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2025-03-31-accounts

Our impact 2024/25

The Children’s Society’s impact and annual report, and financial statements

a pe ho you are as

The young people and practitioners’ stories featured in this report are true but names and identifying details have been changed to protect them. All photographs have been posed by actors.

The Children’s Society is a trading name of The Church of England Children’s Society. Charity no: 221124 Company no: 40004

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Our impact 2024/25
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The Children’s Society

Our impact 2024/25

Contents

nts
Young trustees’ introduction
Chair and CEO’s introduction		 6
8
Our year in review 10
Working with young people 10
Working with parents and carers 11
Youth voice 11
Working for change 11
Building a movement 12
Our fnances 12
Where we work 12
Section A: Background 14
1 The need for our work 14
2 How we create impact 16
Our approach to understanding our impact 17
Section B: Our activities and impact 2024/25 18
1 Our direct support 18
Overview 18
Our direct support fgures at a glance 18
Early support 20
Overview 20
Early support at a glance 20
Spotlight: RISE 21
Anthony’s story 23
Conclusion 23
Responding to risk 24
Overview 24
Responding to risk at a glance 24
Spotlight: our services working with those impacted
by domestic violence and abuse 25
Conor’s story 27
Conclusion 27
2 Our systems change work and its impact 28
Overview 28
Service-led systems change reach, 2024/25 28
Political infuencing activities, 2024/25 28
Spotlight: Action Before Crisis 29
Spotlight: Household Support Fund 30
Spotlight: National Wellbeing Measurement 30
3 Bringing things together 32
Overview 32
Direct support: our open-access, early support hubs 34
Local systems change 34
National policy: Mental Health Support Teams 35
Building the evidence base 35
4 Building a movement 36
Overview 36
Building a movement fgures at a glance, 2024/25 36
Showcasing 37
Supporter story 38
Driving lasting change 38

Section C: Looking to the future 40 Our impact going forward 40 Our future impact in numbers 41 Our impact fund 41 Time for young people, Newham 42 Our new service: Space to grow 43 Our future growth and major appeal 44 United in our mission 44 Section D: Financial review 46 1 Income 46 2 Expenditure 47 3 Fixed assets 47 4 Investments 47 5 Cash and working capital 48 6 Reserves 48 Unrestricted funds 48 Designated funds 48 Pension reserve 49 Restricted funds 49 Endowment funds 49 Section E: Governance and management 50 1 Governance compliance and information 50 1.1 Legal status and objectives 50 1.2 Public benefit 50 1.3 The board of trustees 50 1.4 Delegation and committees 51 1.5 Section 172 (1) Statement 52 1.6 Young trustees 53 2 Social 54 2.1 Modern slavery 54 2.2 Safeguarding children, young people, and vulnerable adults 54 2.3 Our people 55 3 Wider governance 63 3.1 Youth voice 63 3.2 Supporter engagement and fundraising 64 3.3 Principal risks and uncertainties 65 3.4 Protecting the environment 66 3.5 General data protection regulation 68 Section F: Statement of responsibilities 69 Section G: Independent auditors’ report 70 Section H: Financial statements 74 Section I: Notes to the financial statements 78 Section J: Corporate information 108 Honorary lifetime membership 113 Thank you to our supporters 114 Glossary 117 Endnotes 119

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The Children’s Society

Our impact 2024/25

Young trustees’ introduction

Welcome to this year’s annual impact report

As young trustees, our number having now grown to seven, we participate in the governance of The Children’s Society and are excited to share with you what we’ve been up to in the last year. Having various experience levels, we support each other, ensuring that young people are kept at the heart of everything The Children’s Society does. By having our say as young trustees, we influence decisions that are made and the way things are done, so the impact that The Children’s Society has on the wider world has young people at its heart.

We all get involved in different organisational projects, ensuring that young people’s different perspectives have an impact across the charity. In this past year, we have:

One project that really stands out for us in the last year is our work on the Good Childhood Report 2024, where we were involved in shaping the policy recommendations that went with the report. We attended workshops where we shared our views on what problems young people are facing, and we learned about the different perspectives and backgrounds of other young people in the workshops. The research and policy teams at The Children’s Society then used our views to help them decide on the best ways to improve and adapt the bigger systems in place so that those systems work better for all young people in the long run.

Over the next year, we are determined to keep on making an impact at The Children’s Society, in lots of different ways. We will be interviewing for a Chair of the Trustee Board. Not just by being there in the interviews, but by being involved in planning, constructing questions, and, creating scenarios for them, as well as in having a say in appointing the successful candidate. We will continue to hold trustees accountable, to make sure they hear young people’s voices and our views on what to prioritise. With the most senior members of the organisation interacting with us, they have a chance to hear from the community they’re also serving and be more aware of young people’s needs.

We are champions for young people, who are in positions where our voices can be heard, so that we can advocate for those whose voices aren’t. We will continue to spread The Children’s Society’s message of hope, showing young people they’re not alone and there’s light at the end of the tunnel. The world is forever changing and we will keep on helping The Children’s Society understand things from young people’s points of view, so the work it does can have the best possible impact.

Written by Brogan, Cree, Esther, James, Jo, Muna, and Rose – young trustees

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The Children’s Society

Our impact 2024/25

Chair and CEO’s introduction

It is a privilege for us to introduce The Children’s Society’s annual impact report for 2024/25. Over the past year, this extraordinary organisation has continued to make a difference to the lives of thousands of children and young people across the country.

to transform children’s wellbeing for good. Too many children wait too long for the support they need, yet we know that the earlier we support young people, the better their outcomes – and we reduce the likelihood they will need further support in the future. Central to our strategy has been the development of early support hubs, and our first such hub, Time for young people, opened in Newham in September 2024. This amazing space has been designed with local young people and is already helping hundreds of children and families in east London.

We are very proud of our incredible services which support young people with their wellbeing, working alongside those who need it most – for example victims of criminal and sexual exploitation or domestic abuse, or those impacted by parental and teenage substance misuse. Our Young Carers festival, working in partnership with our friends at YMCA Fairhorne, continues to give this group of remarkable young people space to have fun and share their voice about what needs to change.

Our ambitious strategy, powered by the major appeal, is to build a network of these hubs across the UK, and build a strong, demonstrable case that early support changes children’s lives. We were encouraged by The Children’s Society being awarded £1 million from BBC Children in Need, the largest single grant they have ever made. This will enable us to roll out our new Space to grow early support for children aged 8 to 11 years. Significantly this is our first UKwide project, and we are thrilled to work with our partners Children First in Scotland and MACS in Northern Ireland. The scale and reach of our ambition marks a pivotal moment for our organisation, and our team is deeply motivated by the opportunity to drive lasting, systemic change for children across the UK.

The Children’s Society has set an audacious goal: that by 2030 we will have overturned the damaging decline in children’s wellbeing, setting a path for long lasting growth. Yet our 13th Good Childhood Report published in August 2024 showed a continued decline in children’s wellbeing. In fact, it included the sobering finding that, according to OECD Pisa data[1] , British teenagers have the lowest wellbeing in Europe. We had significant media and press coverage due to the shocking story our report was telling. In this past year, alongside the Good Childhood Report 2024, we also published our Action before Crisis report[2] outlining the key policy changes we believe are needed to truly shift the dial for children.

Alongside Barnardo’s, NSPCC, Action for Children and National Children’s Bureau, we continued our work with the Children’s Charities Coalition to improve our engagement with all the political parties during the 2024 General Election. We have been encouraged by the political engagement we have since had with Downing Street and the key Secretaries of State and ministers, and by our opportunities to influence policy and practice.

Our focus, as articulated in that 2030 goal, has never been more important, and so in September of 2024 the board of trustees approved a refresh to our strategy for the second half of this decade. Central to our ambition is the public launch in 2026 of a major appeal to raise more income – to increase our reach and grow our campaign

A number of changes we have campaigned for to improve safeguarding were included in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill (currently going through Parliament), along with provisions to tighten the law affecting school uniform costs, something we have campaigned on for many years. Our call for a national measurement of children’s wellbeing has also gained traction, with a growing movement of partners and supporters joining us in this important venture. Our work to call for new criminal offences around child criminal exploitation was included in the Crime and Policing Bill (also going through Parliament). Still, there remains much to keep pressing the Government on, not least the urgent need to address the shocking rises in child poverty.

The Children’s Society has been a proud member of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) Changemakers group which is a coalition of over 60 charities committed to campaigning to ensure the final recommendations of the IICSA are implemented. In the autumn, we had a positive meeting with the new Safeguarding Minister, who has indicated the Government will shortly publish a roadmap to implement these recommendations.

Rt Revd Libby Lane Chair of Trustees

This year, Diana Noble CBE stepped down as Chair of Trustees, and we thank her for her commitment to The Children’s Society. The board appointed Bishop Libby Lane, from among the trustees, to be Chair of the Board for this year. We are very grateful to all our trustees, our committee members, and our young trustees for all they bring to our governance.

We are very conscious that our work is only possible because we have a truly outstanding team of staff and volunteers, and we are powered by the support of thousands of people and communities across the country. Their support, their encouragement, their generosity, is deeply appreciated. We particularly thank the thousands of parishes and members of The Church of England whose dedication is earthed in their faith, and their vision for a better world for every child.

This annual impact report outlines some of the progress this truly remarkable organisation has made over the last twelve months. We are strengthened by this, and emboldened to do more in the second half of this decade. Life is too hard for too many children. Our work has never been more urgent or more necessary.

Mark Russell Chief Executive

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The Children’s Society

Our impact 2024/25

Our year in review, 2024/25

At The Children’s Society, we work to transform children and young people’s lives. We support those experiencing low wellbeing, we are there for those experiencing harm such as abuse, which includes exploitation, and we fight for children and families to have access to financial assistance when they are facing challenges. We provide intensive support when it is needed, we raise awareness of the issues children and young people face, and we work to make the systems surrounding children and young people better. Together, we create positive impact for children and young people, so that they can feel hopeful again.

We ran 77 services for children, young people, and their families. Our services focus on providing early support and responding to risk . Early support services work with children and young people before challenges arise, or early on, preventing the need for more intensive support later. Our services responding to risk help children and young people who have already experienced more significant difficulties so they can process their experiences and recover.

Working with young people

Through these, we worked with a total of 57,652 children and young people. This included:

Ԏ supporting 52,025 through early support services

Ԏ supporting 5,627 through our services responding to risk

We reached 48,189 children and young people through events.

We supported 9,463 children and young people through one-to-one sessions and small group work. Of these:

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17 174
4312 4926
34
936
587
606
463
6624
247
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Figure 1. Breakdown by gender, ethnicity, and age of the young people supported through one-to-one work and in small groups.

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Gender
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Female Intermediate Male Non-binary Unknown

Ethnicity

Asian/Asian British Black/Black British Mixed/multiple ethnic groups Not Stated / Unknown, Information not yet obtained Other ethnic groups White British

Figure 1. (cont.)

Working with parents and carers

Youth voice

Working for change

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1400
Breakdown by age [3] 1214
1200 1108
1030
1000 899
857
762
800
626
600
457
361 371
400 310
234210
191
167 180149129
200 100
71
1 2 4 5 20
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24
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We also worked with 3,547 parents and carers:

2024

Ԏ Reaching 1,948 through events.

2025

We continued to build youth voice into all our work across The Children’s Society – including through our young trustees and their involvement in our governance and recruitment processes. We supported children and young people in 359 dedicated youth voice activities such as participation group sessions within services, interviews with our storytelling team, and events with policy, advocacy, and influencing colleagues.

We continued our efforts to make the wider systems surrounding children and young people work better, calling on the government to provide early support for children and young people’s mental health, better protection from harm and abuse, and a commitment to end child poverty.

In the last year, we worked with 15,856 professionals, enabling them to better support children and young people at risk of abuse and harm or struggling with low wellbeing. Through our services we also ran 1,318 awareness raising events with professionals.

Last year we published our thirteenth Good Childhood Report – our annual, state-of-the-nation report on children’s wellbeing in the UK, which draws on data from Understanding Society[4] and our own annual Household Survey. For our 2024 report we gathered insights from 2,056 children and young people aged 10 to 17 years, sharing these far and wide – for example with practitioners and with the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted). Our young trustees contributed to the development of our policy recommendations which followed the 2024 Good Childhood Report, ensuring that youth voice was at the heart of this advocacy work.

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The Children’s Society

Our impact 2024/25

We had 77,307 supporters last year, who generously gave their time and money and who spoke out for change for young people.

a Building movement

We achieved 5,125 pieces of media coverage, with 19.2 billion potential opportunities to view.

Over 2,200 retail volunteers supported The Children’s Society in our shops and e-commerce services, and we welcomed 460 new volunteers across the organisation.

Our finances

Figure 2. Financial performance 2024/25 and 2023/24.

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50
2024/25
45
2024/25 2023/24
2023/24
£000 £000 40
Total income 42,080 40,307 35
Total expenditure (42,981) (42,506)
30
Net income (901) (2,199)
25
Total funds 45,064 45,965
20
Funds represented by
Unrestricted 30,120 30,685 15
Restricted 1,619 1,500
10
Endowments 13,325 13,780
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0
Total Total Net
income expenditure income
Income/expenditure
Annual spending (millions)
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Where we work

Figure 3. Map showing the distribution of The Children’s Society’s services across the country.

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Newcastle
Leeds
Manchester
Nottingham
Norwich
Birmingham
Gloucestershire
Chelmsford
London
Torquay
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The Children’s Society

Our impact 2024/25

Section A: Background

1 The need for our work

To understand the context in which children and young people are growing up, we draw on a broad and robust evidence base. We monitor official datasets, review the latest research on childhood experiences, and carry out our own research and analysis. What all this evidence reveals is deeply troubling: while many children and young people are flourishing, significant numbers continue to face enormous challenges.

Children and young people’s wellbeing is declining . Our analysis for the 2024 Good Childhood Report showed:

Other research[9] reminds us that while the Covid-19 pandemic may be a distant memory for some, it continues to shape the lives and wellbeing of many children and young people in the UK: 44% of 17- to 18-year-olds experienced ‘high psychological distress’ in the years following the onset of the pandemic. That’s a considerable rise from 35% in 2017.[10]

Our children and young people deserve better.

As well as monitoring children and young people’s wellbeing, we aim to understand the factors that affect it, to help us identify how we can provide the most effective support. Looking at evidence of these drivers of wellbeing, we can see that some of the key systems for enabling a good childhood are simply not working well enough, putting children and young people at significant risk of poor life outcomes.

For example, evidence suggests that there are strong links between being out of school and the risk of harm[11] – including being exploited, which at least 29,610 children and young people experienced in the year to March 2024.[12] Worryingly, the number of children and young people not in school has risen significantly:

Home and family relationships are also crucial for shaping children and young people’s lives and wellbeing, and relevant evidence shows similar cause for concern:

Cutting across all of these issues, poverty remains a persistent and growing threat, shaping the lives and limiting the opportunities of a growing number of children and young people. According to official data, in the year to March 2024:

The evidence paints a stark picture, and it would be easy to feel disheartened. But, as an organisation, we remain steadfast in our hope for a better life and improved futures for children and young people. We are determined to grow our impact with and for young people, fully committed to our ultimate goal to reverse the long-term decline in children’s wellbeing and create lasting, systemic change. We will continue to:

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The Children’s Society

Our impact 2024/25

2 How we create impact

There is more demand for our support than The Children’s Society can provide, given the challenging context we operate in and the ambition of our goal. To have the impact we know children and young people deserve, we work in three main ways:

  1. Through our services and programmes, we provide direct support to children, young people and their families, incorporating:

  1. We build a movement of supporters, partners and allies, which enables us to do both our direct and systems change work.

Our supporters and partners are crucial in our endeavours to achieve positive impact for children and young people, offering their time, money and voice in alignment with our goal. They come from all walks of life and a range of ages, and support us in so many ways – in our charity shops, at fundraising events, through campaigns, across media platforms and in local communities. They raise awareness of the issues children and young people face, and help us raise vital funds to help us achieve our goal.

By providing support early, or before challenges arise in a child or young person’s life, we prevent them from requiring more intense support later, for example for their mental health or with the risks associated with abuse and harm.

However, sadly, some children and young people have already experienced significant challenges in their lives when we meet them. We provide services to help them process, recover and move on from the trauma they have experienced or are experiencing.

Whether our direct support is in the form of early support or responding to risk, it is a vital part of our work to overturn the damaging decline in children’s wellbeing.

