2024-03-31-accounts - The Family Centre (Deaf Children)

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Filename: Family Centre Accounts 2024.pdf Client of: Haines Watts

Signature Details

Name:	Neil Curry

Email:	neil@fcdc.org.uk

Date & Time:	24/07/2024 09:22:12 AM (BST)

IP Address:	90.201.89.89

Signing Statement:	Neil Curry agrees and approves the contents of this document.

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REGISTERED CHARITY NUMBER: 1196287

REPORT OF THE TRUSTEES AND UNAUDITED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2024 FOR THE FAMILY CENTRE (DEAF CHILDREN)

THE FAMILY CENTRE (DEAF CHILDREN)

Contents of the Financial Statements FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2024

	Page
Report of the Trustees	1 to 6
Independent Examiner’s Report	7
Statement of Receipts and Payments	8
Statement of Assets and Liabilities	9
Notes to the Financial Statements	10

THE FAMILY CENTRE (DEAF CHILDREN)

Report of the Trustees FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2024

The Trustees present their report with the financial statements of the charity for the period ended 31 March 2024.

REFERENCE AND ADMINISTRATIVE DETAILS

Registered Charity number

1196287

Other Charity name

FCDC

Principal address

Elmfield School Upper Horfield Sheridan Road Bristol BS7 0PU

Trustees

Neil Curry Chair/Treasurer Sonya Brewer Secretary Laura Hunter Trustee (resigned 25 November 2023) Sarah Evans Trustee Stephen Thompson Trustee Hattie Axford Trustee (appointed 19 February 2024)

During this period Laura Hunter stood down as Trustees after 5 years of service as a Trustee and many years as a parent of a hearing impaired child.

Bankers

Cater Allen 9 Nelson Street Bradford BD1 5AN

STRUCTURE, GOVERNANCE AND MANAGEMENT Governing Document

The charity is managed by a Constitution, as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) which was approved by the Chairity Commission on 27 October 2021. The Constitution is accepted as current or updated as necessary for the AGM which took place on 25 November 2023.

The Office Manager, Helen Davies, was recruited in January 2021, and the Activities and Events Co-Ordinator, Megan Wall, was recruited in November 2022. Both have been a great success and since the transition out of Covid lockdown, our activities and events have grown in attendance and frequency. Megan, with her contacts with the Deaf Community through family connections, has been a huge success in breaching any bridges between the “D and d” deaf community.

THE FAMILY CENTRE (DEAF CHILDREN)

Report of the Trustees FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2024

STRUCTURE, GOVERNANCE AND MANAGEMENT

Recruitment and appointment of new Trustees

Trustees are appointed at the AGM and serve for a term of 3 years, after which they may stand for re-election. The new constitution requires the Board of Trustees to consist of a minimum of 4 Trustees. Trustees used to be, what was classified as full members (full members being those who live with deafness in the family who are paid members of the charity). Following adoption of the CIO Constitution, FCDC no longer has paid members. In addition, Trustees, as experts with relevant skills to offer, can be invited on to the Trustee Board if this would be of further benefit to FCDC. These Trustees would then step down at the next AGM and could offer themselves up for election. Sub-committees can also be formed when required. Going forward we continue to look to invite professionals to support Trustee meetings to improve the skills matrix of the Board. This has resulted in Sarah Evans (specialist teacher of deaf children) being invited by Trustees to join the Trustee meetings in May 2021, to bring wider knowledge and support to the charity, and recently Hattie Axford, an experienced Mental Health Occupational Therapist, with specific experience working in deaf mental health services, currently in the National Deaf Child and Adolescent (NDCAMHS) team. She joined as a Trustee in February 2024. The remaining Trustees agreed to continue their roles as Trustees, the number now remaining at 5 Trustees.

OBJECTIVES AND ACTIVITIES

The objectives of the CIO are:

To reduce isolation, increase socialisation and strengthen links with the community of deaf children and their families.
To develop children’s deaf identity, self confidence and self-esteem.
To improve deaf awareness within families and the community.

The promotion of social inclusion and the provision of education among deaf children and their families in Bristol and the surrounding area, who may be excluded from society, or parts of society, as a result of being deaf (where deaf is defined as mild to profound hearing loss.

We have further developed our aims to be:

To help enable parents, carers, deaf children, hearing sibling and Children of Deaf Adults (CODA’s) find friends. Specifically:

To improve family cohesion within the families of deaf children.
To improve communication methods within families.
To develop children’s deaf identity, self-confidence, and self-esteem.
To reduce isolation, increase socialisation and strengthen links within the community of deaf children and their families.
To improve deaf awareness within families and the community.

