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2023-12-31-accounts

Annual Report 2023

Helping children who are traumatised by wars, disasters and other catastrophic events

Charity registration number (England and Wales): 1194478. Registered address: Children and War UK, 15 Katherine Court, 70 Honor Oak Road, London SE23 3RS.

Trustees’ Annual Report for the period 1 January 2023 to 31 December 2023

Objectives and activities

The objectives of this Charity, as set out in our CIO Constitution, are:

  1. 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

  2. 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 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.

The Trustees have regard to the guidance issued by the Charity Commission on public benefit and are aware of the need to pursue its explicit objectives through focusing on our main activities. Our public benefit was in line with our objectives this year.

Summary of main activities in 2023

Our main activities for direct public benefit this year were the 12 training sessions which we provided online to those supporting traumatised children in Ukraine, Turkey, the UK, USA and elsewhere in Europe. These trainings provided appropriate adults with skills to run groups for children in our two suites of evidence-based techniques: Teaching Recovery Techniques (TRT), which are internationally recognised to help children cope with their experiences and rebuild their mental health, and Children and Grief: Teaching Life Skills, which help children affected by the death of loved ones and peers through traumatic circumstances. They are described in more detail below.

The trainings were provided free of charge for organisations in frontline situations. They directly reached more than 160 trainees worldwide. Indirectly they reached far more, due to our cascade model of learning, in which our trainees went on to train others in their regions and communities, creating an ever-widening circle of TRT practitioners and the children they support.

Our key beneficiaries were children traumatised by wars, earthquakes and other catastrophic events, many of whom were in desperate need after losing homes, loved ones, schools and communities. Our trainees helped them to manage and overcome trauma, using TRT, and trained many others within their organisations to help them too. To meet the wide range of these children’s needs and situations, TRT is designed to be applicable by specialists and appropriate non-specialists – for example, school teachers, aid workers and social workers as well as clinical psychologists – and all these groups were represented among our trainees.

Meanwhile we worked to professionalise our own organisation with the recruitment of our first two staff members on a part-time basis, to provide much-needed assistance with office management and communications. This will be vital for managing our trainings and supporting our fundraising in the future. We also continued to address governance issues by upgrading our policies and procedures.

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And we liaised throughout the year with the Children and War Foundation in Norway, from whom we have evolved.

Fundraising continued apace and was largely responsible for enabling the activities described in this Report. In 2023 we continued to rely on fundraising events and public donations as our main source of income, and the dedication of our fundraising committee was invaluable. We also began to explore raising funds from other sources, including trusts, foundations and major donors, which will be key to the future expansion of our work.

We are hugely grateful to all those who have contributed time and hard work to our achievements in this year, especially the unpaid committee members who have supported our fundraising, training activities and research plans. We could not do this without them – and we welcome conversations with anyone who can help us further.

Achievements and performance

Training and support for children

In 2023 our training activities focused on major emergencies in Ukraine and Turkey, with vital assistance given on the ground and online to those caring for traumatised children. We also helped UK specialists working in education, child protection, sexual assault and social work.

In Ukraine, as the recent invasion entered its second year in 2023, we increased the programme of training that we had introduced after the annexation of Crimea in 2014. This year we added specialised sessions on helping children to cope with grief following a traumatic bereavement, and on parenting children affected by conflict. This ongoing programme is a collaboration with in-country schools and NGOs including Family Circle Lviv, Volunteers and Helping Hands Ukraine.

For Ukrainian refugees abroad, we delivered psychological training to reach expatriate communities in London and Eire, and continued our links with St Mary’s Ukrainian School in London.

To help displaced Ukrainian children, we collaborated with the Rucksack Project, which published a picture book to help preschool and primary school children to process their experiences. “Rucksack” was illustrated by Ukrainian artist Lilia Martynyuk and written by children’s author Di Redmond, who has scripted for television series Postman Pat, Fireman Sam and Bob The Builder. The picture book was accompanied by an advice booklet for parents and carers, which was co-written by our trustee Professor William Yule, our Ukrainian lead Kateryna Yavna and our trainer Professor Dennis Ougrin.

In Turkey, two major earthquakes struck in the middle of the night in February 2023, destroying 518,000 homes and killing 53,500 people. Children in such situations face the devastating effects of losing their homes and loved ones, restarting their lives in new and unfamiliar places, and recovering from their own injuries both physical and mental.

Within the first weeks we had reached out to local colleagues we had worked with after a previous earthquake, who were collaborating with the authorities in affected areas. A Turkish-language version of our key training manuals was produced, and an initial workforce were trained to disseminate our techniques to children’s groups on the ground. This included trauma recovery as well as training in traumatic bereavement.

In the UK, we ran a range of trainings according to local needs. For one local authority, we provided TRT training for their educational staff who support schoolchildren. For another, we trained the child

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protection staff and social workers of a children’s services division. And for a wider network of NHS and voluntary sector professionals, we provided training for those assisting children and young people who have survived rape and sexual assault.

As well as these activities, we held our usual Open Trainings, which are available online for any relevant individual to sign up and attend. These attracted participants from Europe, the USA and the UK, representing a range of groups including conflict zone workers, public service providers and voluntary sector professionals.

