Trustees’ Annual Report for the period from 1 January 2022 to 31 December 2022
Charity name: Children and War (UK) Charity registration number: 1194478
Objectives and Activities
The objectives of this Charity, as set out in our CIO Constitution, are:
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to 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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to 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.
Summary of main activities in 2022
Our main activities for the public benefit this year have been to run 13 training events; 10 specifically to help Ukrainian children. Following the escalation of the Russian war in Ukraine in February 2022, we responded swiftly to help traumatised Ukrainian children and young people both in Ukraine and those who were displaced refugees in other countries. These 10 training events were for psychologists and others in Ukraine itself and in surrounding countries were conducted by Zoom so that people from several countries were able to participate. They were delivered either in English with sequential translation, or in Ukrainian. The 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.
Our fundraisers have been exceptionally busy and successful this year and we are most grateful for their dedication hard work. This resulted in us far exceeding our expected targets and thus enabled us to undertake more training.
Our Research Committee that has begun to develop a strategy for fostering relevant research in order to improve our knowledge base on trauma in young people, our training materials and ways of measuring our impact.
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We launched our own website this year, in order to publicise our work and future events and to make fundraising appeals. Our website address is: www.childrenandwar-uk.org and we respond to messages sent to: contact@childrenandwar-uk.org.
We have continued to address governance issues by working on our policies and procedures.
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 have established principles for making grants available to enable individuals/organisations to attend relevant training events if they could not afford the costs. We continue to address issues of fundraising and to ensure that our funding strategy is aligned with our priorities.
As a small new, Charity with no paid assistance, we continued to benefit from the participation of dedicated unpaid committee members working with us especially to support our fundraising and training activities and research plans. They bring valuable knowledge, skills and enthusiasm and their assistance is invaluable. We gratefully thank them for their contributions and time.
At the end of 2022, we considered that we were now financially in a position to consider paid support. We plan to implement this decision in 2023.
Achievements and Performance
Our main achievements in 2022 have been in training. We ran a total of 13 training courses, 3 were planned for the first half of the year. The other 10 courses were arranged in rapid response to the crises caused by the escalation of the war in Ukraine in February 2022. We decided to focus our efforts on helping children and young people psychologically affected and/or displaced by the war pro bono.
This year, we held all but one training event by Zoom. This enabled people from many countries to access to our training events. We made grants to some delegates and organisations who would not otherwise have been able to afford to participate in these training sessions.
In January 2022, we ran an openly advertised training course on Grief and Trauma. It was attended by nine people of differing backgrounds from the UK and Austria. In addition to health and education specialists, participants included Arabic speaking volunteers from an established asylum support programme in Austria, already delivering TRT to local schools. In March and May 2022, we ran two training courses that Barnardo’s in Northern Ireland requested for their staff. These courses were: Teaching Recovery Techniques with additional consideration of the issues for Unaccompanied Minors, and Children and Grief: teaching life skills. In all, 34 Professional were trained on these three courses. We received excellent positive feedback on the training from the participants who expected to go on to work with groups of children
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themselves and/ or to cascade the training to others in their organisations to do so.
When Russia escalated the war in Ukraine in February 2022, we were asked to increase the training and support we had been providing since November 2014 to local charities in Ukraine who had been supporting children affected by the conflict. Very quickly, we contacted colleagues within Ukraine to develop Ukrainian language materials as well as to arrange and deliver a one-day refresher course in Teaching Recovery Techniques. On 24 March we delivered a dual language training by Zoom to psychologists in Lviv.
Soon after, an in-person training event was delivered at the Ukraine School in London. This was to provide training in trauma for school staff, mental health specialists and local artists working with local refugee Ukrainian children. Nine more training courses were delivered via Zoom to participants in Poland (2), Ukraine (6), and Estonia (1). Eight of these courses delivered the core Teaching Recovery Techniques training. At the request of our Ukrainian colleagues, we ran courses on the expanded versions of this training that include 1) addressing the issues faced by children experiencing traumatic grief (one course); or 2) were unaccompanied minors with additional needs (one course). In July we also ran a course for Ukraine based experienced TRT trainers on a different approach to helping young people process trauma - Writing for Recovery. All trainings were made accessible through the use of either Ukrainian speaking trainers or through the provision of sequential translation.
