## **Annual Trustee report** ## **Year Ending 30th September 2022** ## **Aims and Description of the charity** Gecko Community is a registered Charity (1195860) providing innovative teaching, therapeutic projects and mentoring. We are a Neurodivergent led Charity and we are uniquely skilled in supporting neurodivergent young people. Our Mentors and Teachers are highly skilled and experienced. We understand our young people from a neurodivergent perspective as most of us are Autistic, ADHD, PDA and/or dyslexic. We have expertise in: - Pathological Demand Avoidance/Persistent Drive for Autonomy (PDA) - Monotropic thinking styles - Alexithymia - Autistic Masking - Autistic Burnout - Double Empathy Theory - Trauma/cPTSD We support young people aged between 5 -25 who are - ADHD - Autistic - experiencing anxiety and mental ill health - at risk from exclusion or have self-excluded from formal education - Experiencing bullying and trauma Young people can be with us because they’re out of school, while they wait for a placement or as part of their EOTAS package. We support neurodivergent young people for as long as they need. We aim to inspire, support and educate young people who have been let down by mainstream education and who need alternative teaching methods. ## **Referral process** We currently have 91 young people with us who are either in academic sessions or mentoring sessions. Sessions are important pieces of social interaction and young people can attend online with the choice to be on or off camera, speak or type, email or share communication types through music, film, stories or gaming platforms. Any student can join us. Referrals come in through Families, Schools, Local authorities or the Third Sector e.g. Social Services. ## **Staff** Our staffing team has rapidly expanded to 16 members with some full time and more part time in order to best support our team’s physical and mental wellbeing. Our motto is that Gecko needs to work for us, too. We do not believe in tiers or hierarchies and treat all staff as equals and part of our team. People do not work for Gecko Community, they work with us. Although all appointments are open to Neurotypicals and Nerodivergents alike, currently almost all our staff members are ND and many are Autistic or ADHD. This means that we truly understand how our brains and our young peoples’ brains work and can empathise with their journeys, adapting to a learning style that best suits them. All staff understand that Gecko is entirely student-led. ## **Supporting our staff** As we grow we are giving thought as to how best to support our staff and their wellbeing. With this in mind almost half our staff have supervision, we are aiming for all our staff to have this. This is 1:1, confidential, monthly support by trained counsellors. We are also now running weekly teacher meetings and mentor meetings. These may involve discussing young people, teaching methods and supporting one another/ Investments made in our staff and training opportunities: Autism Awareness - Kieran Rose PDA - Mel Duncan Self Harm - Mel Duncan LBGQT - Mel Duncan / Kim Roberts Safeguarding Training - CPD Online Deaf Awareness Training from Swindon Deaf Society ## **Mentoring sessions** Mentor sessions are led by the young person. The aim is to support them in exploring their neurology through a neurodivergent-affirming lens, re-building self-confidence, helping them re-discover their love of learning (on their terms) and act as a positive Neurodivergent role model. Mentors also support young people who are in crisis, have cPTSD and work therapeutically with them to process trauma. All sessions are student led. Self-discovery and recovery is achieved through the therapeutic relationship between the mentor and the young person. The length of this process is determined by the young person and is organic, not time limited or prescriptive. All mentors use a trauma informed framework (PACE). ## **Academic Sessions** With an expanding staff and student profile, we are now able to offer sessions in English Literature and Language, Drama and play therapy, Art, History, Science including Physics, Computer Science and Biology, and Maths. We offer GCSEs in English Language and Literature, Maths, Computer Science and Biology. We now have staff members running ASDAN programmes. We offer ASDAN subjects which include short courses in Animal Care, English, Environmental, Expressive Arts, Foodwise, History, Living Independently and Mathematics. A new member of staff is trained to teach Bronze and Silver Arts Award. ## **Our support and what this means** We are widely recognised and acclaimed in the Autistic