Trustees’ Annual Report for the period from 17 May 2020 to 31 December 2021
Charity name: Children and War (UK) Charity registration number: 1194478
Objectives and Activities
The objectives of this Charity are:
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advance education in ameliorating the adverse psychological effects in children and their families and carers who have been exposed to traumatic events such as wars and disasters including (but without limitation) through the provision of training and the development of evidence-based interventions that may help such children and their families and carers; and
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promote research for the public benefit concerning the short and long term effects and consequences of war, warlike situations and disasters on children and their families and to publicly disseminate the useful results of such research, including (but not limited to) by working with and supporting such of the activities of the Children and War Foundation (Stiftelsen Barn og Krig) incorporated in Norway with Company’s Register Number 882 577 252) as are exclusively charitable according to the laws of England and Wales, and by such other charitable means as the charity trustees think fit.
Achievements and Performance
Our main activities for public benefit in our first 8 months as a Charity have been to hold 3 training events to adults working with children and young people who have suffered psychological trauma either in their own countries or as refugees. These trainings were conducted by Zoom (not in-person because of the Covid-19 pandemic restrictions), so people from a number of countries were able to participate. These participants aimed to cascade training in their own organisations and to run groups for children and young people to enable them to manage their psychological wellbeing.
In order to improve the knowledge base and thus the training materials, we have established a Research Committee that has begun addressing the issues related to fostering relevant research.
In order to disseminate information, we continued to have a page on the CAWF website publicising our work and contact details and also posted a holding page on the CAW- UK website with our contact details. We worked toward establishing our own website and achieved this in 2022.
The Trustees have had regard to the guidance issued by the Charity Commission on public benefit and are aware of the need to further its explicit objectives through focussing on our main activities.
We are currently developing our formal policy on Grant making. In 2021, we agreed on principles for making grants available to enable individuals/organisations to attend relevant training events if they could not afford the costs. We are also addressing issues of the use of restricted and unrestricted funding and how they are aligned with our priorities.
We have recruited several volunteers to our committees. They bring valuable knowledge, skills and enthusiasm and their assistance is invaluable. We gratefully thank them for their contributions and time. We aim to recruit more volunteers, especially to support our fundraising and training.
Additional Information
Our main achievements in 2021 have been in training . We held 3 training events by Zoom which allowed access to people from many countries. In total we trained 27 adults working in services for children and young people affected by conflicts and traumatic events. We made grants to some of the delegates who would not otherwise have been able to afford to participate in these training sessions.
The first event was at the request of a large international charity working with children and young people affected by war. We collaborated with the Children and War Foundation (CAWF) to provide training for staff based in Syria and Palestine. We trained 4 senior staff in those counties via Zoom over 2 days to use our Teaching Recovery Techniques (TRT) programme. This was followed up by further training in Arabic by CAWF to additional staff in those countries.
We advertised and ran 2 more training events in November and December 2021 for adults who wanted to use our methods in their work with children and young people. The first 2 day training course was on the TRT programme and the second was a 3 day training on the TRT programme specifically adapted and extended to include additional material relevant to meeting the needs of unaccompanied refugee minors. The twenty-three participants in these trainings were from several areas of the UK (London, West Berkshire and Bristol, Europe (Germany and Austria), and Sudan. All worked in services for children and their families who had experienced traumatic events and displacement.
We received good positive feedback on the training from the participants who expected to work with groups of children themselves and/ or to cascade the training to others in their organisations to do so.
Thus we expect our training to benefit many children and young people by providing them with psychological tools for managing and reducing their adverse psychological distress, thus improving their mental health and thus quality of life and their ability to focus on and benefit from their education. This first stage intervention fills a gap in communities where specialist child services are sparse or overstretched as it can be delivered to large numbers of children in groups by responsible adults. This benefits children who would not be able to access specialist mental health services and also frees up specialist services to work with the most affected children who may need more specialist help There has also been public recognition of work developed by current trustees: for example, TRT has been very positively rated as an intervention; and the assessment tool, CRIES8, is now widely used.
We have achieved our broad objective of offering training in our first few months as a Charity and in the context of the restrictions on in-person contact imposed because of Covid19 pandemic.
Financial Review
We have raised satisfactory funds in this period given the restrictions imposed by the pandemic.
The main sources of fundraising were: a substantial donation from a special fundraising event organised by two of our Trustees; another fundraising event, other donations mostly through our JustGiving page and some fees for training.
See financial summary for income and expenditure during 2021.
We did not have a policy on reserves yet as our income was relatively small.
Principal risks facing the charity
We had limited people capacity to fulfil all our objectives as all our work was done by a committed though small trustee and volunteer group. this year we had limited financial resources for fulfilling our objectives and accessing paid support. We are working to mitigate these risks.