  1. We work to change the systems that shape the context of children and young people’s lives, affecting their life chances and wellbeing. This ‘systems change’ work operates at two levels:

  2. Ԏ the local level – working in partnerships to influence professionals and processes (such as with other third sector organisations, policing, education, health, and children’s social care) and encouraging an inclusive and youth-centred approach to working practices

  3. Ԏ the national level – encouraging government policy makers and political decision makers to design and implement an infrastructure that works well for children and young people, especially the most vulnerable.

Underpinning our local and national systems change work is our drive to shift public attitudes and narratives, so that children and young people are truly valued in society and supported to become the best they can be.

Our work is also underpinned by two core principles ;

Ԏ to take a ‘test and learn’ approach, progressing new initiatives, continually learning and developing through our work

We believe that when we approach our work with a curious and reflective mindset, learning and listening to what children and young people tell us – about their experiences, about our services and about how they perceive and experience the world around them – we live our values in everything we do:

We are brave , we are ambitious , we are supportive and we are trusted .

Our approach to understanding our impact

Over the past year, we have remained firmly focused on deepening our understanding of the difference we make in the lives of children and young people. This work is essential: it allows us to assess what is working well, understand how and why we achieve positive change, and identify where we can do better.

At the heart of this approach is a commitment to accountability – not just to our funders, donors, and supporters, but above all to the children, young people, and families we exist to serve. They deserve robust, transparent evidence that our approach is delivering the positive change they are entitled to.

Our impact measurement work centres on reviewing and interpreting outcomes to build the insight we need to improve our effectiveness. This involves listening carefully to practitioners and policy experts on the best methods for tracking children’s and young people’s journeys, as well as understanding shifts in practice, systems, and policy.

Our strong commitment to continuous improvement drives this work, guiding the ongoing refinement of our policies, strategies, and actions.

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The Children’s Society

Our impact 2024/25

Section B: Our activities and impact, 2024/25

1 Our direct support

Overview

Operating from hubs, youth centres, schools, and the community, we support children and young people to leave our services feeling stronger, better equipped to thrive, and confident in their ability to navigate life. We help them feel heard, valued, and included in decisions that shape their futures. We want them to see real progress in their lives, feel safe, and develop lasting self-awareness that they can nurture and continue to draw upon.

Our direct support figures at a glance

Children and young people

In the year up to March 2025, we ran 77 services,[23] directly supporting 57,652 children and young people, providing much-needed specialist support to help them through the difficulties they face.[24] This included:

We are proud that those children and young people who fed back their experiences of working with us rated us highly.

In 2024/25:

Of the 1,142 children and young people who told us about their experiences of our direct support:

Alongside these, we use other methods to understand the outcomes of our work. These tools not only help us assess our impact effectively, but also support children and young people to see the progress they are making throughout their journey with us. One such tool is My Wheel ,[26] which allows children and young people, together with their practitioner, to record and reflect on their journey of change as they move through a service.

Of the 446 children and young people who used our My Wheel outcomes tool:

Parents and carers

We also worked with 3,547 parents and carers through our direct services, helping them to provide the best support they can for the children and young people in their care. This included:

Young people’s voices

Through our youth voice activities, children and young people share their perspectives in workshops, participation groups and events to ensure The Children’s Society meets their needs.

Direct support approaches

Our direct work takes two main forms: early support services and services responding to risk .

We continue our efforts to improve response rates to our feedback surveys.

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The Children’s Society

Our impact 2024/25

Early support

Spotlight: RISE

Overview

Our early support services use tailored approaches, such as one-to-one therapy, youth work, group work in schools, and open access drop-in hubs in local community settings.

We shape our services in partnership with children and young people wherever we can. For example, in 2024/25, we established a participation group with five children and young people who met nine times, during which they developed video and written resources. They used these to help students in their school cope with difficult thoughts and feelings.

We always aim to provide safe and welcoming spaces for children and young people, so they can receive professional help without a lengthy referral process or a long wait.

RISE is a Mental Health Support Team that addresses the mild-to-moderate mental health needs of children and young people aged 5 to 18 years.

We deliver the service through schools and colleges across Newcastle and Gateshead, as part of the Newcastle Gateshead NHS and Department for Education Mental Health in Schools programme. RISE supports with a range of issues, including anxiety, exam stress, low mood, worry management, self-esteem, emotional literacy and regulation, and sleep hygiene.

RISE gives schools and colleges access to a dedicated Education Mental Health Practitioner, who is qualified to offer tailored support in three main ways:

Figures at a glance

In 2024/25, we ran 40 early support services, working with 52,025 children and young people. These included:

We also reached 2,446 parents and carers through our early support services:

The feedback from children and young people who used our early support services in the year to March 2025 shows that our work in this area is having a positive impact. Of the 578 who completed a feedback survey:

In 2024/25:

28,553 children and young people received support through RISE. Of these:

By taking this layered, whole school/college approach, our RISE service works with as many children and young people as possible, supporting them to understand, and feel more in control of, their emotions, and to build better mental health now and for the longer term.

“I liked when we learnt about NATS (negative thoughts). When I am stressed or thinking of something scary or I am dancing I can do breathing exercises like the one where you look around the room and try to find words which begin with that letter.”

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Our impact 2024/25

The Children’s Society

“I liked the stress bucket because just thinking of realising strategies that helps is very calming and mindful. I probably will use these strategies in the future when I am angry or I have so much to do.”

“I liked when we passed the ball to each other. I could kep mental health more calm and good. When I get angry I can do my breathing techniques to calm myself down.”

As well as supporting children and young people in schools, we provide early support through our community-based drop-in hubs. These offer support for children and young people who need a safe space with dedicated staff, where they can work through issues and challenges they are experiencing. Read Anthony’s story to learn about the profound impact our early support can have for children and young people as they try to navigate the difficulties of growing up in an increasingly complex world.

Anthony’s story

As a 14-year-old, Anthony was struggling in many areas of his life and was being bullied at school. After some students ‘outed’ him as gay without his consent, his self-esteem fell to an all-time low. When a new student support officer started at the school, they referred Anthony to a local mental health and wellbeing drop-in run by The Children’s Society. For most of Year 10, Anthony attended weekly, 30-minute sessions with a wellbeing practitioner. It was an opportunity for him to speak with someone safe, impartial and open to talking about whatever he needed to on any given day. Over time, he noticed that he was starting to feel less anxious and more able to cope with the challenges he was facing. Anthony found the support so valuable that now, aged 17 years, he uses his voice to advocate for other young people, helping to shape the work of The Children’s Society through one of our Youth Voice participation groups. This has helped Anthony feel confident expressing himself. He has learned skills and had experiences that he feels have helped shape who he is today.

“The Children’s Society se who you are as a person and not just another object that they have to overcome to get their job done. The way they listen is a big part of it... they bring things up in a sincere way and mould the materials they have around you, in a personalised way. They have resources with information to help you understand yourself better and exercises designed to soothe you... like breathing exercises that they would talk you through. They really listen and it’s very personalised.”

Conclusion

Our early support services support children and young people before or as soon as a concern arises, providing support with emotional health and wellbeing, and helping to prevent the risks of exploitation and harm. When we provide support early, we prevent problems getting worse and we set children and young people up with skills and strengths that they can draw on throughout their lives.

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The Children’s Society

Our impact 2024/25

Responding to risk

Overview

Too often, children and young people do not receive the early support they need. So our services that respond to risk of harm are an essential part of our provision, offering a crucial safety net in times of difficulty. These services are there for children, young people and their families when things are really tough.

Figures at a glance

Between April 2024 and March 2025, we ran 37 services responding to risk, working with 5,627 children and young people. These included:

We also reached 1,101 parents and carers through our services responding to risk:

The feedback from children and young people who used our services responding to risk in the year to March 2025 shows the successful impact these services have had. Of the 564 children and young people who completed a feedback survey:

Spotlight: our services working with those impacted by domestic violence and abuse

Between April 2024 and March 2025, we ran four services across the country to support children and young people impacted by domestic violence and abuse: Halton Resolve, Manchester Resolve, Greater Manchester ASSIST, and Resolve@ working in Torbay, Shropshire, Rochdale, and Merseyside.

While each of these services has a unique approach, they are united in their aim to ensure the safety of children and young people who have experienced domestic violence or abuse, and to help improve their emotional wellbeing and mental health. These services provide a safe, confidential, child-centred space for children, young people and their families to feel listened to and understood.

Experienced practitioners work together with children and young people using approaches such as art or play-based activities, worksheets, talking therapies, and trauma-focused approaches. They cover topics such as relationships, safety planning, identifying trusted adults and support networks, recognising feelings and developing coping strategies, confidence, and self-esteem.

In 2024/25:

879 children and young people were supported throughout our domestic violence and abuse services. Of these:

In addition, of the 879 children and young people supported by our domestic violence and abuse services across the country, 227 completed feedback surveys. 96% of these reported that they were satisfied with the support they received.

“It has felt like talking to a friend. It has helped me cope with different situations and identify emotions around these.”

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Our impact 2024/25

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The Children’s Society
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“I have enjoyed all the activities that involved art as this made me fel comfortable in the sessions. I enjoyed the self-portrait the most as the words we wrote around it has made me fel more confident about myself.”

“[Practitioner] has helped me a lot by listening to me and helping me with my worries. We made a plan that I had to use when things got scary at home. I fel more calm now and I know what to do when it gets scary at home.”

Conor’s story

Conor has learned the importance of looking after himself; sports, music and a relaxing environment at home all play a part in strengthening his own wellbeing, so that he can really be there for the children and young people he serves. But the work inspires him, growing his trust in the capacity of the human spirit to prevail:

Conor works as a counsellor at The Children’s Society, supporting children and young people who have been affected by domestic violence and abuse. His day-to-day work takes him out and about, travelling between schools and sometimes local children’s centres or libraries, going wherever he is needed to provide a safe, non-judgemental space for those he supports.

“[The work] has probably improved my overall inherent trust in people and in humanity generally, and the admiration for some of the resilience that people have as well.”

Conor takes a child-centred approach in his work, inspired by his favourite writer – the pioneering psychologist Irvin Yalom[30] – to create a comfortable and trusting environment in his sessions, always tailoring things for children and young people as individuals and the age group they are in. In his work with younger children, Conor uses sensory games and play therapy, with older children, he encourages them to lead with what they want to work on.

Conor is proud of what he does – knowing he has played a part in supporting children and young people to get better makes all the difficult bits worthwhile:

“When you’ve been able to play a really crucial role in someone rebuilding their life – and you can often see the visual effects, their demeanour just changes so much – it’s such a worthwhile thing to be doing.”

The heart of Conor’s work entails supporting children and young people to understand what they have experienced and to heal, as well as modelling a healthy, safe, respectful relationship in order to increase the chances of breaking the cycle of abuse. He also encourages young people to identify goals and work towards them with his support, and in this, he creates a safe space to think not only about surviving but about moving forward in life.

How does Conor know that the support he gives is having an impact? The evidence is there in the paperwork he completes with children and young people, as they track their journeys towards their goals. But he sees it too in the way a young person carries themselves, in the way their confidence grows, little by little, over time.

Sometimes the work can weigh heavy.

Conclusion

Over the past year, through our services responding to risk, we have supported thousands of children and young people through particularly challenging times, and we have seen first-hand the serious challenges many face growing up in the UK. Some have experienced violence and abuse inside or outside the home, and others have been exploited, or risk being exploited. Many have experienced low wellbeing. Yet we have also seen the positive impact that our support has had on overturning the effects of adverse experiences. This continues to drive the work we do, not only with individual children and young people, but also more broadly, to make the systems around them work better.

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2 Our systems change work and its impact

Overview

Our ‘systems change’ work is all about improving the wider services, institutions and policies affecting children and young people in the UK so that these too can positively impact their lives.

We work through our services and programmes to influence the professionals and systems around children and young people so that they can be more effective. And, by collaborating internally across our practice, research, and policy, advocacy and influencing teams, we use our knowledge to influence national government policy and raise awareness of the challenges that children and young people face, promoting more effective and sustainable systems to meet their needs.

Throughout 2024/25, we continued to develop and improve the way we track and evidence the impact of our systems change work. We are constantly evolving how we demonstrate impact in this area, and for this reporting year we provide high level reach figures from our local systems change work by services, and we report on activities relating to our national political influencing. In the upcoming year, we will continue to develop our approach to demonstrating the systemic impact of our activities.

Local systems change, 2024/25

National policy influencing, 2024/25

During the reporting period, our policy, advocacy and influencing leads have been busy establishing and maintaining relationships with professionals and policymakers through organising and attending policy events, advocating for children and young people at the highest levels. Here, we spotlight some examples of our work in this area.

Spotlight: Action Before Crisis

The Children’s Society’s Action Before Crisis campaign began following the General Election in summer 2024. The campaign was designed to amplify The Children’s Society’s calls to the new government – seeking assurances that they are committed to providing support early to children and young people, and that policies are designed to support mental health and wellbeing, to better protect children from harm, and to commit to ending child poverty.

As part of this campaign, 1,371 postcards were sent to 515 different MPs by The Children’s Society supporters, with a reach of 90% of MPs in England and Wales. By writing to MPs, our supporters conveyed a clear demand to Government: act to prevent children and young people being pulled into crisis and provide the resources to build a future in which children and young people can thrive.

Action Before Crisis followed our joint Children at the Table campaign bringing together the UK’s five leading children’s charities, with young people at the centre, to push for renewed consideration of children and young people in national decision-making. Our Children at the Table campaign also achieved significant impact in the last year – with 187 organisations part of the movement and 56.4 million views of #ChildrenAtTheTable across social media platforms as of December 2024, and the main political parties making significant commitments for children and young people in their manifestos.[31] In the autumn of 2024, we invited young people to have their voices heard at our joint Children at the Table Party Conference reception, with one young person reflecting:

“This was my favourite event that I have ben to representing The Children’s Society because there were so many important people who actually wanted to listen, and they fully supported everything we as young people were saying. It was very empowering to be there and speak; it has relit my passion to make a change in the world.”

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Spotlight: Household Support Fund

The Household Support Fund is a central source of financial support for households struggling to afford the basic costs of daily living. However, its future is not guaranteed. With our advocacy work and leadership of the Crisis Support Working Group,[32] The Children’s Society played a pivotal role in helping to secure extensions to this fund so that local authorities can continue to deliver vital emergency support to families facing financial crisis.

In September 2024, we helped secure an initial extension of the Household Support Fund until April 2025, which was followed by the announcement in the Autumn Budget of a further year’s funding, until April 2026. This has given local authorities the financial security to make funds available to families for this period. Building on our last five years of campaigning success in this area, during which we coordinated sector efforts to secure £5 billion of funding, we continue to call for this valuable form of support: for the Government to commit to long-term funding in the upcoming spending review.

Spotlight: National Wellbeing Measurement

Over the past year, The Children’s Society has amplified our campaign for a national measurement of children’s wellbeing. Since the establishment of our Good Childhood Report, we have repeatedly called for the Government to introduce a national programme to measure children’s wellbeing, so that local and national policies to improve children’s wellbeing can be based on robust evidence. After publishing our report A national roadmap to a good childhood in 2024, which called for this once again, we jointly set up the coalition Our Wellbeing, Our Voice with other leaders in this space.

In the last year, through this coalition:

Towards a better future: Achieving systemic change is a long-term endeavour. We will continue to pursue our mission to create lasting, positive change – so that every child in the UK has the best possible chance to thrive.

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3 Bringing things together: early support for wellbeing

Our direct support is enhanced by our systems change work with professionals and policy makers. It enables us to deliver greater impact for and with children and young people by bringing together the rich learning from our services and programmes with our policy, advocacy and influencing, and research teams, to shape local practice and national policy. This year we’re pleased to report on our growing portfolio of early support services which support wellbeing, as an example of this joined up working.

Local systems change

To make sure that children and young people have the support they need in their communities, The Children’s Society builds relationships with other professionals, for example in other third sector organisations, the NHS, police, local authorities, and local community groups and schools.

Systems change

National policy: Mental Health Support Teams

For many years, The Children’s Society has relentlessly and ambitiously called for increased mental health support within schools. Throughout every iteration of The Good Childhood Report, we have highlighted this need and advocated for the full expansion of Mental Health Support Teams (MHSTs) across the country. This has been a core component of our influencing work within mental health and wellbeing, forming a basis for discussions with Ministers, Advisers and MPs from across the political benches and Houses.