community and are currently oversubscribed with a waiting list. We are full this academic year. With us, our students are able to learn about their true selves through a Neurodivergent lens. We have very positive feedback from young people and their adults on our new website. Some examples are: ‘My 15 year old daughter has been having English project sessions and mentor sessions with Gecko Community for the last five months. She is autistic and struggles with severe anxiety. She had reached burnout and could no longer access mainstream school due to school based trauma. Gecko has really helped our daughter to gently re-engage with education at her own pace and on her own terms. Their young person led therapeutic techniques have really helped and my daughter looks forward to her Gecko sessions. “My daughter loves working with Gecko, it has given her confidence back in learning.’ ‘The tutor always listens and adjusts the way of working to suit her needs. Gecko really understands the needs of children and, most importantly, they listen to the child’ ‘My child is struggling with autistic burnout, manifesting in depression and deep social anxiety and has been out of education for the last two years. I was struggling to find help for her despite being under the care of Camhs. I found out about Gecko through an autistic led training course.’ ‘Gecko has lit a fire under my child with regard to English! An incredible transformation from a reluctant student of English to one who is now thinking of doing it at A-level. Gecko “get it”. They get the anxiety and understand the traumatic experiences that my child has sadly undergone in mainstream school.’ ## **Our Website** We have recently created a new website which gives a clear overview of the charity and allows young people and their adults to find out more. https://geckocommunity.org.uk ## **Safeguarding** Our young people have been through traumatic experiences in their school time. Some have a diagnosis of PTSD. Some of our young people self-harm and some young people have tried to commit suicide. All our staff are Level 2 Safeguard trained and we have one Designated Safeguarding Lead (Level 3 trained) and one Deputy (Level 2 trained). ## **Partnerships and support** These are the people we are partnered with: - Kieran Rose (Neurodivergent) - he is ‘The Autistic Advocate’ and runs the ‘Inside of Autism’ training which all our staff members have attended (mandatory training). He also supports staff on the training session and is responsible for some of our young people finding us. - Jodie Smitten (Neurodivergent) (BSc Hons Psy - PG Cert - MA Autism - MBPs) is an independent specialist working with autistic children, their families and their schools. She has many years experience of working with autistic children. Jodie also holds a honours degree in psychology, a post graduate certificate in autism and holds a Masters in Autism from Sheffield Hallam University. Jodie is also one of our trustees. - Nic King (Neurodivergent). Nic is a parent to one of our students and has also set up the fantastic NeuroBears which is a website ‘for autistic young people aged 8-14 (ish) who want to learn what it means to be Autistic in a really positive way.’ - Catherine Eveness (Neurodivergent). Catherine is a certified Theraplay® Practitioner who set up Theraplay South West. She offers some of our families Parental Support. ## **Finances** - We have a three tier payment system for our fees. We receive donations which we use to support our low income families, they pay £15 or £20 a session. For high income families, they pay £35 a session. For schools and LAs, they pay £50 or £60 a session. (When schools and LAs are involved we send weekly or half termly reports and attendance data. We also attend monthly or half termly meetings and attend Annual Reviews.) - We have received a donation of £15,000 each year from Wrenlabs. We use this to support our grant funded spaces. - We receive £1000 each year from the Singer Foundation. This supports our staff Supervision costs. - We receive approximately £1500 in Spring each year, from the Ingles Foundation which is used for staff training. - We gave everyone a 5% pay rise in July 2022 to try and support the rise of the cost of living due to higher than normal inflation rates. - We gave everyone a 5% winter support pay boost in December (and will do so too for January and February) to support the higher than usual cost of fuel, food and necessities during the colder months. - We are aiming to build reserves for three months of staff wages. ## **Breakdown of student numbers, in relation to finances** We have 91 students to date. Of these, 52 are school or LA supported. 