perinatal mental wellbeing
Volunteer training R Recruiting and developing our - 2,102 3,939 1,837 - -
and onboarding volunteers
Other R Training, mixed grants 2,746 - - (2,746) - -
General funds U General unrestricted funds 53,037 70,730 70,085 (9,537) - 44,144
Designated funds U Specific priority project work** 3,105 - 10,964 9,537 - 1,678
Total Funds as per balance sheet 76,825 115,711 142,122 - - 50,415

** Priority project spend this year has focused on: Peer Supporter Training Development, Volunteer onboarding improvements, Developing Communities for families with Protected Characteristics, Safeguarding process improvements and CRM/ Systems development

Baby Umbrella (Charity Reg: 1190745) Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25

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10.2. Analysis of funds held in Previous Reporting Period (2023-24)
Fund
Fund balances balances
brought Gains and carried
forward Income Expenditure Transfers losses forward
Fund Type* Purpose and Restrictions £ £ £ £ £ £
Core services R Core services of breastfeeding support, 6,083 34,165 23,382 - - 16,866
delivered face to face and online in
Sevenoaks, Tonbridge and Tunbridge
Wells
Mental Wellbeing R Improving our ability to support 3,428 4,317 6,674 - - 1,071
perinatal mental wellbeing
Other R Training, mixed grants 395 6,271 3,920 - - 2,746
General funds U General unrestricted funds 41,633 66,722 50,318 (5,000) - 53,037
Designated funds U Specific priority project work** 7,306 - 9,201 5,000 - 3,105
Total Funds as per balance sheet 58,845 111,475 93,495 - - 76,825

** Priority project spend in 2023-24 focused on: Trustee recruitment, DEIB workstream, CRM/ Systems development, improving Peer Supporter and Volunteer onboarding, internal education, fundraising strategy and website development.

Baby Umbrella (Charity Reg: 1190745) Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25

51

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www.babyumbrella.org.uk

Baby Umbrella 5 Woodside Road Tunbridge Wells TN4 8QA

Baby Umbrella Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25 covers the period 1st September 2024 to 31 August 2025.

Baby Umbrella is a registered charity 1190745. The name “Baby Umbrella” is a registered trade mark. Copyright © Baby Umbrella 2026.

Baby Umbrella (Charity Reg: 1190745) Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25 52