Direct support

Building the evidence base

Direct support – our open-access, early support hubs

To ensure we are working alongside children and young people to provide early support with their emotional wellbeing and mental health, we have continued to develop and grow our early support hubs. Here, we offer one-off sessions and workshops alongside more structured support (for example, providing planned sessions to children and young people for around 8 to 10 weeks for those with more specialist needs). We also support parents and carers through these hubs.

Building the evidence base

Underpinning and supporting all of our work around early support is our flagship research programme and annual publication, the Good Childhood Report. This research entails bespoke analysis and includes other data sets about children’s wellbeing in the UK. This helps us identify population-level trends and understand how children and young people feel about their lives, and to identify particular areas, or groups of children and young people, that need further attention or support.

“I am very happy with today’s drop-in session, I felt like I was heard and directed to something that will help me.”

“[I] felt listened to and able to share how I felt without judgement ... made progress in getting help towards support for ADHD.”

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Direct support – our open-access, early support hubs

Over the past year we have continued to develop and grow our work within our Time for young people and Pause services. In our Time for young people hubs, currently in Newham London, Leeds, Torbay, Gateshead, Coventry and Warwickshire, and throughout our Pause services in Birmingham, this early support is designed to equip children and young people to understand their feelings, manage worries, stress and conflict, and access specialist support if they need it.

In 2024/25, we supported 8,037 children and young people across all our Time for young people and Pause services. Of these:

Local systems change

Our work to provide early support for children and young people’s wellbeing is not confined to our hubs. We also work within local areas to help develop the support systems surrounding our hubs, so that the experiences and responses for children and young people can be improved.

Quotes from local systems actors (school staff):

“We have noticed a positive change in the group who have accessed the service through the group work. Confidence and resilience have definitely improved.”

“These sessions have been extremely engaging, supportive and enjoyable for our students and really helped with building the confidence ... of some vulnerable participants.”

National policy: Mental Health Support Teams

In December 2024, 6,123 supporters joined our call, signing a petition for an accelerated expansion of MHSTs across the country, with this move needing urgent prioritisation. Just a few months later, in May 2025, the Government announced plans to increase MHST coverage, investing £49 million across the rollout of the programme to increase coverage to one million children and young people by 2026 and full coverage by 2029/30. While full rollout and complete coverage is still to come, this prioritisation and recognition of MHSTs and the support they provide is testament to the ongoing and continuous influencing across the sector on this, which The Children’s Society is incredibly proud to be part of.

Building the evidence base

Our Good Childhood research drives much of our national policy work around early support for wellbeing, including our call for a national measurement of children’s wellbeing, and the Mental Health Support Teams in Schools campaign.

Between publication of the Good Childhood Report 2024 in August and November last year, we disseminated our report and its headline findings to all 650 MPs, with tailored and personalised letters sent to all Cabinet members, Ministers and Shadow Cabinet members and party spokespeople. We achieved over 330 pieces of media coverage across print, online, broadcast and social media – compared to around 52 pieces in 2023.

Just as we know that our services operate within local systems, we know too that these local systems operate within a broader, national political and policy eco-system in the UK. Therefore, integral to our approach is creating wider political and systemic change so that we can improve the lives of more children and young people beyond the reach of our services alone.

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Showcasing ...

4 Building a movement

Overview

The work we do is only possible thanks to the vast number of people who support and engage with us and to all the organisations who share our vision. This is why, at The Children’s Society, we prioritise building a movement – so we can continue to grow our impact for children and young people. Through building this movement, our aspiration is to shift narratives, discourse and attitudes among the general public, our supporters, and partners about issues affecting children and young people, and to contribute to increasing the resources available to support children and young people.

We build our movement in a variety of ways. Generous supporters donate their time, money, and voice, for example by volunteering in our charity shops, running and attending fundraising events, and taking part in our campaign actions. Media outlets, including online, TV, radio, and print, report on the work we do, raising vital awareness of the issues children and young people face and helping us reach new potential audiences and supporters.

The London Marathon

A flagship event for us last year, as it is every year, was the London Marathon. The 2024 team was our biggest one yet, with over 104 supporters joining 50,000 other runners on Sunday 21 April to run the iconic 26.2 mile course. Last year our Chief Executive Mark Russell also ran for The Children’s Society, in support of the children and young people who need it most.

Kennedys Law Firm

In the past year, we continued to collaborate with our corporate partner Kennedys Law Firm. They supported us in various ways, for example helping to create and distribute around 60 wellbeing boxes to the young people we work with in Bedfordshire and Newham. We used their expertise to provide pro bono advice on issues including enhanced due diligence and legal help with drafting amendments to parliamentary bills.

Building a movement figures at a glance, 2024/25:

Ԏ Total supporters: 77,307[34]

Ԏ Time: 19,269[35]

Ԏ Money: 50,083

Ԏ Voice: 9,900

Charity shops

Over the last financial year, we expanded our portfolio of 101 charity shops, with the opening of 2 new outlets in Keswick (Cumbria) and Herne Bay (Kent). The role our shops play in enabling impact cannot be underestimated; as well as raising our profile and vital funds, they also provide affordable clothing and other goods to local communities in an environmentally sustainable way.

Ԏ with total of 19.2 billion potential opportunities to view.[36]

Children Can’t Wait Christmas appeal

Notably, 29 pieces of media coverage, with 237.9 million potential opportunities to view, were generated by our partnership with fast food chain Chicken Cottage. This launched in February 2025 and aims to create spaces within local communities to help keep children and young people safe from exploitation.

Last year, we attracted 3,600 new supporters through our Children Can’t Wait Christmas appeal. As part of this, we shared Louise’s story, a young person who grew up in a violent household and who had experience of child exploitation outside the home. The appeal raised awareness of the vital need for early support for young people at risk of harm.

Christingle services

For over 50 years, families and communities have joyfully celebrated The Children’s Society Christingle services in their churches and schools, and we have deeply valued their support. In 2024, we were delighted that 1,935 Christingle services took place on our behalf across the country. This was the highest number of services held since 2020, and more than 500 people joined in for their first time since the pandemic.

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Supporter story

Gay Drysdall was on one of our fundraising committees for 35 years and was central to the growth of The Children’s Society movement in her local community. Sadly, Gay passed away in December 2024. Yet as one of our most significant fundraisers, she leaves a long-lasting impact on both the charity and local supporters. During her time on the committee, Gay supported a host of events including garden parties, cake sales, themed autumn fairs, fashion shows, flower arranging demonstrations, open gardens, quiz nights, and Christingle services. Her greatest impact was encouraging over 100 people in the local community to become Box Coordinators. Our Box Coordinators are at the heart of building a movement within their communities, collecting donations and raising awareness of our work. We are so grateful to Gay and for the legacy she left, which enables her and our work to continue.

Driving lasting change

We are profoundly encouraged by the strength and passion of the people who joined our movement over the past year, raising awareness about children and young people’s concerns, supporting our political influencing and generously fundraising and donating money to help us deliver our essential services and programmes. Everyone at The Children’s Society is motivated by the commitment and encouragement of our supporters and partners, helping to inspire a growing movement united by the vision of a society where every child can thrive.

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Section C: Looking to the future

Our impact going forward

We enter 2025/26 with a refreshed strategy and refined strategic objectives. As we continue working to reduce the decline in children’s wellbeing and realise our charitable ambitions for children and young people, we remain committed to growing our organisation. In order to reduce the number of young people not getting the right support at the right time, we will maintain our focus on growing the quality, effectiveness and reach of our direct service provision.

Our future impact in numbers

Figure 4. Actual and target key performance indicators for 2024/25 and 2025/26.

----- Start of picture text -----
Achieved Target
2024/25 2025/26
Our work with young people
Number of young people supported 57,652 65,000
Number of professionals worked with 15,856 17,500
Number of youth voice activities 359 400
Number of active supporters 77,307 77,500
Number of active donors 53,337 53,000
Brand consideration 18% 18%
----- End of picture text -----

In the years ahead, we will work to:

grow our impact

grow our income

grow our capabilities.

Explanatory notes:

Our impact fund

We have designated a proportion of our reserves as an impact fund to enable progression towards our 2030 goal. Created in 2021/22, this fund is designed exclusively to enable us to invest in innovative new propositions and approaches that we believe have the potential to bring about further impact for young people or that will plug gaps in existing support.

Two significant investments have been made from the fund. Our first has led to the development of a pioneering new project: Time for young people , an open-access support space in Newham, east London. Our second has been made to match fund the Space to grow national programme.

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Time for young people, Newham

Building on our knowledge and expertise, we have worked extensively with young people to design and develop a new wellbeing support service. It aims to flex and adapt to understand and respond to local needs, providing the right support, in the right place, at the right time. In September 2024, we launched the first place-based support space based on this design: Time for young people, Newham.

Young people have been involved in and informed about the development of Time for young people in Newham. We have worked with a group of young designers, and together we have considered wider data, research, and learning around what works. Young people told us what they felt was most important in creating the space: they wanted it to feel relational, not transactional; be provided in accessible, safe, inclusive spaces; and be flexible enough to change with young people and respond to new and emerging local needs.

Time for young people , Newham, gives young people a place where they can drop in and meet trained staff one-to-one, without needing an appointment or a referral. They can access group sessions, events, and a range of practical resources, as well as using the physical support space to relax and feel safe. Alongside the central support space, we are working with local partners to offer additional help in other community spaces.

Our new service: Space to grow

In 2024, The Children’s Society were thrilled to be awarded funding from BBC Children in Need’s A Million and Me Award,[37] funding dedicated to providing early support for children and young people with their wellbeing and mental health. With this funding, along with matched funds from our Impact fund, we have set up Space to grow , delivered together with two partner organisations across all four nations of the United Kingdom. Children First in Glasgow and Edinburgh, MACS in Belfast, and The Children’s Society covering England and Wales. We look forward to sharing the impact of this work in future reports.

Space to grow offers free support for children aged 8 to 13 years in each nation, so that they can feel happier, supported, and safer. It is especially committed to providing early support for those who may not ordinarily be reached by mental health and wellbeing services, including LGBTQ+[38] children, young carers, and those from the global majority.

Our dedicated and flexible team of Space to grow staff provide support in a range of ways, tailored to what local communities need and want. From being at the end of the phone to providing in-person, structured one-to-one sessions for children who need them, as well as facilitating group work, Space to grow supports children and young people to understand and manage their emotions, communicate effectively and build positive relationships with those around them. From running workshops on topics like resilience, to providing wellbeing resources and information online or through The Children’s Society’s digital wellbeing app MeTime , we support children and young people to flourish. And while we are focused on children aged 8 to 13 years, there is plenty of information, advice and resources for parents, carers and school staff so that they can best support all of the children and young people in their care.

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Space to grow is made possible by our funding partners: BBC Children in Need, The Health Foundation, and Impact on Urban Health. Together, over the next year and beyond, we will develop our collective capacity to find new, sustainable ways to make sure every child and young person can thrive. We are also working closely with a learning partner to ensure we learn about what is working well and where to focus our efforts, and so we can understand and evidence the impact for children and young people. One of the things we are really excited about is the Youth Voice element of our Space to grow programme, which will help us to ensure that all our work is rooted in what children and young people think and experience.

Our future growth and major appeal

We have plans to expand place-based support spaces, like Time for young people , Newham, to other areas of identified need across the country. This will strengthen our confidence in scaling up our highly valued early support offer, and allow us to reach more of the young people who need us most. To help fund this expansion and drive long-term income growth, we are planning our most ambitious fundraising campaign to date: a multiyear, multimillion-pound fundraising appeal. As well as increasing income, this major appeal will strengthen The Children’s Society brand, raise public awareness of the urgent challenges facing young people’s wellbeing in the UK, and reinforce a crucial message: that ‘Teenagers are children too’. Most importantly, it will enable us to deepen our impact working with and for young people to create lasting change.

United in our mission

Everything we do, and every impact we achieve, is only possible through collaboration. This spirit of partnership runs through every part of The Children’s Society; from our teams working with other professionals in local communities, to participation groups empowering children and young people, to those raising awareness among the general public and those working with policy makers and political decision makers to drive national change. It also includes the thousands of supporters who stand with us, championing our work across the country. Together, as one UK-wide team, we are united in our mission to overturn the damaging decline in children’s wellbeing, setting a path for long lasting growth.

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Section D: Financial review

In the financial year ending 31 March 2025, The Children’s Society experienced an 11% increase in income and 8% increase in expenditure overall. Total income was £40.6 million (2024: £36.5 million) and total expenditure £44.3 million (2024: £40.9 million). This led to an operating loss of £3.6 million (2024: £4.4 million loss). This operating loss was supported by the gains in investments, leading to an overall loss of £0.9 million (2024: £2.2 million). The organisation has strong reserves and was able to absorb this loss, resulting in general funds of £16.8 million at the end of March 2025.

£12 million for the second time

1 Income

when we include the related gift aid attributed to retail sales. This is a £0.1 million decrease from the previous year (2024: £11.7 million). Retail sales are impacted by weather conditions and economic conditions, which have contributed to this small decrease. The income came directly from retail activities, the bulk of which comes from a full year of trading in the retail shops, ecommerce and brought in goods. Our retail shops can only be open with the help of committed volunteers who are led by our retail shop managers. Together they provide a local link in over 100 high streets across England and Wales. The number of The Children’s Society retail shops was 101 shops (2024: 102).

The Children’s Society has continued to benefit from the generosity of individuals, businesses, and charitable bodies. Details of the amounts received in grants are shown in note 24 to the accounts; corporate sponsors of The Children’s Society are listed on page 110.

Legacy income increased this year by 60%, to £6.8 million (2024: £4.3 million). The increase of £2.5 million (2024: £6.5 million decrease) was a result of having a strong year in 2025 and a below average year in 2024. His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS, who help to notify organisations about legacies they may be entitled to) made great progress dealing with the backlog of probate applications which led to the increase in legacy income materialising in 2025. These donations are acts of generosity from supporters. We acknowledge the potential for legacy income to fluctuate but remain confident that it will continue to be a solid source of income. Our legacy donors are also listed in our ‘thank you’ list on pages 111-112.

This year, our income from our unique Christingle events generated £0.8 million (2024: £0.8 million) while our dedicated house box groups gave us £0.7 million (2024: £0.9 million) from their collections. Other donations, which include gift aid, remained consistent with last year at £6.5 million (2024: £6.5 million). While donations have reduced in recent years, our supporter base remains committed and strong in continuing to support The Children’s Society into the future.

Retail sales generated £11.6 million in the past year, and exceeded

Income from charitable activities increased from last year to £14.02 million (2024: £12.01 million). This income is used to continue to deliver critical support to young people using a variety of approaches, including digital resources alongside using youth voice to help advocate and push for changes in governmental and societal systems. Contract funding is provided by national and local Government, police and crime commissioners and the NHS. Our grant income has continued to benefit from the long-standing relationship with the National Lottery Community Fund as we reached our final year of funding for our national programme to disrupt child criminal exploitation.

2 Expenditure

Our biggest item of expenditure is staff costs and they increased by 7.5% year on year, to £28.91 million (2024: £26.84 million). This increase of £2.01 million was a combination of an increased headcount alongside an increase in staffing costs due to an annual increment in staff salaries in line with our pay policy and the organisation’s commitment to paying the real living wage. More details can be seen in note 10 in the accounts.

We continue to invest in our supporter engagement and community fundraising, and the direct costs of fundraising slightly decreased by £0.07 million to £5.2 million (2024: £5.3 million). This expenditure allows us to attract new supporters and provide new innovative fundraising solutions to our existing supporter base. The direct cost of the retail network increased to £11.23 million (2024: £10.64 million) which was mostly due to inflationary increases in costs required to run the retail

operations. Retail was able to produce a £0.4 million contribution towards the organisation’s activities before allocating support costs and excluding gift aid donations, representing a 3.4% gross margin (2024: £1.1 million, 10% gross margin).

The direct cost of providing support to young people increased from last year by £2.6 million to £15.2 million (2024: £12.6 million). Direct costs of changing governmental and societal systems reduced by £0.36 million to £3.7 million (2024: £4.1 million).

Support and governance costs are higher than the previous year, standing at £8.8 million (2024: £8.4 million). The activities with the largest increase were information systems, financial processing and management.