39 are family funded. Of these 18 are low income families and 21 are high income families. (A low income family might be a single parent family, a family whose key wage earner has had to stop working to support their child or a family on benefits.) These 39 families who are with us, of the total 91, means 43% of our students have no Government funding or support. Many are fighting for this support but it is incredibly hard to get. All their children are legally entitled to an appropriate education but it is usually a fight with a Local Authority to get this. Looking at our session numbers is very interesting and shows another picture. We run 162 sessions a week. Of these, 114 are funded by schools or LAs. This is 70% of our sessions. Low income families have 23 sessions a week and high income families have 25 sessions a week. Low income families have only 14% of our sessions. (High income families have 16%.) It is clear that with funding, so much more can be received. This makes it very important for us to fundraise and enable our low income families to have access to more sessions. ## **Going forwards** We are not planning to recruit anymore staff this academic year, or for a few years. We are now focusing on improving what we do already. We want to fundraise more to support our low income families. Signed by the Chair of Trustees Vikki Mead 24th January 2023 ## **Gecko Community CIO** Period start date **09/14/2021 Section A Statement of financial activities (including summary income Unrestricted Recommended categories by activity funds** |**Recommended categories by activity**|Guid|**Unrestricted**
**funds**| |---|---|---| |||**£**| |**Income (Note 3)**||F01| |**Income and endowments from:**
Donations and legacies
Charitable activities
Other trading activities
Investments
Separate material item of income
Other
**_Total_**
**Expenditure (Notes 6)**|S01
S02
S03
S04
S05
S06
S07|38468
60612
-
10,000
1,558
110,638| |**Expenditure**||| |**on:**||| |Raising funds|S08|| |Charitable activities|S09|109,438| |Separate material expense item|S10|1,200| |Other|S11|| |**_Total_**|S12|110,638| |**Net income/(expenditure) before tax for the**||| |**reporting period**|S13|-| |Tax payable
**Net income/(expenditure) after tax before**|S14|| |**investment gains/(losses)**|S15|-| |Net gains/||| |(losses) on||| |investments|S16|-| |**Net income/(expenditure)**|S17|-| |**Extraordinary**|S18|| |**items**||-| |**Transfers between funds**|S19|-| |**Other recognised** **gains/(losses):**
Gains and losses on revaluation of fxed assets for|| |---|---| |the charity’s own use|S20
-| |Other gains/|| |(losses)|S21
-| |**_Net movement in funds_**|S22
-| |**_Reconciliation_**|| |**_of funds:_**|| |Total funds brought forward|S23
-| |**_Total funds carried forward_**|S24
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Charity No 1195860
Company No
To Period end
date 09/30/2022
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## **and expenditure account)** |**Total funds**
**£**
**£**
**£**
**£**
F02
F03
F04
F05
**Restricted**
**income funds**
**Endowment**
**funds**
**Prior**
**year**
**funds**|**Total funds**
**£**
**£**
**£**
**£**
F02
F03
F04
F05
**Restricted**
**income funds**
**Endowment**
**funds**
**Prior**
**year**
**funds**|**Total funds**
**£**
**£**
**£**
**£**
F02
F03
F04
F05
**Restricted**
**income funds**
**Endowment**
**funds**
**Prior**
**year**
**funds**|**Total funds**
**£**
**£**
**£**
**£**
F02
F03
F04
F05
**Restricted**
**income funds**
**Endowment**
**funds**
**Prior**
**year**
**funds**| |---|---|---|---| |||38,468|| |110876|-|171,488|-| |-|-|-|-| |-|-|-|-| |-|-|10,000|-| |-|-|1,558|-| |110,876|-|221,514|-| **----- Start of picture text -----**
78,591 188,029
1,200
78,591 189,229
32,285 32,285
32,285 - -
- - - -
32,285 - -
- - -
- - - -
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- - - -
- - - -
32,285 - -
- - - -
32,285 - 32,285 -
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INDEPENDENT EXAMINERS REPORT TO THETRUSTEES OF GECKO COMMUNITY CIO We report on the accounts of the charity for the period 14 September 2021 to 30 September 2022 which are appended. RESPECTIVE RESPONSIBILITIES OF TRUSTEES AND EXAMINERS As the charitvs trustees. you are responsible for the preparation of the accounts; you consider that the audit requirement of section 144 of the Charities Act 2011 Ithe Act) does not apply. It is our responsibility to state, on the basis of procedures specified in the General Directions given by the Charity Commissioners under section 14515llbl of the Act. whether particular matters have come to our attention. BASIS OF INDEPENDE￿r