We would like to thank our bank of expert trainers for their wonderful work, which as ever has received highly appreciative feedback from the trainees. In 2023 our trainers were

Amina Al-Yassin, Melinda Edwards, Aala El-Khani, Dorothy King, Dennis Ougrin, Laura Timms, David Trickey, Kateryna Yavna and Bill Yule.

Research

The research committee continue to meet to identify projects for which we could seek funding and collaborations. We identified some areas that require research and also the need to gather further systematic evidence on the impact of our training. We will seek funding for resources to implement such work.

Financial Review

We continued to provide training in humanitarian situations pro bono and to develop a grant system to ensure that individuals who require training but cannot afford it are able to attend our trainings.

We continue to address issues of fundraising to ensure that our funding strategy is aligned with our priorities. This year all our funding has come from generous donations and fundraising.

We thank all our donors and those who have worked so hard to raise funds for us this year. We are especially grateful to the following fundraisers and all who participated in the following projects:

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We thank Graham Moss, our 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. In July of this year we were able to appoint two part-time self-employed people to assist with our office management, administration and communications. Their expertise, skills and support are already making a positive impact to the efficiency of our work.

We plan to recruit new Trustees to extend the Board’s diversity and as we have an ageing Board. This has become a more pressing need with the loss of Bill Yule who died peacefully but unexpectedly on 5 November 2023. Bill was a key founder of the Charity, and indeed of the Children and War Foundation, from which we evolved from being a supporter group to an independent Charity (see below for our relationship).

Structure, governance and management

Our governing document is a Constitution. We are a CIO Foundation.

Trustees

Five of the current trustees were founder trustees of this Charity. One trustee was appointed in 2021. Six trustees were appointed in 2024.

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 and other Board members, followed by further meetings as appropriate. 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 small, young Charity, with limited paid support, 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 continued to carry out most of 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 seven trustees (six from 5 November), and four 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

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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 names the Charity uses: Children and War UK, CAW UK.

Registered charity number (England and Wales): 1194478.

Charity’s principal address: 15 Katherine Court, 70 Honor Oak Road, London SE23 3RS.

Trustees
Trustee name Office (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 Until 5 November
2023		 Founder
Julian A S Hale Treasurer From 6 November
2023		 Founder
Laura L Timms Secretary Founder
Helen E G Likierman Founder
Stephen Matlin Board of Trustees
Patrick Smith Until 17 May 2024 Founder
Lorie A Halliday From 23 July 2024 Board of Trustees
Alexandra R Hannaby From 23 July 2024 Board of Trustees
Joanne S Lehmann From 23 July 2024 Board of Trustees
Mark S Roe From 23 July 2024 Board of Trustees
John A Smith From 23 July 2024 Board of Trustees
Sarah C Trevathan From 23 July 2024 Board of Trustees

Trustees are appointed for a three-year term and may be reappointed at the end of their term. The process for appointing new trustees in 2024 was by advertisement, interview and ratification by the Board of Trustees.

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Advisers

Legal: Farrer & Co (Elizabeth Jones) 66 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London WC2A 3LH.

Financial: Graham Moss, 172 Turney Road, SE21 7JL.

Bank: Lloyds Bank, 25 Gresham Street, London, EC2V 7HN.

Declarations

The trustees declare that they have approved the Trustees’ Report above.

Signed on behalf of the Charity’s trustees.

Signature(s):

Full name(s): Maria Metaxia Callias

Position: Chair

Date: 1 October 2024

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OIILDREN ANO WAR {UK) Charity registratit￿ number. 1194478 SUAWARY FINANOAi STATEMENT in CC16a f(Kmat RECEIPTS AND PAYMENTS ACCOUP4TS FROM 01-JaTh23 31-Dec-23 UnreslrxlEd 20 I RECEIPTS Donatio¥15 ProiÈct Receipts TrainiDg Recewts Interest IrKarne 18.132 13.741 18,132 13,741 4452 765 765 GR055 INCOME 35.038 49J52 Z A55ET ANDIIIVESTMENTSALE5 TOTALAE(EIPTS 35￿38 49J52 3 PAITrIENTS Trainin8costs Proiectcosts Profes5Kvwlfee5 ard￿L￿ted LV5ts Genernl expenses Reuuitmentcosts Fundraisirecosts Bank<fv4rges,etc )) 16A161 163401 12111 13&541 17WI 12,6641 16161 163401 19a41 15631 19341 15631 liJ601 TOTALPAYMENT5 IZ45701 P6.5701 1149131 4 ASSET ANDIPIVESTMENT fiiROLASES TOTALPAYMENTS P6S701 1265701 1149131 NEfRECEIPTS 34238 5 TRANSFERS BETWEEN FUN05 6 A5SETPURCF145E5AfiD UABIUTYREPAVMEIITS ISXO)) CASHFUNC6A7YEAR END f4121 STATEMENT OF ASSEfs ANO UABiullES 8.1 CA5HFUND5 64289 6021 8.2 OTHER MOPIETAStY ASSETS 8.3 INVESThIE14T ASSET5 .4 A￿Er5 RETAINEDFOR QIARIIYS OWN USE 8.5 uAB1U￿E5 SnedbVthtru5ewlJeha¥￿a1trYs￿eS 1 October 2024