Significant Activities:

As COVID restrictions have ceased we are now fully up and running with our activities, attendance is back or increased on pre-COVID numbers and we now provide many more activities than pre COVID.

Summary of main activities in relation to the objects of the charity are:

To provide a base for families and carers of deaf children to discuss, to meet, to interact freely with professionals and to have access to materials, information and training as required.
For deaf children to find peers to share experiences and find support to help promote personal identity and confidence.
For siblings of deaf children and children of deaf adults to find similar others to help promote personal identity and share experiences.
To work in conjunction with other agencies and providers of services for the benefit of families with deaf children.
To provide some support, including BSL courses to help with communication within deaf families.
To promote, encourage or otherwise undertake organised research into the effects of deafness and the family, and to publish the useful results of such research.

THE FAMILY CENTRE (DEAF CHILDREN)

Report of the Trustees FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2024

Significant Activities (continued)

To arrange public meetings, lectures, conferences and seminars for the consideration and discussion of problems arising out of childhood deafness and the family.
To promote and encourage the education and training of professionals, students and other persons for the furtherance of the education and support of the families of deaf children.
To raise funds and to invite and receive contribution from any person or persons or body corporate by way of subscription, covenant, donation, affiliation fees, legacies, grants or otherwise to assist in fulfilling the purpose of the charity.

Public benefit

The Trustees confirm that they have complied with their duty under the Charities Act 2011 to have due regard to the Charity Commission's guidance on public benefit when planning and reviewing the objectives and activities of The Family Centre (Deaf Children).

ACHIEVEMENT AND PERFORMANCE

A large proportion of Trustee time and effort during second half of this period was spent trying to secure the financial security of the charity. Applications to major charitable funding providers were made with the assistance of an outside consultant. Although this was an allowable expense (agreed by the National Lottery), it was very successful in that we have achieved another major funding grant from the National Lottery. This award was communicated to us at the end of this reporting period. It is for 3 years and tapers off for the last 2 years but requires significant additional grant funding from other sources to maintain the integrity of our activities. Nevertheless, this gives us significant finance to secure our future out to 2029. Our previous National Lottery Community Fund Grant finished as planned in Mar 2024 and a final report to the National Lottery was submitted and accepted. In addition, just outside this period in April 2024 we became aware that Children in Need would be awarding us a sizeable grant to also support us for the next 3 years. In addition, we secured two separate Grants from Quartet Foundation. These were great achievements and have allowed us to plan for the future in the knowledge of our financial security for the next 4 or 5 years.

The National Lottery and Children in Need Grants were made to secure our Core Funding of staff, resources and major administrative expenditure. This allows us the ability to source other Grant Funder to fund individual or specific activities. Such as:

Monthly coffee morning/support network for families supported by trained counsellor, space for workshops, talks, informal networking and advice between parents and professionals and opportunity for children to meet similar others in relaxed space;
Family days out and seasonal parties, during school holidays and weekends to further support networking with similar others;
Specialist support for deaf families at home, for those struggling with communication within the family;
• Introductory BSL courses for any deaf family;
Appropriate accessible outdoor activities for deaf children and their siblings providing the chance to meet similar others have fun, try out new activities, while improving confidence and wellbeing.;
Counselling support to individual parents/carers and young people;
Play Therapy to individual children;
Parent/carer well-being workshops;
In person and Zoom BSL courses;
A wide range of social and recreational activities for children, and for families including Family days out and seasonal parties;
A group for teenagers which is increasingly self-run;
Avon Fire & Rescue (Free home safety checks & free deaf fire alarms); and
• Targeted activities in diverse communities.

The provision of Core Funding allows us to expand on these activities and seek more support for additional activities as the need arises.

THE FAMILY CENTRE (DEAF CHILDREN)

Report of the Trustees

FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2024

The benefit of the Lottery Community Fund grant has enabled us to have achieved a remarkable increase in attendance at events:

Period of Activity	FCDC membership: Number of families	Number of individuals
2020- 2021	50	200
2021- 2022	117 (67 joined)	468(268 joined)
2022- 2023	162 (45 joined)	617(149 joined)
2023- 2024	211 (53 joined)	815(198 joined)

Of the 1,569 number of people engaged in 2023-2024, there were;

672 adults
548 Deaf children
28 CODAs
321 hearing siblings.

This illustrates how the charity is growing from strength to strength and is becoming a tangible asset to the South West community and we also take part in quarterly Bristol Council community support meetings.