3 Fixed assets

In the 2024/25 financial year the organisation continued to develop its Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system, continued with its staff laptop replacement programme and implemented a new budgeting tool, which is now used for budget planning, forecasting and reporting. The organisation also continued to invest in retail by commencing an LED lighting programme to replace our lighting across our shops, and also fitted out two new shops.

4 Investments

At 31 March 2025, The Children’s Society held £38.3 million of investments (2024: £41.4 million) comprising general, designated and endowment funds invested in a welldiversified range of short to long-term investments. This also includes a

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modest investment in

land and buildings (£165 thousand). The investment strategy is to mitigate risk by diversifying the portfolio across a number of investment managers who themselves are investing in a diverse range of assets, a significant proportion of which are intentionally inversely correlated in their risk profile. This year saw less in investment gains compared with the previous year’s gains. We also sold more shares compared to the previous year to support our cashflow. The year ended with investment gains of £1.4 million (2024: £3.8 million gain).

5 Cash and working capital

We continue to manage our working capital effectively, ensuring that we pay suppliers within the terms agreed and collecting debts on a timely basis. The Children’s Society’s funded work is paid for mainly by local and national Government organisations and therefore represents a low credit risk. Our operational activities increased the use of cash with a negative generation of £5.2 million (2024: £2.5 million negative generation). During the year, debtors showed a small increase while creditors showed a decrease compared to the previous year. We continue to hold some highly liquid investments should our cashflow patterns change suddenly.

6 Reserves

Unrestricted funds

The trustees consider that the organisation’s unrestricted general reserves are appropriate for the challenging external environment and for our aspirations to grow significantly. At 31 March 2025, the group’s general funds were £16.8 million, which equates to around four

and a half months of total operational expenditure.

While our maximum target is six months’ total operational expenditure, trustees are of the view that allocating some of the unrestricted reserves for investment to enable more impact and a growth in income, organisational capability and longer term financial sustainability, is acceptable. The use of some of the reserves will support the investment needed, cover the planned budget deficit for the current year, and, most importantly, provide resilience and continuity of services to children and young people in the face of any unexpected shocks.

Trustees have considered and stresstested a series of scenarios focused on the following risks:

These stress tests confirm that our unrestricted general funds at 31 March 2025 sit between the minimum and mid point of our target range.

Designated funds

The Children’s Society holds three designated funds - the Fixed Asset

fund, the Impact fund and the Slack fund. The Slack fund was added this year from unlocking part of one of our permanent endowments after seeking permission from the Charity Commission.

Total Designated Funds have increased to £13.3 million (2024: £12.8 million).

The Fixed Asset fund reflects the current net book value of the tangible and intangible fixed assets. These assets are to be used to help the organisation achieve its mission and 2030 goal.

The Impact fund was created to enhance our strategic ambition by funding innovative pilots and projects for which traditional forms of funding are unavailable. In the financial year ending 31 March 2025, the Impact fund had two projects running which incurred expenditure of £705 thousand and benefited from investment gains of £0.3 million. The balance of the Impact fund at the end of the year was £8.2 million (2024: £8.6 million).

The Slack fund unlocked £900 thousand from one of the endowment funds to help advance children and young people in their education or training (including by way of apprenticeship schemes).

Pension reserve

The pension reserve reflects the long-term liability of The Children’s Society to meet the deficit in its final salary pension schemes, calculated in accordance with FRS 102, and does not take account of a surplus on any scheme. As permitted by the Charity SORP, this commitment is shown as a separate, negative reserve, equal in value to the net pension deficit of

£22 thousand for one of our Defined Benefit Pension Schemes. The other scheme was in a surplus position which is not recognised in the accounts.

Restricted funds

Restricted funds represent the unspent amounts arising from donations and grants where the activity funded is more specific than the general purposes of The Children’s Society. At 31 March 2025, the value of these funds was £1.6 million (2024: £1.5 million).

Endowment funds

Endowment funds represent the value of assets donated to The Children’s Society from which the income may be spent while the underlying capital is maintained. The funds are invested in a portfolio investment whose value at 31 March 2025 was £13.3 million (2024: £13.8 million). As part of our financial strategy, we are unlocking funds from the endowment portfolio with the Charity Commission’s approval, to enable them to be used to enhance our impact with and for young people.

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Section E: Governance and management

1 Governance compliance and information

The trustees delegate operational management to the executive leadership team, which is accountable to the board for its stewardship of the charity. The chief executive and executive leadership team attend board and committee meetings.

1.1 Legal status and objectives

The Church of England Children’s Society (The Children’s Society) is a company limited by guarantee and a charity registered in England and Wales. Our organisation was established in 1881 and incorporated in 1893. It is governed by its articles of association, which set out our principal objectives – to care for and support children and young people in need across the country, whether material, physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, or otherwise.

We appoint trustees through a transparent and rigorous recruitment and selection process. Young trustees participate in this, and their assessments are an integral part of the decision making process. Hearing and engaging with young people’s voices is at the heart of our governance.

1.2 Public benefit

This year, we recruited four new trustees and two new independent committee members to sit on one of our board committees. We also appointed a new interim Chair of the Board and a new Company Secretary.

The trustees have a duty to report on how our organisation’s charitable objective has been carried out for the public benefit and to follow the guidance from the Charity Commission on the provision of public benefit requirement under the Charities Act 2011. This duty is fulfilled by the content of this report.

We provide a comprehensive induction programme and ongoing training covering the requirements of the trustees under the charities act and more specifically to the charity and its work for all trustees. For new trustees this includes meeting the executive. leadership team, completing mandatory training (including on safeguarding), engaging with staff and volunteers, and visiting young people’s services and our shops.

1.3 The board of trustees

The board is responsible for the governance and strategic direction of the organisation, making sure the charity upholds its ethos and values and delivers its objectives.

More information on engagement with staff and volunteers can be found on page 60 to 62, and on engagement with other stakeholders on page 64.

Our trustees have a wide range of skills, knowledge, and experience, essential to good governance.

We keep the balance of expertise under review, including during the recruitment process. Collectively, the board must demonstrate responsible leadership and judgement. We have three trustees with extensive experience and knowledge in relation to the safeguarding of children and vulnerable adults.

We expect our trustees, committee members, chief executive, and executive leadership team to behave with the utmost integrity and professionalism, consistently demonstrating their commitment to the goals and values of The Children’s Society. All our trustees give their time voluntarily and receive no rewards or benefits from The Children’s Society.

The board met both physically and virtually during the year, including six formal meetings and several ad hoc meetings to keep trustees informed. They are also expected to complete regular training on matters like safeguarding, data protection, and cyber security. Trustees who served during the year are listed on pages 108-109, together with information about their membership of committees and meeting attendance.

1.4 Delegation and committees

The board maintains a written schedule of matters reserved for the

board of trustees and committees, which clearly defines specific areas for delegation. The terms of reference for each committee are reviewed annually and they report back to the board on a regular basis.

The Finance and Investment Committee is responsible for the charity’s financial strategy and performance, making sure its resources are properly and appropriately applied to its key objectives. It oversees the charity’s investments, managing them so that they underpin the charity’s strategic objectives. The committee is responsible for safeguarding the charity’s assets and making sure we have sufficient reserves.

The Organisational Development Committee is responsible for overseeing all matters concerned with effective governance of The Children’s Society. The committee supports the chief executive in building and sustaining a successful leadership team and guides and monitors the effectiveness of people policies.

The Risk, Audit, and Compliance Committee is responsible for giving the board assurances on the effectiveness of the internal controls, the adequacy of our risk management processes, and the internal control environment. It also receives external audit annual reporting. It considers any significant issues that arise and monitors and reviews safeguarding and health and safety.

This includes the implementation of and compliance with policies. The committee also oversees all systems, controls, and processes, making sure that we’re able to meet our objectives.

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1.5 Section 172 (1) Statement

All charitable companies have a responsibility to act in accordance with Section 172 of the UK Companies Act 2006 (‘the duty to promote the success of a company’).

The board of trustees confirms that during the year under review, they have acted in the way that they consider, in good faith, has complied with their duties in Section 172 of the Companies Act 2006 by promoting The Children’s Society’s success to achieve its charitable purpose.

The board of trustees considers the matters set out in Section 172(1) (a) to (f) of the 2006 Act in all its discussions and decision-making, which includes:

The likely long-term consequences of decisions.

Over the past year, trustees have taken key decisions to support the achievement of our charitable objectives and to help achieve our ambitious goal to overturn the damaging decline in children’s wellbeing by 2030.

For example, the budget for 2025/26 was prepared not only for the financial year ahead, but with the aim to achieve a solid platform for sustainable growth. The core budget will serve as a foundation for the necessary growth in impact, income and organisational capability, with the overall ambition of working to reduce the declining state of children and young people’s wellbeing across England and Wales.

The interests of our employees, our business relationships, and acting fairly.

Trustees have regard to the interests of our employees and volunteers and the need to foster business relationships with key stakeholders: young people, beneficiaries, funders, and the wider community. During the year, we kept our employees up to date with regular updates provided by the CEO and executive leadership team via written communications as well as at the monthly ‘TCS Live’ meetings,[39] which trustees also attend and present at.

Further information can be found on pages 60 to 62.

Our impact on the community and the environment

Trustees and the executive leadership team are committed to conducting the charity in a responsible, sustainable way to protect both people and planet. Further information can be found on pages 66 to 68.

The desirability to maintain a reputation for high standards of business conduct.

Trustees acknowledge their responsibility for setting and monitoring the values, strategy, vision, and reputation of the charity. Further information can be found in the looking to the future section on pages 40 to 44.

1.6 Young trustees

Our young trustees are young people from across the country who have previously engaged with our direct services, either through one-to-one support, group work, or participation groups. Although they do not hold the legal status formally assigned to other trustees, they otherwise have equal status on the board in terms of discussions and decisions.

As well as attending board meetings, young trustees also support the organisation in other ways, depending on their interests, and make a significant contribution to The Children’s Society’s work.

The young trustees meet regularly as a group. To prepare for board meetings, they invite members of the Executive and Senior Leadership Teams to have discussions with them. This year, their involvement included contributing to organisational developments like our values and behaviours, the refresh of our strategy, and how we measure and demonstrate impact.

The young trustees continue to be involved in recruitment for key senior leadership and operational roles. The young trustees also visited the records and archives department and created a short video about their role and influence for internal staff.

Our young trustees have continually been involved in amplifying their messages through blogs, podcasts, and public consultations like the advocacy standards consultation. Their voices are central to what we do, and they influence work across the organisation at all levels.

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2 Social

2.1 Modern slavery

Modern slavery is a significant global human rights issue. It includes human trafficking, sexual exploitation, forced and bonded labour, domestic servitude, and child labour. We are committed to acting ethically and with integrity in all our relationships by taking every reasonable opportunity to act within our direct operations and wider sphere of influence to make sure that slavery and human trafficking does not take place in the charity’s operations. Modern slavery can be hard to spot and is often hidden in plain sight.

We recognise that there are risks of modern slavery in our supply chains for all types of goods and services. This risk is low due to our relatively small-scale supply chains and the controls and systems we have in place. However, a risk does remain, and the policies and procedures outlined below help us mitigate this.

We are satisfied that we are compliant with the Modern Slavery Act 2015. We work to tackle exploitation, abuse, and trafficking faced by young people. In this work, we know we will encounter situations of modern slavery. Our policies and procedures, including procurement, whistleblowing, and recruitment, are critical in delivering a robust, safe, and ethical response. In line with the Modern Slavery Act 2015, we published our modern slavery statement for this financial year ( childrenssociety.org.uk/ organisational-policies ). This

includes examples of modern slavery that we encounter in the work that we do.

2.2 Safeguarding children, young people, and vulnerable adults

The board of trustees is accountable for ensuring structures, processes, and resources for good practice in safeguarding are in place with the Risk, Audit, and Compliance Committee (RACC), maintaining oversight of safeguarding issues on behalf of the board. Two safeguarding trustees sit on RACC and provide subject expert advice and guidance to RACC, the Corporate Strategic Safeguarding Group, the board, and the Senior Leadership Team. Annually, the board receives a safeguarding report that provides assurance of the different activity, compliance, and data that together formulate our safeguarding approach.

The safeguarding approach at The Children’s Society is led by the Chief Executive Officer and the Executive Director of Youth Impact, working closely with the Safeguarding and Quality Practice team. All staff and volunteers are aware of and required to meet role requirements in relation to safeguarding, through inclusion in role profiles, mandatory training, and the application of organisationwide safeguarding policies and procedures. Safeguarding permeates our culture at The Children’s Society and a myriad of activity, that is complexly related, ensures effective safeguarding management and governance.

2.3 Our people

Our people and teams continue to provide exceptional contribution to the achievement of our strategic aims and our operational delivery. In 2024/25, an organisational change process impacted across the organisation. However, we have continued to see furtherance in the achievement of our humancentred approach to employees and volunteers through our People Experience Framework and living and breathing our values.

2024/25 – Our people in numbers

2.3.1 Getting basics right

Restructure – overview

An organisation-wide restructuring exercise.

The goals of the restructure were to:

Wide-reaching formal consultations took place, including with Unite the Union.

A continued focus on the experience of our people was at the forefront of managing changes. Many organisation-wide engagement activities were undertaken, reaching an employee audience of 145 to 199 attendees.

For those impacted by the changes, as well as consultation, special support workshops and resources were made available.

Where possible, savings were achieved through the removal of already vacant posts, thereby minimising the impact on people.

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The outcomes in relation to our people included:

Remuneration

Over the last three years, a comprehensive organisationwide review of all pay structures, responding to the demanding economic landscape we find ourselves in post-pandemic and the challenges this poses for all charitable organisations, has been a focus. This has also been to ensure the foundations are set that enable The Children’s Society to remain future fit for the modern workplace alongside maintaining strong elements for recruitment and retention of key skills, capabilities and talent.

Key principles of this review have been to ensure that any new processes, structures and policies introduced uphold the Living Wage Foundation’s principles and hold fairness and equity at their core. Our governance structure, with trustees’ oversight of the pay, pensions, and benefits of the chief executive and executive leadership team remains.

Work on this programme was initially paused in early 2024/25 due to the internal reorganisation. The final months of 2024/25 saw this programme of work implemented with a wholesale change to our pay model and approach, including job

levels. As a result, a new pay structure went live in April 2025, along with the issuing of new contracts of employment to all colleagues, an introduction of a new expense policy (and associated ways of working), and harmonisation of working hours for colleagues in our Youth Impact domain within this same timeframe.

The annual pay review was successfully negotiated with Unite the Union and implemented in April 2025. In line with sector benchmarking, it has ensured that all employees were brought up to the minimum of the new pay bands or received a one-off payment paid in two instalments this year.

Executive pay has been aligned within the new structure, ensuring consistency across all levels in the organisation. This was an important step in ensuring equal and fair application of pay and will be a continued focus for us in 2025.

Throughout 2025/26, we will be focusing on implementing a capability framework, a new tool to ensure recognition for individual development connected with pay in 2026, as well as looking at our job architecture and wider reward and benefits strategy.

CEO salary

Our Chief Executive’s salary was £137,802 (at 31 March 2025). The ratio of our highest to our median salary (including retail) was 4.6:1.

Pay gap reporting

2024 marked our eighth report on our gender pay gap and our fourth for our diversity pay gap. Our findings showed that:

For further detail and analysis on our pay gap reporting, refer to our report on our website.

childrenssociety.org.uk/ sites/default/files/2024-10/ Gender%20Pay%20Gap%20 Report_2024.pdf

Culture and inclusion

The restructures through 2024, with the evolution of Diversity and Talent into the People, Culture and Transformation team has seen a further integration and embedding of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) into the DNA of The Children’s Society.

TIDE 2024

2024 marked our fourth year of undertaking the Talent Inclusion and Diversity Evaluation (TIDE) as part of our membership of Employer Network of Equality and Inclusion (ENEI). This self-assessment, evaluation, and benchmarking framework designed to help organisations assess and enhance their culture, focuses on progress and strategies in fostering and building an inclusive culture for the organisation.

We achieved a TIDE overall score of 62%, which reflected a 3% improvement when compared to 2023 (59%). Our score indicates that we continue to operate at the Embed level. When also benchmarked against other organisations, our contributions enabled us to retain our bronze TIDE ribbon for our work to become a more inclusive organisation.

Since we started evaluating our Equality, Diveristy, and Inclusion (EDI) performance and capabilities with the TIDE framework, we have seen steady improvement year-on-year in our EDI performance and capabilities. We aim to build on this further still.