The 109 participants in these courses, were mostly psychologists or professionals with other related mental health backgrounds who worked in centres in Lviv, Kyiv and other cities in Ukraine, in Poland, Estonia and Romania. All participants worked in contexts where they intended both to cascade training to other colleagues and to run groups for children and young people themselves. One illustration of such dissemination is provided by the organisation Helping Hands for Ukraine, who had described their extensive use of TRT (https://hopeww.org.ua/en/ ).
Our small bank of dedicated trainers worked extremely hard to run these training events. We are most grateful to all of them: Laura Timms, Bill Yule, Kateryna Yavna, David Trickey, Melinda Edwards, Richard Meiser-Stedman and Dennis Ougrin. The feedback we received from participants was most positive and highly appreciative of the skills they learned and the way the courses were conducted.
All courses relevant to helping Ukrainian children and young people were provided pro bono to the individual participants and their organisations.
Through the use of Ukrainian language materials and trainers we have successfully cascaded the knowledge and skills needed within Ukraine to support children affected by war. We have helped establish an extensive and active workforce engaged in providing support to children at home and through displacement.
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Our research committee has recruited 3 external professors from Manchester, Bath and Oxford who work in the field of child trauma onto its committee. It has also begun to formulate its strategic work plan which includes encouraging research on aspects of trauma neglected to date, evaluating more formally the effectiveness of Teaching Recovery Techniques, and setting up a young peoples’ advisory forum.
We continue to liaise with our sister organisation Children and War Foundation, registered in Norway. We have begun to hold annual meetings over Zoom between our two Boards to address common issues. We also continue to coordinate our efforts via links with their Board of Research and Implementation, through two Trustees who are members of that Board.
We have collaborated with the Rucksack Project (www.rucksackproject.co.uk) which has produced a book to enable displaced Ukrainian children to process their experiences. (see under finance for further details).
The public benefit of our achievements this year in line with our objectives. Our trainings and developmental work has benefitted many children and young people - especially but not only Ukrainian - 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. More widely, there has also been public recognition of work developed by current trustees: for example, TRT has been very positively rated as an intervention and is a recommended intervention in diverse disaster contexts; and the assessment tool, CRIES8, is now widely used to assess children’s trauma and the effectiveness of interventions.
Financial Review
Trustees took the decision to provide training in the use of our group methods pro bono to those supporting Ukrainian children with trauma related distress wherever they are.
We thank all our donors and those who have raised funds for us this year.
We are especially grateful to the following fundraisers and all who participated in the following three projects.
Concert : Two of our Trustees, Helen Likierman and Julian Hale organised a concert that raised over £8,000. At their request, this was used by a charity in Lviv to increase the training of local people as group leaders to support children using Children and War validated training techniques.
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Half Marathon: With support from the fundraising committee and an enthusiastic group of runners who participated in the Royal Parks half marathon in the autumn, Helen and Julian also raised over £26,000.
Rucksack Project: This project was initiated by Anna Shevchenko. Anna manages the project whereby a leading children’s author and a Ukrainian illustrator wrote and illustrated a book for displaced Ukrainian children to help these children process their experiences. This is accompanied by a booklet for parents/carers written by Bill Yule, Kateryna Yavna and Dennis Ougrin. Rucksack have partnered with us for the booklet and to get support with managing the finances.Their plan is to donate to us any surplus profits/donations to the Project so that we can fund TRT training for Ukrainian children. We are not involved at all in any book selling or marketing.
We have opened a saving account to set aside a contingency fund.
We thank Graham Moss an accountant who has been most helpful and patient with us in dealing with our finances.
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 group of trustees and volunteers on committees. We raised more funds this year than previously, and by the end of the year are in a position to consider paid support to assist us.
We need to recruit new Trustees to extend the Board’s diversity and as we have an ageing Board.
Structure, Governance and Management
Our governing document is a Constitution, We are a CIO Foundation
Trustees
Six of the current trustees were founder trustees of this Charity. One trustee was appointed in 2021.
We have a procedure for appointing new trustees. New trustees are appointed by the Board of existing trustees. Potential trustees are sought by recommendation and/or advertisement, and in line with their interest in our work and the need to diversify the Board. We have a job description and candidate/s are interviewed by a panel of trustees who 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.
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Organisational structure
As a small, young Charity, with no paid staff, we continued to operate with the structure we established last year to separate the tasks of the Trustee Board from the other work of the charity. We are aware of the importance of managing conflict of interests, as most of the trustees carried out the work of the Charity this year together with a few volunteer committee members and some sessional trainers. We have a Conflicts of Interest Policy in place.