BSL courses still take place via Zoom with very positive feedback and this allows much more flexible attendance and also allows more attendance due to additional family members can now attend. Improvements to Zoom teaching is that the teaching is supplemented by a face to face session at the beginning of the course, which helps in student familiarity and eases any apprehension and anxiety.

Our counsellor has been available either face-to-face or via online for all families who would benefit from informal support or more professional advice. All further one to one counselling took place, based on a clinical assessment need, and whether funding is available. This service has been extensively used and its frequency of requests is testament to its success. It is very much funding dependant and we are continually seeking funding for this service to continue.

	Engaged in 1-2-1 counselling	Counselling hours offered	Number completed counselling	Number ongoing
		(6x online Group sessions)
2020 - 2021	6	37	3	3
2021- 2022	8	54	3	5
2022- 2023	9	75	4	2
2023- 2024	3	28	2	1

Partnership Working

The Family Centre has developed a range of partnerships and collaborations that enable staff to share knowledge and resources with other organisations. This enables all agencies to extend their offers to families and to deaf children: joint working brings cost benefits as well as a wider range of options for members. The Family Centre developed many of these new collaborative projects listening to members. Examples include:

Identifying the need for new projects including Family Sign, Play Therapy, Parent/Carer wellbeing workshops, KS3+ Activities/workshops, Coffee/Family mornings in disadvantaged areas.
Working with Bristol City Council, the Sensory Support Service, Elmfield School for Deaf Children, and the deaf community to help develop bespoke Family Sign Language, and producing videos which are accessible to all. They focus on the actual BSL an average family would need. These are Bristol specific.
Staff have been trained to restructure the website to add new BSL accessible content.

THE FAMILY CENTRE (DEAF CHILDREN)

Report of the Trustees FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2024

Working with Avon and Somerset Fire and Rescue so that Centre families can be referred for home safety visits. These include a fire safety check, advice on home fire safety, and the testing and fitting of new deaf smoke alarms.
Working with Unique Voice, Children's Scrapstore and Children's Kitchen, to develop and provide summer holiday cookery and craft packs.
Organising events in collaboration with a wide range of organisations in Bristol including with:
Little Hands
Bristol Deaf Children’s Society
Trinity Centre Music
The Flying Seagull Project
Boing! Soft Play
Bannerman Road Children’s Community Centre
Bristol Life Skills Centre
The Square Food Foundation, Community Kitchen
Circus Starr
Blue Sky Tennis Foundation
Bristol Family Cycle Centre
Bristol Deaf Youth Club
Centre for Deaf and Hard of Hearing
St Marys Redcliffe
Avon Valley Railway
Hearing dogs for Deaf people
Great Western Railway
Lawrence Weston Community Farm
Golden Hill Community Garden
SENDSenses
Cube
Bristol Rovers - Youth disability football
Deaf Studies Trust

Staff

The Family Centre employed two staff on contracted hours; Helen Davies (Office Manager) contracted to 33hrs/week, Marcella Wyatt (Events Co-Ordinator) contracted to 32hrs/week. As part of the funding provided by the National Lottery we will be recruiting a Funding and Development officer on a 24hrs/week basis to maintain our recent funding achievements.

Operations

Elmfield School as a whole closed from its premises on Greystoke Avenue and moved to a new building extension to Upper Horfield School in Horfield. The new school opened in September 2023 and FCDC moved with the school. We are now operating from a new office with the school and the move went smoothly without affecting any activities of the charity. Operations continue to be run well within the limited resources that we have and with all restrictions being lifted the staff have worked tirelessly to build up our events activity base. The office staff have ensured that Policies and Procedures are being revised, improved and registered appropriately.

Governance

We had our AGM taking place during this period on 25 November 2023. Trustee meetings continued to take place at 4 weekly intervals. These continue take place via Zoom and this has resulted in easing the burden of Trustees to attend meetings.

THE FAMILY CENTRE (DEAF CHILDREN)

Report of the Trustees FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2024

FINANCIAL REVIEW

Gift Aid

The Charity registered with HMRC for Gift Aid on 6 March 2024 and this registration was backdated by HMRC to 27 October 2021, the date of the new Charity Registration number.

Reserves policy

Over the last few years, to allow for operations to continue, our reserves had been slowly depleted. Our recent income from activities has resulted in us being able to build up our reserves to cover any unexpected costs and during this period we built up our reserves to 3 months’ worth of full activity expenditure as a reserve amount which equates to almost 5 months of reduced activity or base expenditure. This provided a measure of comfort during the transition from the old Lottery grant funding ending and the new Lottery grant funding commencing. Although a slight gap in income occurred, our reserves more than provide the necessary finance for activities to continue unabated. Cash reserves of £36,643 were held as at 31 March 2024 (2023: £50,537).