Figure 5. The Children’s Society TIDE results 2021 to 2024.

Annual TIDE score

----- Start of picture text -----
42% 49% 59% 62%
2021 2022 2023 2024
----- End of picture text -----

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Inclusive engagement and recognition

We continue to offer opportunities for colleagues to connect through a series of events that aim to inspire and spark meaningful conversations, showcase our work and the impact that it has and to hear the stories of our team of people and what they bring to The Children’s Society. Over the last year, events for notable EDI dates and celebrations have been particularly impactful and consistently attended by approximately 10% of the organisation:

Dedication to EDI education

Alongside our engagement and recognition moments, 2024 also saw The Children’s Society’s continued commitment to their EDI education. While some of this was mandatory (such as our sexual harassment training, in line with the changes in statutory legislation), we also continued to see appetite for our employees and managers to further their understanding and development in this space, for example through:

Strategic workforce planning

Throughout 2024/25 a fully strategic approach to workforce planning was introduced and embedded as part of the budgeting and strategy process.

Major workforce groups have been identified and agreed, with choices on investment and resources weighted against our strategic objectives. Through the Strategic Workforce Plan, we are committed to:

The strategic workforce plan and approach is overseen through the lens of our People Experience Framework that ensures we embed equity, diversity and inclusion into all that we do.

This joint approach will ensure that when choosing where to commit the limited resources we have, we have a framework that has, at its heart, the goal of realising our vision, goal and strategy.

2.3.2 Having a voice Peer Community Groups

People and Experience Forum

2024/25 continued to create

meaningful and strategically aligned forums through the introduction of the People Experience Forum. This is an all-employee representative body which represents through structure and geography the demographic communities of The Children’s Society.

Key highlights over the year included improving the intranet, development of a performance management policy, introduction of a capability framework, review of our approach to anti-racist practice, and further informing our understanding of how change management is experienced and can be improved upon at The Children’s Society.

Number of representatives over the year : 14

Number of meetings : 7

Quote from a Forum rep:

‘Being involved in something positive with your colleagues to better the culture in our organisation is really freshening. The PEX Forum is a really safe space for us to openly have tough conversations and be able to create a good place for people to work in.’

Volunteer voice forum and insight

This year, our volunteer voices forum provided valuable insight on our approach to communications that will support the capture of diversity data for our volunteer base. This will be invaluable in moving us forward in 2025/26.

LGBTQ+ pulse survey

Following our organisationwide survey in 2023/24, we also conducted a LGBTQ+ pulse survey for volunteers, in order to understand more about the differences between the experiences of volunteers who are part of this community and those who are not.

Ԏ moving toward conscious inclusion: 68 attendees

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2.3.3 Feeling valued

Learning and development - full analysis of portfolio

As an ambitious organisation, continued professional learning and development is important and key to our values, whether you are a new starter or an existing staff member or volunteer. This year, we have seen:

Engagement and recognition

  - We continue to see consistent engagement across our portfolio of communications, recognition and wellbeing channels that we use to inform, engage, celebrate and support our people. Over the last year, we have seen a steady build in engagement with our all-organisation reaching channels:

our EDI recognition and celebration 2.3.4 Inspiring leadership events have proved popular for our Talent development people to hear, learn and celebrate We remain committed to growing the diverse experiences of our team at The Children’s Society

We remain committed to growing our internal leadership talent. During 2024, 47 employees undertook development programmes across our management development portfolio:

For the next year, our focus is to continue to drive and sustain engagement through our channels and platforms and to evolve and integrate our approach so that our people have a more streamlined and accessible experience that fits with their needs.

The end of 2024/25 also saw the creation of a Leadership Development programme for our Senior Leadership team, which will commence in May 2025.

Strategic communications and engagement

Volunteers’ week

2024 saw great engagement and recognition for our volunteers in Volunteers’ Week in June, recognising the history and contribution of volunteering at The Children’s Society and providing an opportunity to spotlight the valuable contributions that volunteers make to all that we do.

This year, we have concentrated on enhancing our approach to communication and engagement to support the next phase of our strategy, leading up to 2030. Our new approach focuses on several key areas:

Ԏ enhanced communications model:

In terms of the events’ engagement and success, we saw a 58% open rate across our two internal communications to volunteers (up 2% on 2023) and over 7,000 engagements and over 23,000 impressions across our social media engagement on Facebook, LinkedIn, X and Instagram. This represents an increase in activity by 50% on 2023 events, providing a platform we are keen to build on for Volunteers’ Week 2025.

integrated strategic messaging:

Ԏ

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Overall, this approach has enabled our leadership team to equip themselves with the key messages and resources to share with their teams, so that we can ensure our people and teams feel engaged, motivated and inspired to deliver our strategy and goal.

Ԏ in the final half of 2024/25, five recognition events from the EDI calendar were informed by ideas from our employees, two of which were employee led (International Women’s Day and Neurodiversity Celebration Week), providing evidence of a more open and confident culture where our people feel able to share their true selves at work.

3 Wider governance

3.1 Youth voice

Youth voice describes the different ways we at The Children’s Society listen to and act on the views and experiences of young people. This ensures that young people’s voices inform all aspects of our work. Embedding innovative and meaningful youth engagement and participation leads to more positive impacts for young people, and youth voice is central to our plans for change in the coming years. Young people know best what they need, and by listening to and learning from them, we can build the future they deserve together.

Our youth voice charter underpins this work. It lays out how we enable, equip, and support young people to have influence in the journey towards our 2030 goal. We centre young people’s wishes and feelings in our services, so that they know from the first contact that they are heard, valued, and have choices and options. And we provide opportunities for young people to express themselves and be heard, through storytelling, group experiences, participation groups, consultations, surveys, and more.

In our work with young people, we use the following principles of engagement to make sure that they are fully supported throughout.

Ԏ Protection: We never introduce unnecessary risks to young people’s safety and wellbeing, seeking to ensure that they are protected from harm, can remain anonymous, and are properly safeguarded.

Ԏ Provision: We make sure that young people can participate without cost to them or their families and that their engagement provides a tangible benefit for them.

Ԏ Professionalism: We show our respect for young people, prioritising honesty and transparency. We are confident and competent, sharing power with young people.

Choice and influence: We make sure that young people are making an informed decision to participate, with a clear understanding of the influence of their contribution. We offer a range of opportunities for participation and engagement.

Ԏ

Belonging and sharing: We seek to enable young people to share their experiences with one another and develop skills and knowledge that enhance their wellbeing.

Ԏ

Inclusive: We make sure that opportunities are extended to all young people, regardless of personal circumstances, background, or perceived competence and ability.

Ԏ

Ԏ Mutual benefit: There must be a tangible benefit to the adults involved for the engagement activity to have meaning and credibility. This should be made known to the young people from the beginning.

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3.2 Supporter engagement and fundraising

The last year has been challenging for all of us, and we are so grateful to our supporters for their continued generosity and commitment despite these circumstances. They allow us to be here for young people and to work for change, and every contribution they make has real impact.

Our voluntary income comes from a wide range of sources. Individuals give regular or one-off cash contributions. Groups raise funds by taking part in challenge events locally, online, and abroad. Some people donate to and buy from our shops, while others make gifts in their wills. We also partner with professional funders, commissioners, companies, trusts, and foundations.

These are just a few examples of the amazing support we receive from people across the UK. Every interaction we have with our supporters is guided by our supporter promise to:

We comply with the voluntary Fundraising Regulator regulation scheme and align our fundraising policies and practices with the fundraising code of conduct. We also follow all related legislation and marketing regulations. Most of our fundraising activity is led by employees and volunteers, though we have also worked with partner agencies to deliver fundraising appeals and other projects.

We monitor any fundraising undertaken on our behalf, and our external partners must comply with the Fundraising Regulator’s regulation scheme and our supporter promise.

Offering a positive experience for everyone who fundraises for us, works with us, or supports us is of paramount importance. Our approach, policies, and standards aim to protect vulnerable people and other members of the public from inappropriate behaviour. We continuously learn from what we do, always with an eye to improvement.

In 2024/25, we logged 226 complaints across Social Impact, Youth Impact and Retail, an increase of 84% on the previous year. The increase was caused by our decision to return the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Christmas 2024 donation, which accounted for 126 complaints. Without these, total complaints for the year would have shown another year-on-year decrease, from 122 in 2023/24 to 105 in 2024/25, continuing the trend of recent years.

We require 90% of complaints to be resolved within 10 working days. In 2024/25, 220 complaints (97%) were resolved within this timeframe and six complaints fell outside, meaning we met our target for the year. Those falling outside tended to be those that were more complex, often involving several communications between our organisation and the complainant.

We resolved all but one complaint at Stage one of our complaints process, meaning that the staff member or team in receipt of the complaint managed it. One complaint went to Stage two, where the complaint and its response were reviewed by an independent, senior member of staff.

We received no complaints this year via the Fundraising Regulator.

74% of complaints received were upheld, a 9% decrease on the previous year. Most upheld complaints related to an error from the charity, such as administrative or mailing errors, or where a member of staff or volunteer didn’t meet our required standards of supporter experience and care.

We are thankful to everyone who chose to stand alongside children and young people this year and will continue to commit to delivering the best possible supporter experience.

3.3 Principal risks and uncertainties

The trustees are responsible for ensuring that the charity maintains comprehensive risk management systems and that appropriate actions are taken to manage and mitigate risks. The Risk, Audit, and Compliance Committee monitors and reviews these risk management arrangements and reports to the board of trustees on their ongoing effectiveness.

Our formal risk management strategy provides a robust framework for developing the corporate risk register and managing risk across the charity. The Children’s Society has an established system of internal controls governing all its operations.

These are designed to provide a reasonable level of assurance against the risk of error, fraud, and inappropriate or ineffective use of organisational resources. Matters that have potential to cause reputational risk are kept under close review, management, and mitigation.

The outsourced internal audit function reviews the corporate risk register to make sure audits are correctly focused. They evaluate the adequacy and effectiveness of our checks and controls and report to our trustees via the Risk, Audit, and Compliance Committee.

We pay particular attention to mitigating safeguarding risks: protecting children and young people is central to all we do. This and other principal risks identified within the corporate risk register are as below.

1. The Children’s Society is unable to sufficiently grow income from its new strategic approach to address the decline in historic fundraising activities.

Examples of risk management actions include:

Ԏ

2. We are too ambitious in

seeking growth and overextend operationally, affecting our capacity to deliver and leading to burnout.

Examples of risk management actions include:

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3. Extended operation of our 3.4 Protecting existing pay structure and the environment policy impacts our ability to attract and retain talent.

The Children’s Society recognises the importance of environmental issues to young people and to our planet. We take our role in reducing carbon impacts seriously, and are committed to conducting ourselves in a responsible, sustainable way that protects both people and planet. With the full support of trustees and management, we are on a journey to reduce our environmental impact and maintain high operational standards across all our activities.

Examples of risk management actions include:

4. Challenges with organisational resilience and stability, particularly as we respond to an ever-changing landscape both strategically and operationally, impact our ability to attract and retain talent, skills, and capability.

Our operational activities

Our retail operations are run with the intention of reducing its carbon footprint. Actions include:

In addition to our retail initiatives, we have:

Viva Engage, about local initiatives and ideas

Carbon and energy reporting

The year ending 31 March 2025 is our fifth year of renewable energy for both gas and electricity.

This covers 98% of our estate, with the energy provider in a smaller number of our properties being chosen by the landlord. We recognise that this does not reduce our energy usage per se. Our usage of energy across our property portfolio is as follows:

2023/24

Electricity (kWh): 1,551,406 Gas (kWh): 159,594 Equivalent CO2e (tonnes): 321.29

2024/25

Electricity (kWh): 1,272,009 kWh Gas (kWh): 138,080 kWh Equivalent CO2e (tonnes): 263.40

We use public transport where possible, but for some activities colleagues use either a fleet car (of which there are 15) or their own vehicle. In 2024/25 our combined mileage came to 717,657 (2023/24 – 424,689). This equates to 199.3 tonnes of CO2 or 821,013.43 kWh using the unknown fuel conversion factor.

When contracts for the fleet vehicles expired, we changed them to electric or hybrid vehicles. Over the term of the four-year leases, the move to electric vehicles will cut CO2 from 116 tonnes to 17 tonnes, representing reduction of 85% against the equivalent petrol car. Over 12 months, the move to electric vehicles cut CO2 emissions from 29 tonnes to 4.25 tonnes, representing reduction of 85% against the equivalent petrol car.

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In addition, as part of the migration to electric vehicles, our Retail teams work with Mina, who provide a simple EV charging solution, meaning carbon emissions and intensity per driver, when using home and public charge networks, can be monitored. This means a change in driver behaviour can also be encouraged, thereby promoting the use of renewable energy wherever possible.

Ԏ reducing energy and water consumption where possible by using LED lighting, energy efficient lighting systems, and responsibly sourced furniture and office equipment

Battery range and operating costs on commercial vehicles are not at the stage of advancement we’re seeing with cars, but it’s envisaged that retail will be able to start migrating to electric commercial vehicles in the next two to three years.

Looking to the future, we will develop our net zero plan further. This will include:

Section F: Statement of responsibilities

Statement of trustees’ responsibilities in respect of the trustees’ impact summary, annual report, and financial statements

The trustees are responsible for preparing the trustees’ impact summary, annual report, and financial statements in accordance with applicable law and regulations. Company law requires the trustees to prepare financial statements for each financial year. Under that law they are required to prepare the financial statements in accordance with UK Accounting Standards and applicable law (UK Generally Accepted Accounting Practice), including Financial Reporting Standard 102 (FRS 102), the financial reporting standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland.

Under company law, the trustees must not approve the financial statements unless they are satisfied that they give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the charitable company and of the excess of income over expenditure for that period. In preparing these financial statements, the trustees are required to:

The trustees are responsible for keeping adequate accounting records that are sufficient to show and explain the charitable company’s transactions and disclose with reasonable accuracy at any time the financial position of the charitable company and enable them to ensure that the financial statements comply with the Companies Act 2006. They have general responsibility for taking such steps as are reasonably open to them to safeguard the assets of the charitable company and to prevent and detect fraud and other irregularities.

The trustees are responsible for the maintenance and integrity of the corporate and financial information included on the charitable company’s website. Legislation in the UK governing the preparation and dissemination of financial statements may differ from legislation in other jurisdictions.

Bishop Libby Lane Chair of Trustees 24 July 2025

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Section G: Independent auditors’ report

Opinion

We have audited the financial statements of The Church of England Children’s Society for the year ended 31 March 2025, which comprise the group statement of financial activities, the group and parent balance sheets, the group cash flow statements, and notes to the financial statements, including a summary of significant accounting policies. The financial reporting framework applied in their preparation is applicable law and UK accounting standards, including FRS 102, the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland, issued by the Financial Reporting Council (FRC).

In our opinion, the financial statements:

Basis for opinion

We conducted our audit in accordance with International Standards on Auditing (UK) and applicable law. Our responsibilities under those standards are further described in the auditor’s responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements section of our report. We are independent of the group in accordance with the ethical requirements that are relevant to our audit of the financial statements in the UK, including the FRC’s ethical standard, and we have fulfilled our other ethical responsibilities in accordance with these requirements. We believe that the audit evidence we have obtained is sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for our opinion.

Conclusions relating

to going concern

for issue. Our responsibilities and the responsibilities of the trustees with respect to going concern are described in the relevant sections of this report.

Other information

The trustees are responsible for the other information. The other information comprises the information included in this report and the chair’s introduction. Our opinion on the financial statements does not cover the other information and, except to the extent otherwise explicitly stated in our report, we do not express any form of assurance conclusion thereon.

In connection with our audit of the financial statements, our responsibility is to read the other information and, in doing so, consider whether the other information is materially inconsistent with the financial statements or our knowledge obtained in the audit or otherwise appears to be materially misstated. If we identify such material inconsistencies or apparent material misstatements, we are required to determine whether there is a material misstatement in the financial statements or a material misstatement of the other information. If, based on the work we have performed, we conclude that there is a material misstatement of this other information, we are required to report the fact. We have nothing to report in this regard.

Opinions on other matters prescribed by the Companies Act 2006

In our opinion, based on the work undertaken in the course of the audit:

Matters on which we are required to report by exception

In the light of the knowledge and understanding of the group and the parent charitable company and its environment obtained in the course of the audit, we have not identified material misstatements in this annual report (which incorporates the strategic report and the directors’ report).