Structure, Governance and Management
Our governing document is a Constitution, We are a CIO Foundation
Trustees
Seven trustees were founder trustees of this Charity. Thereafter new trustees are appointed by the Board of existing trustees. Potential trustees are sought by recommendation and interest. We have a job description and a panel of trustees interview candidate/s and make recommendations to the Board. New trustees sign an agreement outlining the terms and conditions of their appointment to the Board. New trustees have an induction meeting with the Chair of the Board, followed by further meetings with fellow trustees. All trustees are expected to read the Charity Commission information for trustees on the website and to attend any relevant training.
Organisational structure: As a new, small Charity, with no paid staff, one of our first tasks was to establish an organisational structure to separate the tasks of the Trustee Board from the other work of the charity. This was important to deal with conflict of interests, as most of the trustees carried out the work of the Charity this year together with a few volunteers and some sessional trainers. The organisational structure is: A Trustee Board of 7 trustees, and 4 committees - Finance, Training, Research, and Fundraising and Communication. Each committee is chaired by a trustee and has 3-4 additional members (trustees, or volunteers). We are working to increase the non-trustee membership of committees.
Before becoming an independent legal charity in the UK on 17 May 2021, we were a UK supporters group as part of the Norwegian registered Children and War Foundation (Organisation number: 882 577 252). While we are now independent, our aims and activities are similar, so we continue to coordinate our activities and collaborate as
appropriate. We have a Cooperation Agreement ratified on 24 September 2021 formalising this relationship.
Some trustees are professionally involved with other organisations concerned with similar aims of meeting the needs of Children and Young people coping with psychological effects of traumatic experience.
Reference and Administrative details
| Charity name | Children and War(UK) |
|---|---|
| Other name the charity uses | Children and War UK; CAW-UK; CAW(UK); CaW(UK) |
| Registered charity number | 1194478 |
| Charity’s principal address | 83 Grove Lane London SE5 8LE |
Names of the charity trustees who manage the charity
| Trustee name | Ofce (if any) | Name of person (or body) entitled to appoint trustee(if any) |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Dates acted if not for | |||
| whole year | |||
| Maria M Callias | Chair | 17 May2021 - | Founder |
| William Yule | Treasurer | 17 May2021 - | Founder |
| Patrick Smith | 17 May2021 - | Founder | |
| Laura L Timms | Secretary | 17 May2021 - | Founder |
| Helen E G Likierman | 17 May 2021 - | Founder | |
| Julian A S Hale | 17 May2021 - | Founder | |
| Kimberly A Ehntholt | 2 Founder |
||
| 17 May 2021 to October | |||
| Stephen Matlin | 7 September 2021 - | Board of Trustees |
Advisers
| Advisers | ||
|---|---|---|
| Legal | Farrer & Co (Elizabeth Jones) | 66 Lincoln Inns Field, London WC2A 3LH |
| Financial | Graham Moss | 172 TurneyRoad, SE21 7JL |
Declarations
The trustees declare that they have approved the trustees’ report above. Signed on 27 October 2022 on behalf of the charity’s trustees
Signature(s)
Fullname(s) Maria Metaxia CALLIAS
Position Chair
Date 27 October 2022
| CHILDREN AND WAR (UK) | Charity registrabon number: | Charity registrabon number: | 1194478 CC16a format |
||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RECEIPTS AND PAYMENTS | ACCOUNTS | SUMMARY FINANCIAL STATEMENT | |||
| FROM 17-May-21 | |||||
| TO 31-Dec-21 |
Unrestricted | Restricted |
Previous | ||
| Funds | Funds |
Total Funds |
Year |
||
| A.1 RECEIPTS | |||||
| Donabons | 4,470 | 4,470 | - | ||
| Training receipts | 2,479 | 2,479 | - | ||
| GROSS INCOME | 6,948 | - | 6,948 | - | |
| A.2 ASSET AND INVESTMENT SALES | - | - | - | - | |
| TOTAL RECEIPTS | 6,948 | - | 6,948 | - | |
| A.3 PAYMENTS | |||||
| Work fees paid | (2,625) | (2,625) | - | ||
| External Fees etc | (1,338) | (1,338) | - | ||
| Bank charges etc | (267) | (267) | - | ||
| PAYMENTS, EXPENSES TOTAL | (4,230) | - | (4,230) | - | |
| A.4 ASSET AND INVESTMENT PURCHASES | - | - | - | ||
| TOTAL PAYMENTS | (4,230) | - | (4,230) | - | |
| NET RECEIPTS | 2,719 | - | 2,719 | - | |
| **A.5 TRANSFERS BETWEEN FUNDS *** | 23,864 | - | 23,864 | - | |
| A.6 ASSET AND INVESTMENT PURCHASES | - | - | - | - | |
| CASH FUNDS AT YEAR END | 26,583 | - | 26,583 | - | |
| *TRANSFERS BETWEEN FUNDS refers to | monies segled by Norwegian registered Children and War Foundabon | ||||
| under the Cooperabon Agreement referred to in Para 1.51 of the Annual Report |
- CC16a format data from 1.