Each activity generates a small income through donations from families and small donations and some unrestricted funds are received from both individuals and organisations throughout the year.

Contracted staff are currently on fixed term contracts and while we rent office space, we can keep unexpected costs to a minimum.

With a Development and Fundraising officer in post we aim to maximise our fundraising potential to continue to secure our future.

Approved by order of the Board of Trustees and signed on its behalf by:

Chair/Treasurer – Neil Curry Date:

Independent Examiner’s Report to the Trustees of The Family Centre (Deaf Children)

I report to the Charity Trustees on my examination of the accounts of the charity for the year ended 31 March 2024 which are set out on pages 8 to 10.

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 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 examiner's statement

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

accounting records were not kept in respect of the charity as required by section 130 of the Act; or 2. the accounts do not accord with those records

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.

Andrew Jordan FCA Haines Watts Chartered Accountants Bath House 6-8 Bath Street Bristol BS1 6HL

Date

THE FAMILY CENTRE (DEAF CHILDREN)

STATEMENT OF RECEIPTS AND PAYMENTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2024

2024 Unrestricted Restricted Total funds funds funds £ £ £ RECEIPTS Event income, donations and subscriptions 11,732 - 11,732 Grants 73,290 - 73,290 Transfer from previous charity entity - - - Interest received 223 - 223 TOTAL RECEIPTS 85,245 - 85,245 PAYMENTS Event charges 18,516 561 19,077 Office costs 4,553 - 4,553 Purchase of equipment 728 450 1,178 Governance 816 - 816 Staff costs 56,421 904 57,325 Consultancy fees 15,507 - 15,507 Other support costs 473 - 473 TOTAL PAYMENTS 97,014 1,915 98,929 NET OF RECEIPTS/(PAYMENTS) (11,769) (1,915) (13,684) Transfers between funds - - - Total funds brought forward 48,412 1,915 50,327 TOTAL FUNDS CARRIED FORWARD 36,643 - 36,643	2023 Total funds £ 8,356 109,935 37,120 43
	155,454
	26,094 4,341 870 720 72,610 - 537
	105,127
	50,327 - -
	50,327

THE FAMILY CENTRE (DEAF CHILDREN)

STATEMENT OF ASSETS AND LIABILITIES FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2024

Unrestricted Restricted funds funds £ £ CURRENT ASSETS Cash funds - Cater Allen ending 6730 3,011 - Cash funds - Cater Allen ending 0972 7,205 - Cash funds - Scottish Widows account 26,392 - Cash funds - Paypal account 35 - NET ASSETS 36,643 - FUNDS Unrestricted funds Restricted funds TOTAL FUNDS	2024 2023 Total Total funds funds £ £ 3,011 1,765 7,205 29,712 26,392 18,674 35 176 36,643 50,537 36,643 48,412 - 1,915 36,643 50,537

The financial statements were approved by the Board of Trustees and were signed on its behalf by:

Chair/Treasurer – Neil Curry

Date …………………………

1. ACCOUNTING POLICIES

THE FAMILY CENTRE (DEAF CHILDREN)

NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2024

Basis of Accounting

The Financial Statements have been prepared in accordance with the Charities Act 2011.

The Financial Statements are drawn up on the Receipts and Payments basis of accounting. All donations and other income are therefore accounted for when received and all expenditure is accounted for when paid.

Fund accounting

Restricted funds comprise amounts received for special purposes and used for those purposes during the year or held for those purposes at the balance sheet date. The use of donations and grants received for a specific purpose is restricted to that purpose. Restricted funds of £1,915 were brought forward and spent in the year.

2. RESTRICTED FUNDS

Quartet Community Fund	Balance brought forward Receipts in period Payments in period Transfers Balance carried forward 1,915 - 1,915 - -
	1,195 - 1,915 - -

The Quartet Community Fund was received from the Quartet Community Foundation ring-fenced for counselling activities.

3. UNRESTRICTED FUNDS

General Fund	Balance brought forward Receipts in period Payments in period Transfers Balance carried forward 48,412 85,245 97,014 - 36,643
	48,412 85,245 97,014 - 36,643

4. TRUSTEES’ RENUMERATION AND BENEFITS

The Trustees all give freely of their time and expertise.

During the period to 31 March 2024, payment was made for website services to Digital Grapevine, owned by trustee Laura Hunter. Payments totalled £1,365 (2023: £528).

Trustees’ expenses

During the year 1 Trustee had their expenses reimbursed by the Charity. Expenses of £9 (2023: £8) were paid for postage.