We have nothing to report in respect of the following matters in relation to which the Companies Act 2006 requires us to report to you if, in our opinion:

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Responsibilities of trustees for the financial statements

As explained more fully in the trustees’ statement of responsibilities, set out on page 69, the trustees (who are also the directors of the charitable company for the purposes of company law), are responsible for the preparation of the financial statements and for being satisfied that they give a true and fair view, and for such internal control as the trustees determine is necessary to enable the preparation of financial statements that are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error.

In preparing the financial statements, the trustees are responsible for assessing the group’s and the parent charitable company’s ability to continue as a going concern, disclosing, as applicable, matters related to going concern and using the going concern basis of accounting unless the trustees either intend to liquidate the group or the parent charitable company or to cease operations, or have no realistic alternative but to do so.

Auditor’s responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements

Our objectives are to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements as a whole

are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error, and to issue an auditor’s report that includes our opinion. Reasonable assurance is a high level of assurance, but is not a guarantee that an audit conducted in accordance with International Standards on Auditing (UK) will always detect a material misstatement where it exists.

Misstatements can arise from fraud or error and are considered material if, individually or in the aggregate, they could reasonably be expected to influence the economic decisions of users taken on the basis of these financial statements.

Irregularities, including fraud, are instances of non-compliance with laws and regulations.

We design procedures in line with our responsibilities, outlined above, to detect material misstatements in respect of irregularities, including fraud. The extent to which our procedures are capable of detecting irregularities, including fraud, is detailed below.

Based on our understanding of the group and the environment in which it operates, we identified that the principal risks of non-compliance with laws and regulations related to the regulatory requirements of the Charity Commission, and we considered the extent to which noncompliance might have a material effect on the financial statements. We also considered those laws and regulations that have a direct impact on the preparation of the financial statements, such as the Companies Act 2006, the Charities Act 2011, and the Statement of Recommended Practice for Charities (SORP).

We evaluated management’s incentives and opportunities for fraudulent manipulation of the financial statements (including the risk of override controls) and determined the principal risks were related to potential posting of inappropriate journal entries and management bias in certain areas of management estimates. Audit procedures performed by the engagement team included:

Because of the inherent limitations of an audit, there is a risk that we will not detect all irregularities, including those leading to a material misstatement in the financial statements or non-compliance with regulation. This risk increases the more that compliance with a law or regulation is removed from the events and transactions reflected in the financial statements, as we will be less likely to become aware of instances of non-compliance. The risk is also greater regarding irregularities occurring due to fraud rather than

error, as fraud involves intentional concealment, forgery, collusion, omission or misrepresentation.

A further description of our responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements is located on the Financial Reporting Council’s website at frc.org.uk/ auditorsresponsibilities . This description forms part of our auditor’s report.

Use of our report

Adam Halsey

(Senior Statutory Auditor) For and on behalf of HaysMac LLP Statutory Auditor

10 Queen Street Place London EC4R 1AG

Date: 3 September 2025

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Section H: Financial statements

The Church of England Children's Society Consolidated statement of financial activities

Year ended 31 March 2025

Unrest- Rest- Endow- Unrest- Rest- Endow-
ricted ricted ment Total ricted ricted ment Total
funds funds funds funds funds funds funds funds
2025 2025 2025 2025 2024 2024 2024 2024
Note £000 £000 £000 £000 £000 £000 £000 £000
Income and endowments from:
Donations and legacies 2 14,944 -
-
14,944		 12,577 -
-
12,577
Charitable activities 3 13,004 1,016 - 14,019 10,736 1,345 - 12,081
Trading income 4 11,626 -
-
11,626		 11,772 -
-
11,772
Investments 5 38 -
-
38		 17 - 6 23
Other income 6 15 -
-
15		 22 -
-
22
Total income and endowments 39,627 1,016 - 40,642 35,124 1,345 6 36,475
Expenditure on:
Raising funds 7 19,233 -
-
19,233		 19,060 -
-
19,060
Charitable activities 8 24,212 833 - 25,045 20,661 1,175 - 21,836
Total expenditure 43,445 833 - 44,278 39,721 1,175 - 40,896
Finance costs 11 - -
-
-		 (14) - -
(14)
Net gains on investments 14 992 - 445 1,437 2,469 - 1,363 3,832
Net income (2,826) 183 445 (2,198) (2,114) 170 1,369 (575)
Other recognised gains / (losses):
Actuarial gains/ (losses) on
defned beneft pension schemes 11 1,297 - - 1,297 (1,624) - - (1,624)
Transfers between funds 20 964 (64) (900) - 122 - (122) -
Net movement in funds (565) 119 (455) (901) (3,616) 170 1,247 (2,199)
Reconciliation of funds
Funds brought forward 30,685 1,500 13,780 45,965 34,301 1,330 12,533 48,164
Net movement in funds (565) 119 (455) (901) (3,616) 170 1,247 (2,199)
Summary of total income and expenditure
Total income 40,619 1,016 445 42,080 37,593 1,345 1,369 40,307
Total expenditure (42,148) (833) - (42,981) (41,331) (1,175) - (42,506)
Net income (1,529) 183 445 (901) (3,738) 170 1,369 (2,199)
All amounts relate to the continuing activities of the group. The reference to the notes, which form part of these fnancial statements,
is shown on each line as appropriate. The notes are shown on pages 78 to 107. The group has taken advantage of the exemption under
s408 of the Companies Act 2006 and has not prepared a separate Statement of Financial Activities for the charity. The net income for
Charity Projects in the year was £164,000 (2024: net expenditure of £4,070,745)

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The Church of England Children's Society Group and Society balance sheets as at 31 March 2025

Company registration number 40004

as at 31 March 2025
Group Society
2025 2024 2025 2024
Note £000 £000 £000 £000
Fixed assets
Intangible fxed assets 12 1,602 1,994 1,602 1,994
Tangible fxed assets 13 2,630 2,245 2,630 2,245
Investments 14 38,299 41,369 38,299 41,369
Total fxed assets 42,531 45,609 42,531 45,609
Current assets
Debtors 15 9,270 8,036 7,699 6,904
Cash 800 1,936 509 1,395
Total current assets 10,070 9,972 8,208 8,299
Current liabilities
Creditors: amounts falling
due within one year		 16 (6,863) (7,702) (4,895) (7,449)
Net current assets 3,207 2,270 3,313 850
Provisions for liabilities 17 (652) (594) (652) (594)
Net assets excluding pension defcit 45,086 47,285 45,192 45,865
Pension defcit 11 (22) (1,319) (22) (1,319)
Net assets 45,064 45,965 45,170 44,545
Unrestricted funds
General funds 20 16,777 19,169 16,883 17,750
Designated funds 20 13,365 12,835 13,365 12,835
Pension reserve 20 (22) (1,319) (22) (1,319)
Total unrestricted funds 30,120 30,685 30,226 29,266
Restricted funds 20 1,619 1,500 1,619 1,500
Endowment funds 20 13,325 13,780 13,325 13,780
Total funds 45,064 45,965 45,170 44,545

The financial statements were approved and authorised by the Board of Trustees on 24 July 2025 and signed on their behalf by

The Church of England Children's Society Group and Society cash flow statements Year ended 31 March 2025

Group Society
2025
2024		 2025
2024
Note £000
£000		 £000
£000
Net cash used by operating activities A (4,886)
(2,498)		 (4,635)
(1,735)
Cash fows from investment activities
Investment income received 38
23		 38
23
Purchase of investments (2,015)
(13)		 (2,015)
(13)
Proceeds from the sale of investments 6,543
2,000		 6,543
2,000
Purchase of tangible & intangible fxed assets (816)
(200)		 (816)
(200)
Net cash provided by investment activities 3,750
1,810		 3,750
1,810
Increase / (decrease) in cash (1,137)
(688)		 (885)
75
Cash at the start of theperiod 1,936
2,623		 1,395
1,320
Cash at the end of theperiod 800
1,936		 510
1,395
Notes to the cash fow statements
A Reconciliation of net income to cash used
by operating activities
Net income as reported in the statement of fnancial activities (2,198)
(575)		 (1,461)
(1,232)
Adjustments for:
Net investment income receivable (38)
(23)		 (38)
(23)
Net interest cost on defned beneft pension liability - -
 - -
Depreciation & amortisation charges 927
901		 927
901
Impairment charges and other adjustments 366
1,878		 908
957
Gains on investments and assets (2,734)
(3,832)		 (2,734)
(3,832)
(Increase) in debtors (98)
(1,132)		 (1,126)
(528)
(Decrease)/ increase in creditors (839)
253		 (839)
342
Intercompany creditor - -
 - 1,648
Increase /(decrease)inprovisions for liabilities 58
358		 58
358
Net cash provided by operations before pension contributions (4,556)
(2,172)		 (4,305)
(1,409)
Pension contributions (330)
(326)		 (330)
(326)
Net cash used by operating activities (4,886)
(2,498)		 (4,635)
(1,735)

David Ramsden

Honorary Treasurer

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Year ended 31 March 2025

Section I: Notes to the financial statements

1 Accounting policies

The principal accounting policies adopted, judgements and key sources of estimation uncertainty in the preparation of these financial statements are as set out below. These policies have been consistently applied to all the years presented, unless otherwise stated.

a. General information

The Society is registered in England and Wales as a company limited by guarantee with registration number 40004. It is registered as a charity with the Charity Commission with registration number 221124.

The registered office of the Society is:

Whitecross Studios 50 Banner Street London EC1Y 8ST

b. Statement of compliance

These consolidated and separate financial statements are prepared on a going concern basis, under the historical cost convention, as modified by the recognition of certain assets measured at fair value.

The financial statements have been prepared in accordance with Accounting and Reporting by Charities: Statement of Recommended Practice applicable to charities preparing their financial statements in accordance with the Statement of Recommended Practice for Charities (SORP 2015) (Second Edition, effective 1 January 2019) and the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (‘FRS 102’). The Society is a public-benefit entity as defined by FRS 102.

They also conform to the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 and the Companies Act 2006. No separate Statement of Financial Activities (‘SOFA’) has been presented for the Charity alone as permitted by the Charities SORP. The charity has taken advantage of the exemption in S408 of the Companies Act 2006 not to publish a charity only Income and Expenditure Account.

c. Basis of consolidation

The results of each of the Society’s subsidiary undertakings listed in note 21 have been consolidated into these financial statements, on a line-by-line basis. Uniform group accounting policies have been applied and transactions and balances between the undertakings are eliminated on consolidation.

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Notes to the financial statements (continued)

Year ended 31 March 2025

1 Accounting policies (continued)

d. Going concern

The accounting policies of The Children’s Society include the preparation of the accounts on the assumption that the Society will be a going concern for the 12 month period from the date of signing of the accounts.

e. Subsidiaries and joint ventures

Entities related to the Society are treated as subsidiaries when the Society is able to control the entity. Subsidiaries that have been part of the group in the year are shown in note 22.

f. Income from donations, grants and legacies

Income from donations, grants and legacies is recognised when the Society is entitled to the income, when receipt is probable and the amount can be reliably estimated.

Gift Aid receivable is recognised at the same time as the related donations.

When donations are received other than in money, for instance as a donation of property or investments, the donation is recorded at the fair value of the items donated at the date of donation, with the relevant asset recorded at the same initial value.

If there is a requirement to repay a grant received as a result of not meeting the conditions of the grant, a liability is recognised for the repayment and recorded as a reduction in income in the period.

g. Income from contracts

Income from contracts for the delivery of services is recognised on a straight-line basis over the period of time that the contract covers. Where the contract has a set value of expenditure to be met as well as covering a period of time, cumulative income is recognised in proportion to the cumulative value of expenditure. The amount of income recognised in a given reporting period is calculated as the difference between the cumulative income at the beginning and the end of the reporting period.

Notes to the financial statements (continued)

Year ended 31 March 2025

1 Accounting policies (continued)

h. Donated goods

Valuation of donated goods for resale at the time of receipt is not practicable, due to the high volume of low value items received and the absence of detailed stock control systems. Instead, the value of the donated items is recognised as income when they are sold and their value is thus determined.

i. Gifts in kind

The Society receives goods and services that are provided free of charge. When these replace expenditure that the Society would have made if not provided free of charge and the value can be measured reliably, the value of the goods or services received is recognised as donated income at the value that the Society would have paid a third-party supplier. The expenditure or asset arising is recognised at the same value in the appropriate section of the financial statements.

j. Volunteers

The Society benefits from volunteer support in its retail network, fundraising groups, working with children and young people, and in administration. If volunteers were not available, their roles would not be provided by salaried staff as it would be financially impractical. There is no ready market comparator for the roles they undertake and it is not possible to reliably measure the financial value of our volunteers.

The financial value of the donated services and the related contributed activity are, therefore, not recognised in the financial statements.

k. Accounting for expenditure

Costs are recognised when the Society has an obligation, whether contractual, legal or constructive, to transfer funds to another person or entity. Costs are recorded at the total of the amount due plus any unrecoverable VAT associated with the cost.

Costs are recorded according to the type of expenditure incurred and the charitable, income generation or support purpose to which they are put. Support and governance costs are allocated to the activities of the Society using the following bases:

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Notes to the financial statements (continued)

Year ended 31 March 2025

1 Accounting policies (continued)

1 Accounting policies (continued)
Cost group Allocation basis
HR and organisational development Headcount
Property services Number of properties managed
Information systems Number of users serviced
Financial processing and management Headcount
Senior management Headcount
Governance Headcount

Notes to the financial statements (continued)

Year ended 31 March 2025

1 Accounting policies (continued)

An interest cost arising from the unwinding of the discount on the scheme liabilities and an expected return from assets using the same discount rate are recognised in income and expenditure as a net income or cost.

Changes in the valuation of the scheme liabilities and assets caused by changing assumptions in the valuation of the liabilities and difference between expected and actual return on assets are recorded as actuarial gains and losses in the SOFA under ‘Other recognised gains and losses’.

For prudence, net gains are not recognised in the financial statements.

Multi-employer defined benefit pension schemes

l. Leases

The cost of the minimum payments under an operating lease is recognised evenly over the noncancellable period of the lease. To meet this policy, break points are assumed to be taken when calculating lease costs.

m. Employee benefits

Where the scheme is in deficit and where the company has agreed to a deficit funding arrangement, the company recognises a liability for this obligation. The amount recognised is the net present value of the deficit reduction contributions payable under the agreement that relates to the deficit. The present value is calculated using the discount rate which is the equivalent single discount rates which, when used to discount the future recovery plan contributions due, would give the same results as using a full AA corporate bond yield curve to discount the same recovery plan contributions. The unwinding of the discount is recognised as a finance cost.

Short-term employee benefits

Short-term employee benefits, typically salaries, paid holiday and contributions to moneypurchase pension schemes, are recorded as the employees earn entitlement to the benefits through their service.

Long-term employee benefits

Single employer defined benefit pension schemes

Scheme assets are measured at market value. Scheme liabilities are measured using the projected unit credit method and discounted at the current rate of high-quality corporate bonds with an equivalent term and the same currency as the liabilities.

Current service costs are recognised as the scheme members earn entitlement to benefits. Past service costs are recognised immediately in expenditure if the benefits have vested. The administration charges of the scheme are also included in expenditure as they fall due.

n. Taxation

The Society is a registered charity and, as such, is exempt from taxation of its income provided the income is applied for charitable purposes. Both subsidiary entities are subject to Corporation Tax. Taxable profits earned by the subsidiaries are distributed under the Gift Aid scheme to the Society so that taxable profits are eliminated, to the extent that the profits are available for distribution.

o. Accounting for funds

Monies received and expended are recorded as part of unrestricted general funds unless they meet the criteria to be recorded in one of the funds described below.

Income received that is required (whether by the donor, by written agreement or by the request made by the Society) to be used more narrowly than for the general purposes of the Society is recorded in a restricted fund. These funds are identified and held separately from the other funds of the Society.

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Notes to the financial statements (continued)

Year ended 31 March 2025

1 Accounting policies (continued)

The Trustees may also set aside monies into a fund designated for a specific purpose. A fund of this kind remains part of the unrestricted funds of the Society, but not available for use for general purposes.

Expenditure to meet the purposes of a fund is recorded against the fund. The remaining balances of funds are carried forward for future use. Endowment funds are those held on trust where the capital must be held permanently and the income generated from the capacity can be used in line with the original purpose of the fund. The Charities SORP permits and The Children’s Society uses a negative fund to represent the value of the pension deficit as separate from other funds.