EXAMINERS REPORT Our examination was carried out in accordance with the General Directions given by the Charity Commissioners. An examination includes a review of the accounting records kept by the Charity and a comparison of the accounts presented with those records. It also includes consideration of anv unusual items or disclosure in the accounts and seekin8 explanations from you as trustees concerning any such matters. The procedures undertaken do not provide all the evidence required by an audit and consequentw, we do not express an audit opinion on the view given by the accounts. INDEPENDENT EXAMINERS STATEMENT In connection with our examination, no matter has come to our attention. l. Which gives us reasonable cause to believe that in any material respect the requirement - to keeping accounting records in accordance wf(h section 130 of the Act. and - to prepare accounts which accord with the accounting records and to compEy with the accounting requirements of the Art have not been met. or- 2. To which, in our opinion. attention should be drawn in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached. GEN co. Chartered Accountants 13-15 Commercial Road Hayle Cornwall TR27 4DE 9, December 2022 Gecko Community CIO Charity Nymber.. 1195860 Year Endiftg 30th September 2022 Balance Sheet Current Assets Bank Debtors 29,490 3,259 Current tiabilities Accrual 465 Funds Unrestrirted funds Restricted Funds 32285 Funds at 30th Sept. 2022 32.285 The Company was entititled to exemption from audit Ltnder s477 of the Companies Act 2006 relating to Small companies. The members have not reqtjired the company to obtain an audit in accordance with section 476 of the Companies Act 2006. The director's acknowledge their responsibilitiesfor complying with the requirements of the Companie5 Act with respett to accounting records and the preparation of accounts. These accounts have been prepared accordance wtth the provisions 3pplicable to amall companies subjert to the STnall cornpanies regiEne and in accordance with FRS102SORP. Signed by one or two trusteesldirectors on behalf of 311 the trusteesld1￿ttorS Print Name Date Gecko Community CIO Charity No Corrisan5', 119?860 Period start dale Period etMI date 14109r2021 3010912022 Section A Statement of financial actlVTtie5 (including sutnrnary income and expenditure accounti Restrl¢ted Unrestricted income Endowment Totsl funds funds funds Prior year funds Re¢c*mm¢nded ¢ategories by actsvÉty Income (Note 31 Income and endowmerrts from: Donations and legacies Ch8r5table actiwties other tradlng activthes Investrnents Separ3t8 material rtern of income Other rotal Expenditure (Nots$ 61 Expenditure on: F01 F02 F03 F04 FOS S01 S02 S03 38,468 171.488 fA1612 110876 S05 10,000 1.558 110,638 10.000 1.558 221.514 so7 110.876 Rahsing funds Charitable activibes Separate material expense item Other Tot•1 S09 Slo S11 S12 109,438 1.200 78.591 188.029 1,200 110.638 78,591 189.229 Nèt incomellexpendlturel before taxfor Tax payab18 Net InGOmellexpenditurel aftertsx before Net gair￿/{losseSI on investments Net in¢oMellexpendllurel Extraordinar y items TransfeTS betsveen fun(ts Other recognlsed galnslllosses): Gains and losses on rewdluation of fixed S13 S14 S15 32.285 32,285 32.285 S16 S17 32.285 S18 S19 S20 Other gainsllloss8sI Netmovementin funds S21 S22 32,285 ReGon¢iliati on of funds.. Total funds brought forward Total fvnds ¢arriedfonvard S23 S24 32,285 32,285 G￿Ck0 Community CIO Charity Num(>er.. l.. 95860 Yaar Ending 30th September 2022 unting P?licies Income qevogr.1tion ?f income *a+am.ep.t Jf :-,.p.arcial artivities when.. th.e •ar'y iecjmes ?p.t"'L.ed *J tne :-SDlirpAs it is mofa likJly tb.an 4or **3t *he'TrJstees'Nill -eive :pe rosources,. the mone*ary ialue rar. Se meaiured Ntth sbfficient rpiiao%li*. i) 31 Offsetting Ther- has beun no offsetting af assets and Jiabilitres. or income and . perses. Grants and donations C-rar.'5 3p.d dop.atriop,s ar? 3rl'i '.llCi'Jded Ip.:4 a )oF4 wnen ttr,e gene", ai .'ncDry.e r&cogniL',or,., '￿er[3 arts met i.la .:0 >.&2 ¥RS SORPI Governrrtent Grants The Charity has received £l.Ji8 rom thè Dl.VP. Support costs The Charity has not incurrea 2xpeneirLrrs Dn iUPDor.p costs. Volunteer lelp .e value ￿ ap¥ volurf.LèJr ￿e1￿ rartsiy<*d is lot iftcluéed ID. tr.4e 3c-ounts but is described in"the-' wst2 anpual Expendlture and Llabilities DeTerred income No maKerpal Itam .?r deTerred income is included ,,n the accounts. Creditors The charity owes C4rij". or accounting Jrtsparation. Assets 1 angible r5xed assets The char,ty has io angibie nxed as>ets at rir¢>sent. ',ntangiDle Cixed Asse's The rhav.ty b.as intangible fixed assets at pr%Ksent.