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 Park London SE5 8LE |
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Names of the charity trustees who manage the charity
Trustees are appointed for a 3 year term, and may be reappointed at the end of their term.
| Trustee name | Ofce (if any) | Dates acted if not for whole year |
Name of person (or body) entitled to appoint trustee (if any) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maria M Callias | Chair | Founder | |
| William Yule | Treasurer | Founder | |
| Patrick Smith | Founder | ||
| Laura L Timms | Secretary | Founder | |
| Helen E G Likierman |
Founder | ||
| Julian A S Hale | Founder | ||
| Stephen Matlin | Board of Trustees |
Advisers
| visers | ||
|---|---|---|
| Legal | Farrer & Co (Elizabeth Jones) | 66 Lincoln Inns Field, London WC2A 3LH |
| Financial | Graham Moss | 172 Turney Road, SE21 7JL |
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Declarations
The trustees declare approved the Signed on 4 October charity’s trustees
that they have trustees’ report above. 2023 on behalf of the
Signature(s)
Fullname(s) Maria Metaxia CALLIAS
Position Chair Date 4 October 2023
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CHILDREN AND WAR (UK) Charity registration number" 1194478 SUMMARY FINANaAL STATEMENT in CC16a format RECEIFfs AND PAYMENTS AccouKrs FROM TO 01-Jan-22 31-Dec-22 Fun Funds Total Funds 2021 I RECEiprs Donations Training receipts Project Funding GROSS INCOME 44,852 3,3(X) 44,852 3,300 4,470 2,479 49,152 49,152 6,948 2 ASSEf AND INVESTMENT SALES TOTAL RECEIPTS 49,152 49.152 3 PAYMEN15 Trainlng and project Costs .Other costs and professional fees Bank charges etc Fundraising costs TOTAL PAYMENTS (10,738) (2,664) (351) (1,160) (14,913) <10,738) {2,664) (351) 11, 160) (14,913) (2,625) (1,338) (267) {4,230) 4 ASSET AND INVESTMENT PURCHASES TOTAL PAYMENTS (14,913) (14,913) (4,230) NET RECEiprs 34,238 2,719 5 TRANSFERS BETWEEN FUNDS * 23,864 6 ASSET AND INVESTMENT PURCHASES CASH FUNDS ATYEAR END 60,821 26,583 STATEMENT OF ASSETS AND UABILITIES B.1 CASH FUNDS 60,821 60,821 26,583 B.2 OTHER MONEfARY ASSETS B.3 INVESTMENT ASSETS B.4 ASSETS RETAINED FOR CHARITYS OWN USE B.5 UABILITIES NET ASSETS AT YEAR END 55,821 55,821 26,583 Signed by one trustee on behaff of all tNstees *TRANSFERS BETWEEN FUNDS in the prevlous year refers to monies settled by Nornegian registered Children and War Foundation under the Cooperation Agreement referred to in Para 1.51 of the Annual Report 2021
Independent examiner's report on the accounts
Section A Independent Examiner’s Report
Report to the trustees/ Charity Name members of CHILDREN AND WAR (UK) On accounts for the year Charity no ended 31 DECEMBER 2022 (if any) 1194478 Set out on pages Attached one page (remember to include the page numbers of additional sheets) I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of the above charity (“the Trust”) for the year ended DD / MM / YYYY .
- Responsibilities and As the charity trustees of the Trust, you are responsible for the preparation of basis of report the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 (“the Act”).
I report in respect of my examination of the Trust’s accounts carried out under section 145 of the 2011 Act and in carrying out my examination, I have followed the applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5)(b) of the Act.
Independent I have completed my examination. I confirm that no material matters have examiner's statement come to my attention ~~(other than that disclosed below *~~ ) in connection with the examination which gives me cause to believe that in, any material respect: • accounting records were not kept in accordance with section 130 of the Act or
- the accounts do not accord with the accounting records
I have no concerns and have come across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.
- Please delete the words in the brackets if they do not apply.
Date: 8 October 2023 Signed: G Moss Name: Graham Moss
Relevant professional FCA qualification(s) or body (if any):
1
October 2018
IER
Address: 172 Turney Road London, SE21 7JL
Section B Disclosure
Only complete if the examiner needs to highlight matters of concern (see CC32, Independent examination of charity accounts: directions and guidance for examiners).
2
October 2018
IER
Give here brief details None of any items that the examiner wishes to disclose .
3
October 2018
IER