Notes to the financial statements (continued)

Year ended 31 March 2025

1 Accounting policies (continued)

Asset type Initial expected life Initial expected residual
value
Freehold land Infinite Cost
Freehold buildings 50years Nil
Leasehold land and
buildings including
improvements		 Lease life (application of
policy to first break of
lease)		 Nil
Vehicles 4years Nil
Other Assets 4years Nil
Software 4years Nil

p. Intangible fixed assets

Intangible assets are capitalised where the useful life is longer than one year.

Where an intangible asset is software it is included at purchase cost or at total cost of development, recognising the use of internal resources. Software is amortised, using the straightline method and allowing for a residual value. The period of amortisation is 6 years with a residual value of 5%. The residual value takes account of technological advances which impact on the value or life cycle of the software.

The assets are reviewed annually to assess whether the carrying value is impaired. The carrying value is cost less accumulated amortisation and accumulated impairment losses.

q. Tangible fixed assets

Tangible fixed assets are physical and software assets controlled by the Society that are used in the delivery of charitable or support activities.

Tangible fixed assets are recorded when they have an aggregate cost of at least £2,500. They are recorded initially at cost including the costs of bringing them to location and state in which they can be used for their intended purpose.

After purchase, freehold land and buildings are carried at their open market value. Valuations are carried out on a rolling three- year programme by a Chartered Surveyor. Where market value is above carrying value, this amount is first applied as reversal of depreciation then as an increase in cost. Surpluses arising are transferred to a revaluation reserve as required by the Companies Act.

Where the market value is below carrying value, deficits arising are first treated as reversals of valuation then as additional depreciation. To the extent that the revaluation reserve has not been realised through depreciation, deficits arising are charged against the revaluation reserve.

r. Investments

Investments are recorded at cost when purchased. Where the market value of an investment can be determined by reference to an external market or a professional valuation, the investment is carried at its open-market value.

Investment property is property held by the Society for the purposes of generating income and/or capital growth. These buildings are not used by the Society for its purposes. Investment property is recorded initially at cost and remeasured each year at its open-market value.

Gains and losses on remeasurement are reported in income and expenditure.

The cost of the assets is depreciated evenly over their expected useful life with the Society to the expected residual value at the end of its useful life. Depreciation is charged from the point that the asset is ready for use. Initial depreciation rates are based on the following expected lives of assets:

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Notes to the financial statements (continued)

Year ended 31 March 2025

1 Accounting policies (continued)

s. Current assets

Trade debtors are recorded at the amount invoiced in accordance with the agreement to which they relate, less any impairment of the asset.

Costs incurred that relate to future periods are carried as prepayments within current assets.

Income that has met the conditions to be recognised either as a result of being earned under an agreement or being a future donation or legacy, able to be recognised as set out above, is recorded within accrued income.

Cash at bank and in hand represents the value of all cash and bank holdings that are available for immediate use.

Where fixed assets have been put on sale and are expected to be sold within the next financial year, their cost or valuation and accumulated depreciation are removed from fixed assets and the asset recorded as an asset held for sale. Assets held for sale are carried at the lower of cost or valuation less accumulated depreciation at the date of being placed on sale or the net amount recoverable from the sale, less associated costs.

Notes to the financial statements (continued)

Year ended 31 March 2025

1 Accounting policies (continued)

u. Liabilities and provisions

Liabilities are recognised when the Society has a legal or contractual obligation to transfer resources to another party to settle that obligation. Liabilities are recorded at the best estimate of the amount that will be required to settle the obligation.

When the timing, value or both of the liability is uncertain, a provision is recognised at the best estimate of the amount to be paid.

v. Financial instruments

The Society applies the provisions of sections 11 and 12 of FRS 102 in full.

Financial instruments are recorded initially at their transaction costs. Financial instruments held at fair value through profit and loss are subsequently measured and reported at their fair value. Changes in fair value from remeasurement are recorded in income and expenditure.

Financial instruments that are debt or financial liabilities are subsequently measured and reported at their amortised cost using the effective interest method. Remeasurement gains and losses are reported in income and expenditure.

t. Impairment of assets

w. Assets held on behalf of other charities

When external events relating to markets or technology or internal events relating to the plans and activities of the Society indicate that the value of an asset may be impaired, an impairment review is conducted. The review determines whether the recoverable value of the asset is above or below its carrying value, using external open-market values or other accepted valuation techniques. If the recoverable amount of the asset is below its carrying value, the difference is written off. To the extent that the reduction in value represents the reversal of undepreciated revaluation surpluses, the reduction is treated as a reversal of the revaluation. Any further reduction is recorded as an impairment of the asset in depreciation.

The Society from time to time holds assets on behalf of other charities. When such assets held are held separately from those belonging to the Society, they are not recorded in the financial statements. When the assets are combined with other assets of the Society, for example in pooled investments, the portion of the value of the assets held on behalf of the other charity is recorded as a liability. Income, expenditure, and gains and losses related to the portion of the assets held on behalf of the other charity are not reported in the statement of financial activities.

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Notes to the financial statements (continued)

Notes to the financial statements (continued) Year ended 31 March 2025

Year ended 31 March 2025

1 Accounting policies (continued)

x. Uncertainties and judgements

The principal judgements made in the preparation of the financial statements have been in relation to:

The most important uncertainties that the Society faces in the preparation of the financial statements are:

Unrestricted Restricted Total Unrestricted Restricted Total
funds funds funds funds funds funds
2025 2025 2025 2024 2024 2024
£000 £000 £000 £000 £000 £000
Donations
Christingle 814 - 814 822 - 822
House boxes 728 - 728 888 - 888
Other donations 6,521 - 6,521 6,543 - 6,543
Legacies 6,881 - 6,881 4,324 - 4,324
Total income from donations and
legacies		 14,944 - 14,944 12,577 - 12,577

3 Income from charitable activities

Income from charitable activities
Unrestricted Restricted Total Unrestricted Restricted Total
funds funds funds funds funds funds
2025 2025 2025 2024 2024 2024
£000 £000 £000 £000 £000 £000
Providing direct support to children
and young people		 11,464 379 11,843 9,550 497 10,047
Changing governmental and societal
systems		 1,540 637 2,177 1,186 848 2,034
Total income from charitable activities 13,004 1,016 14,020 10,736 1,345 12,081

4 Income from trading activities

Unrestricted Restricted Total Unrestricted Restricted Total
funds funds funds funds funds funds
2025 2025 2025 2024 2024 2024
£000 £000 £000 £000 £000 £000
Income from retail activities 11,511 - 11,511 11,684 - 11,684
Card sales 103 - 103 84 - 84
Event entry fees 12 - 12 4 - 4
Total income from trading activities 11,626 - 11,626 11,772 - 11,772

5 Income from investments

Unrestricted Endowment Total Unrestricted Restricted Total
funds funds funds funds funds funds
2025 2025 2025 2024 2024 2024
£000 £000 £000 £000 £000 £000
Income from fnancial investments 29 - 29 8 6 14
Income from investment properties 9 - 9 9 - 9
Total investment income 38 - 38 17 6 23

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Notes to the financial statements (continued) Year ended 31 March 2025

6 Other income

Unrestricted Restricted Total Unrestricted Restricted Total
funds funds funds funds funds funds
2025 2025 2025 2024 2024 2024
£000 £000 £000 £000 £000 £000
Sundry income 15 - 15 22 - 22
Total income from other sources 15 - 15 22 - 22

7 Expenditure on raising funds

Direct Support Total Direct Support Total
costs costs costs costs costs costs
2025 2025 2025 2024 2024 2024
£000 £000 £000 £000 £000 £000
Direct fundraising 5,222 912 6,134 5,292 1,298 6,590
Costs of retail operations 11,235 1,864 13,099 10,568 1,902 12,470
Total expenditure on raising funds 16,457 2,776 19,233 15,860 3,200 19,060

8 Expenditure on charitable activities

Direct Support Total Direct Support Total
costs costs costs costs costs costs
2025 2025 2025 2024 2024 2024
£000 £000 £000 £000 £000 £000
Providing direct support to children and young
people 15,188 5,278 20,466 12,557 4,340 16,897
Changing governmental and societal systems 3,783 796 4,579 4,065 874 4,939
Total expenditure on charitable activities 18,971 6,074 25,045 16,622 5,214 21,836

Providing direct support to children and young people £279,000 (2024 - £407,000) of costs are restricted funds during the year. Changing government and societal systems £554,000 (2024 - £768,000) of costs are restricted funds during the year.

Net income is arrived at after charging:

Net income is arrived at after charging:
2025 2024
£000 £000
Amortisation of intangible fxed assets 328 697
Depreciation of tangible fxed assets 599 361
Rentals payable under operating leases 2,624 2,514
Auditor's remuneration
Audit of the Group's fnancial statements 64 60

Notes to the financial statements (continued) Year ended 31 March 2025

9 Support costs and their allocation to activities

2025 Direct
services		 Changing
systems

Donations
& legacies		 Retail Total
£000 £000
£000		 £000 £000
HR and organisational development 1,342 206
235		 407 2,190
Property services 82 -
-		 287 369
Information systems 2,475 379
434		 751 4,040
Financial processing and management 887 136
156		 269 1,447
Senior management 343 53
60		 104 560
Governance 149 23
26		 45 244
Total support costs 5,278 796
912		 1,865 8,851
The allocation basis for support costs is set out in note 1 Accounting policies
2024 Direct
services		 Changing
systems

Donations
& legacies		 Retail Total
£000 £000
£000		 £000 £000
HR and organisational development 1,280 261
387		 465 2,393
Property services 42 -
-		 342 384
Information systems 2,074 422
626		 752 3,874
Financial processing and management 484 98
146		 176 904
Senior management 283 58
86		 103 530
Governance 176 36
53		 64 329
Total support costs 4,339 875
1,298		 1,902 8,414
Governance costs are made up of:
2025 2024
£000 £000
External audit 64 60
Internal audit 113 86
Trustee Board administration – 132
Trustee recruitment 34 18
Trustee expenses 3 2
Trustee meetings 4 9
Professional fees – 2
Senior Leadership Team 133 179
Totalgovernance costs 351 488
Senior Leadership Team costs represent a proportion of the Senior management costs allocated across all activities.
Trustees and staf
Group and Society
Average monthly number of full-time equivalent staf employed in: 2025 2024
Providing direct support to children and young people 319 262
Changing governmental and societal systems 53 59
Direct fundraising 56 79
Retail operations 194 190
Support services 91 83
Total 713 673

10 Trustees and staff

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Notes to the financial statements (continued) Year ended 31 March 2025

10 Trustees and staff (continued)

Trustees and staf (continued)
Average monthly number of staf employed in: 2025 2024
Providing direct support to children and young people 391 322
Changing governmental and societal systems 57 62
Direct fundraising 57 81
Retail operations 251 241
Support services 96 87
Total 852 793
Costs of staf 2025 2024
Group and Society £000 £000
Wages and salaries 24,661 22,830
Social security 2,238 2,063
Pensions 1,194 1,422
Redundancy and compensation for loss of ofce 497 122
Agency stafng 325 407
Total 28,915 26,844

The total amount paid in the year for redundancy and compensation for loss of office was £393,088.96 (2024: £176,628.28). The amount accrued for future redundancy payments at the balance sheet date was £104,402.00 (2024: Nil).

Higher paid staff

The number of employees with remuneration in excess of £60,000 including redundancy and compensation for loss of office but excluding pension contributions is analysed into the following bands:

2025 2024
Number Number
Between £60,001 and £70,000 10 13
Between £70,001 and £80,000 6 4
Between £80,001 and £90,000 – 1
Between £90,001 and £100,000 1 1
Between £100,001 and £110,000 3 2
Between £110,001 and £120,000 – 1
Between £130,001 and £140,000 1 1

The Society paid pension contributions into a money purchase scheme of £97,623 (2024: £111,441) for 21 (2024: 23) of the higher paid staff.

Notes to the financial statements (continued) Year ended 31 March 2025

11 Pensions

The Children’s Society operates three pension schemes, a defined contributions scheme, a defined benefits scheme and a multiemployer mixed defined benefit and money purchase scheme for additional voluntary contributions within The Pensions Trust Growth Plan (‘the Growth Plan’).

The defined contribution scheme is managed by Scottish Widows. The scheme is compliant with the pension reform rules for automatic enrolment. Contributions by the employee are matched by the employer up to a limit of 8% of salary and a salary sacrifice option is offered. The cost of employer contributions due as a result of service in the year was £1,193,542 (2024: £971,461).

The defined benefits scheme is externally funded and is contracted-in to the state second-tier of pension provision. Retirement benefits within this scheme are based on employees’ final remuneration and length of service. The scheme was closed to new members in June 2003 and is managed by The Pensions Trust and is covered in note 11(a).

"The Growth Plan" is a multi-employer scheme which provides benefits to some 521 non-associated participating employers. The scheme is a defined benefit scheme in the UK but is not possible for us to obtain sufficient information to enable us to account for the scheme as a defined benefit scheme. Therefore we account for the scheme as a defined contribution scheme. The scheme is subject to the funding legislation outlined in the Pensions Act 2004 which came into force on 30 December 2005. This, together with documents issued by the Pensions Regulator and the Financial Reporting Council, set out the framework for funding defined benefit occupational pension schemes in the UK. The scheme is classified as a 'last-man standing arrangement'. Therefore we are potentially liable for other participating employers' obligations if those employers are unable to meet their share of the scheme deficit following withdrawal from the scheme. Participating employers are legally required to meet their share of the scheme deficit on an annuity purchase basis on withdrawal from the scheme. This is covered in more detail in note 11(b).

11(a) Defined benefit scheme

An actuarial valuation is being carried out as at 30 September 2024 and the preliminary results of this have been updated to 31 March 2025 by a qualified actuary, independent of the Scheme's sponsoring employer. The most recently completed actuarial valuation as at 30 September 2021 showed a surplus of £1,954,000. The major assumptions used by the actuary are shown below.

TCS the employer has agreed with the trustee that it will pay 17.5% p.a. of pensionable earnings (previously 17.5% p.a.) in respect of the cost of accruing benefits for members who are not participating in the salary sacrifice arrangement and 27.5% p.a. of pensionable earnings (previous 27.5% p.a.) for members participating in the salary sacrifice arrangement and will pay £187,800 per annum to meet scheme expenses and levies to the Pension Protection Fund. Member contributions are payable in addition at the rate of 10.0% p.a. of pensionable earnings for members who are not participating in the salary sacrifice arrangement.

We have been notified by the pension scheme trustee that there may be a potential issue surrounding changes made to the scheme rules between 1995 and 2006, over which the trustee is seeking clarification from the courts. The trustee of The Pensions Trust (“the Trust”) has completed a review of the changes made to the benefit structures of the defined benefit pension schemes within the Trust, which involved reviewing the changes made to the benefits over the years;

Key management personnel

The key management personnel serving in the year comprise the chief executive officer, executive director youth impact, executive director finance & strategy, executive director social impact and executive director people, culture & transformation. The total remuneration paid to key management personnel was £627,138 (2024: £645,545).

The salary of the chief executive during the year ended 31 March 2025 comprised of salary £137,802 (2024: £135,099).

In addition, the company paid pension contributions of £7,464 (2024: £6,755) into a defined contribution scheme.

Trustee remuneration

No members of the Trustee Board received, or were entitled to receive, any remuneration. Where expenses were claimed, reimbursement was made. In the year, travelling expenses of £448.00 (2024: £17) were reimbursed to 3 trustees (2024: 1). Trustee indemnity insurance was purchased at a cost of £8,820 (2024: £8,820).

The matter is unlikely to be resolved before the autumn of 2025 at the earliest, and as such it is not possible to determine with any accuracy what the impact might be of any direction the court may, or may not, give. Many factors will impact the future valuation of the pension scheme, none of which can be accurately predicted at the present time. No adjustment has therefore been made to the amounts included in the financial statements in respect of this potential issue.

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Notes to the financial statements (continued) Year ended 31 March 2025

11 Pensions (continued)

The assumptions used by the actuary are the best estimates chosen each year from a range of possible actuarial assumptions which, due to the timescale covered, may not necessarily be borne out in practice.

Notes to the financial statements (continued) Year ended 31 March 2025

11 Pensions (continued)

11(a) Defined benefit scheme (continued)

Profit and loss impact

2025 2024
Rate of increase in salaries 0.00% 0.00%
Rate of increase in pensions in payment 2.60% 2.80%
Discount rate 5.60% 4.80%
Infation assumption (RPI) 3.12% 3.17%
Rate of increase for deferred pensions 3.12% 3.17%

The rate of increase in salaries is assumed at 0% as pensionable salaries for active members were frozen as at 31 December 2013.

Life expectancy included in the valuation of the scheme is calculated using the S4PXA (All Pensioners - Pension Amounts) tables with a best estimate scheme-specific scaling factor of 102% (2024 -106%). The base tables have been projected using the S4PXA projection model with a long-term improvement rate 1.5% for males and of 1.25% for females.

The resulting average life-expectancies in years (age at death) were:

Pensioners retiring: 2025 2024 2024
Females Males Females Males
Now 23.7 (88.7) 21.3 (86.3) 24.0 (89.1) 21.4 (86.7)
In 20 years 25.1 (90.1) 22.9 (87.9) 25.4 (90.6) 23.1 (88.3)
Assets and liabilities of the scheme 2025 2024
£000 £000
Bonds (including LDI's) 70,891 89,834
Equities 88 124
Property 10,619 10,541
Cash 2,602 1,670
Other 15,886 8,069
Scheme assets 100,086 110,238
Present value of scheme liabilities (98,877) (111,548)
Surplus/(Defcit) in the scheme - pension liability 1,209 (1,310)
Efect of asset ceiling (1,035) -
Eliminate FRS102 scheme surplus -
-
Present value of Growth Planprovision(note 11(b)) 22 (9)
Net pension liability 196 (1,319)

For prudence, net gains on are not recognised in the financial statements.

Defned beneft scheme (continued)
Proft and loss impact
2025 2024
£000 £000
Current service cost 78 75
Past service cost - -
Expenses 307 245
Interest on obligation 5,223 5,354
Expected return on scheme assets (5,158) (5,515)
Total 450 159
Movement in defned beneft obligation
2025 2024
£000 £000
Opening defned beneft obligation 111,548 115,727
Current service cost 78 75
Past service cost - -
Interest cost 5,223 5,354
Contributions by employees 5 10
Actuarial loss/(gain) (12,343) (3,444)
Benefts paid (5,634) (6,174)
Closing defned beneft obligation 98,877 111,548
Change in fair value of the scheme assets
2025 2024
£000 £000
Opening value of the scheme assets 110,238 119,111
Expected return 5,158 5,515
Expenses (307) (245)
Actuarial (loss)/gain (9,704) (8,305)
Contributions by employer 330 326
Contributions by employees 5 10
Benefts paid (5,634) (6,174)
Closing fair value of the scheme assets 100,086 110,238
Actual return on scheme assets (4,546) (2,790)
Defned beneft costs recognised in other comprehensive income
2025 2024
£000 £000
Return on plan assets (excluding amounts included in net interest cost) (9,704) (8,305)
Experience gains and losses arising on the plan liabilities 415 (873)
Efects of changes in the demographic and fnancial assumptions
underlying the present value of the plan liabilities		 10,893 4,317
Payment to eliminate defcit - -
Efect of asset ceiling - -
Eliminate FRS102 scheme surplus - -
Total amount recognised in other comprehensive income 1,604 (4,861)

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Notes to the financial statements (continued) Year ended 31 March 2025

11 Pensions (continued)

11(a) Defined benefit scheme (continued)

Sensitivity analysis

Changes in assumptions would have the following indicative effects on the liabilities of the scheme:

Assumption change Effect on liabilities Increase / decrease in discount rate by 0.1% 2% increase / decrease in liabilities Increase / decrease inflation linked assumptions by 0.1% per 2% increase / decrease of inflation linked annum liabilities 3-5% increase / decrease in Increase / decrease in life expectancy of 1 year liabilities

11(b) The Growth Plan

The Children’s Society participates in The Pensions Trust Growth Plan, a multi-employer scheme which provides benefits to some 521 non-associated participating employers. The scheme is a defined benefit scheme in the UK.

A full actuarial valuation of the scheme was carried out as at 30 September 2023. This valuation showed assets of £514.9m, liabilities of £531.0m and a deficit of £16.1m. To eliminate this funding shortfall, the Trustee has asked the participating employers to pay additional contributions to the scheme as follows:

Deficit contributions (relating to all 638 employers)

From 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2028: £2,100,000 per annum (payable monthly)

Notes to the financial statements (continued) Year ended 31 March 2025

12 Intangible fixed assets

Intangible fxed assets
Software Total
£000 £000
Group and Society
Cost or valuation
At 1 April 2024 3,468 3,468
Transfer/adj 164 164
Additions 134 134
Disposals - -
WIP 126 126
Revaluation - -
At 31 March 2025 3,892 3,892
Amortisation
At 1 April 2024 1,474 1,474
Transfer/adj 488
 488
Amortisation charged 328
 328
Released on disposal – –
Revaluation – –
At 31 March 2025 2,290 2,290
Net book value
At 31 March 2025 1,602 1,602
At 31 March 2024 1,994 1,994

The recovery plan contributions are allocated to each participating employer in line with their estimated share of the Series 1 and Series 2 scheme liabilities.

2025 2024
£000 £000
Present values of provision (only relating to The Children's Society) 22 9
2025 2024
£000 £000
Changes in provision
Provision at start of period 9 19
Unwinding of the discount factor (interest expense) - 1
Defcit contributions paid (9) (11)
Remeasurements - impact of any change in assumptions - -
Remeasurements - amendments to the contribution schedule 22 -
Provision at end ofperiod 22 9
Proft and loss impact
Interest expense - 1
Remeasurements – impact of any change in assumptions - -
Remeasurements – amendments to the contribution schedule 22 -
2025 2024
Assumptions
Discount rate 4.84% 5.31%

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Notes to the financial statements (continued) Year ended 31 March 2025

Notes to the financial statements (continued) Year ended 31 March 2025

13 Tangible fixed assets

Tangible fxed assets
Leasehold
Freehold land & land & Other
buildings buildings Vehicles Assets Total
£000 £000 £000 £000 £000
Group and Society
Cost or valuation
At 1 April 2024 2,463 7,416 68 4,168 14,115
Transfer/adj (428) 245 - (347) (530)
Additions - 413 - 269 682
Disposals - - - - -
WIP - 217 - - 217
Revaluation / Impairment - - - - -
At 31 March 2025 2,035 8,291 68 4,090 14,484
Depreciation
At 1 April 2024 944 6,841 33 4,052 11,870
Transfer/adj (392) 245 - (467) (614)
Depreciation charged 36 320 10 233 599
Released on disposal - - - - -
Revaluation / Impairment - - - - -
At 31 March 2025 588 7,406 43 3,818 11,855
Net book value
At 31 March 2025 1,447 885 26 272 2,630
At 31 March 2024 1,519 575 35 116 2,245

Freehold land & buildings used by The Children's Society are revalued following the policy set out in note 1. Valuations are carried out by the Society's Estates Surveyor, Ian Birtwistle MRICS. The most recent valuations were carried out in 2022.

If the properties (including those held for sale and in investments) had not been revalued, they would be reported in the accounts with a cost of £2,164,519 (2024: £2,164,519) and accumulated depreciation of £724,786 (2024: £646,942) leaving a net value of £1,517,577 (2024: £1,439,733).

14 Investments

Investments
Investment Listed
Group and Society properties investments Total
£000 £000 £000
At 1 April 2023 165 39,359 39,524
Purchases - 13 13
Transfer from fxed assets - - -
Sales - (2,000) (2,000)
Realised and unrealisedgains - Society - 3,832 3,832
At 1 April 2024 165 41,204 41,369
Purchases - 2,015 2,015
Transfer from fxed assets - (8) (8)
Sales - (6,543) (6,543)
Realised and unrealisedgains - Society - 1,466 1,466
At 31 March 2025 165 38,134 38,299

15 Debtors

Debtors
Group Society
2025
2024		 2025 2024
£000
£000		 £000 £000
Trade debtors 2,862 2,533 594 1,401
Prepayments and accrued income 6,377 5,494 6,377 5,494
Taxation debtors - - - -
Other debtors 31 9 31 9
Amounts due from subsidiary - - 697 -
Total debtors 9,270
8,036		 7,699 6,904
Creditors: amounts due within one year
Group Society
2025
2024		 2025 2024
£000
£000		 £000 £000
Trade creditors 656 692 656 692
Accruals 2,325 2,493 2,325 2,493
Deferred income 3,161 3,581 1,193 2,274
Taxation and social security 612 818 612 818
Other creditors 109 118 109 118
Amounts due to subsidiary - - - 1,648
Total creditors: amounts due within one year 6,863
7,702		 4,895 8,043

16 Creditors: amounts due within one year

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Notes to the financial statements (continued)

Year ended 31 March 2025

Notes to the financial statements (continued) Year ended 31 March 2025

16 Creditors: amounts due within one year (continued)

Deferred income arises as a result of payment or billing in advance for activities that are to be delivered in the future.

Group Society Society
2025
2024		 2025 2024
£000
£000		 £000 £000
Deferred income at the start of the year 3,581 3,448 2,274 2,737
Deferred income brought forward released in the year (3,063) (3,193) (1,162) (2,762)
Income deferred from the year 2,561 3,326 81 2,299
Deferred income at the end of the year 3,079
3,581		 1,193 2,274

17 Provisions for liabilities

Group and Society

Property Total
dilapidations provisions
£000 £000
At 1 April 2024 1,017 1,017
Charged in the year – –
Used in the year (39) (39)
Released unused 5 5
Total provisions 983 983
Property Total
dilapidations provisions
£000 £000
Amounts due within one year 331 331
Amounts due after more than one year 652 652
Total provisions 983 983

18 Commitments

At 31 March 2025, the Group and Society had £Nil (2024: Nil) of authorised but not contracted capital commitments and Nil (2024: Nil) contracted capital commitments that had not been reflected in the financial statements.

Minimum payments under operating leases are:

Land and Motor Ofce
2025 buildings vehicles equipment Total
£000 £000 £000 £000
Amounts falling due:
within one year 2,097 117 - 2,214
between two and fve years 5,063 133 - 5,196
after more than fve years - - - -
Total operating lease commitments 7,160 250 – 7,410
2024 Land and
buildings		 Motor
vehicles		 Ofce
equipment		 Total
£000 £000 £000 £000
Amounts falling due:
within one year 1,927 111 - 2,038
between two and fve years 4,806 202 - 5,008
after more than fve years 134 - - 134
Total operating lease commitments 6,867 313 - 7,180

19 Contingent liabilities

In common with other charitable organisations, the Society receives legacies arising from wills where the executor has been unable to locate one or more beneficiaries. In these circumstances, the Society may provide an indemnity to the executor under which any funds required to be paid to the missing beneficiary or beneficiaries is recovered from the Society. At the date of these accounts the value of such indemnities provided totals was £347,794 (2024: £347,794).

Under the terms of operating leases for properties, the Society is required to make good any demerit in the condition of properties and to remove fixtures and fittings added to the building during the course of the lease. The amounts and timing of the amounts due are not certain, as leases may be curtailed or extended and the cost of works is not known until they are carried out. The value of works required is estimated by suitably qualified and experienced chartered surveyors.

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Notes to the financial statements (continued)

Year ended 31 March 2025

Notes to the financial statements (continued) Year ended 31 March 2025

20 Funds

Group







Balance
at 31
March
2024
Income
Expend-
iture
Other
gains
and
(losses)
Transfers
Balance
at 31
March
2025
£000
£000
£000
£000
£000
£000
Unrestricted funds
General funds
19,169
39,627
(41,814)
(205)
-
16,777
Designated funds:
Fixed Asset fund
4,239
-
(926)
919
-
4,232
Impact fund
8,596
-
(705)
278
64
8,233
Slack fund
-
-
-
-
900
900
Total designated funds
12,835
-
(1,631)
1,197
964
13,365
Unrestricted funds before
pension defcit liability
32,004
39,627
(43,445)
992
964
30,142
Pension defcit fund
(1,319)
-
-
1,297
-
(22)
Total unrestricted funds
30,685
39,627 (43,445)
2,289
964
30,120
Restricted funds
The National Lottery Community Fund
864
-
(567)
-
-
297
Othergrants
636
1,016
(266)
-
(64)
1,322
Total restricted funds
1,500
1,016
(833)
-
(64)
1,619
Endowment funds
The Children's Society Fund
7,090
-
-
229
-
7,319
Charnwood House
1,903
-
-
61
-
1,964
Charnwood Forest
1,262
-
-
41
-
1,303
Hampshire Girls and Boys Trust
1,165
-
-
38
-
1,203
The George and Marion Slack Fund
1,455
-
-
47
(900)
602
The Croghan Fund
905
-
-
29
-
934
Total endowment funds
13,780
-
-
445
(900)
13,325
Total funds
45,965
40,643
(44,278)
2,734
-
45,064

20 Funds (continued)

General
funds
Designated
funds
Pension
defcit
fund
Restricted
funds
Endow-
ment
funds
Total
£000
£000
£000
£000
£000
£000
Intangible fxed assets
-
1,602
-
-
-
1,602
Tangible fxed assets
-
2,630
-
-
-
2,630
Investments
15,841
9,133
-
-
13,325
38,299
Total fxed assets
15,841
13,365
-
-
13,325
42,531
Cash
(819)
-
-
1,619
-
800
Other current assets
9,270
-
-
-
-
9,270
Total current assets
8,451
-
-
1,619
-
10,070
Current liabilities
6,863
-
-
-
-
6,863
Net current assets
1,588
-
-
1,619
-
3,207
Provisions for liabilities
652
-
-
-
-
652
Net assets excluding pension
defcit
16,777
13,365
-
1,619
13,325
45,086
Pension defcit
-
-
(22)
-
-
(22)
Net assets
16,777
13,365
(22)
1,619
13,325 45,064

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Notes to the financial statements (continued) Year ended 31 March 2025

Notes to the financial statements (continued)

Year ended 31 March 2025

20 Funds (continued)

Funds (continued)
Balance Other Balance
at 31 gains at 31
March Expend- and March
Group 2023 Income iture (losses) Transfers 2024
£000 £000 £000 £000 £000 £000
Unrestricted funds
General funds 21,297 35,124 (38,944) 1,570 122 19,169
Designated funds:
Property fund 5,140 - (901) - - 4,239
Impact fund 7,883 - (200) 913 - 8,596
Total designated funds 13,023 - (1,101) 913 - 12,835
Unrestricted funds before
pension defcit liability		 34,320 35,124 (40,045) 2,483 122 32,004
Pension defcit fund (19) - 324 (1,624) - (1,319)
Total unrestricted funds 34,301 35,124 (39,721) 859 122 30,685
Restricted funds
The National Lottery
Community Fund		 746 1,003 (885) - - 864
Othergrants 584 342 (290) - - 636
Total restricted funds 1,330 1,345 (1,175) - - 1,500
Endowment funds
The Children's Society Fund 6,408 3 - 701 (22) 7,090
Charnwood House 1,714 1 - 188 - 1,903
Charnwood Forest 1,136 1 - 125 - 1,262
Hampshire Girls and Boys
Trust		 1,050 - - 115 - 1,165
The George and Marion Slack
Fund		 1,310 1 - 144 - 1,455
The Croghan Fund 915 - - 90 (100) 905
Total endowment funds 12,533 5 - 1,363 (122) 13,780
Total funds 48,164 36,475 (40,896) 2,222 - 45,965

20 Funds (continued)

Description of funds

General funds represent the other assets available for the general purposes of the Society.

Designated Fixed Asset fund (previously called Property fund) represents the carrying value including revaluations of land and buildings held for use in the activities of The Children's Society and the net book value of all other tangible and intangible fixed assets.

The Impact fund has a purpose to help enhance our strategic ambition by funding innovative pilots and projects for which traditional forms of funding are unavailable. It was started from the trustees transferring £3.5m from funds remaining from a previous strategy designated fund. It further benefitted from a £4.5m transfer that came from The Children's Society endowment fund and the Spooner Trust. These transfers represent unrealised gains from the endowment fund over several years, with permission granted from the Charity Commission to use these funds for the purpose of the Impact fund. The funds are held as partof our investment portfolio and the amount transferred represents the expenditure incurred during the year from the Impact Fund. The expenditure is in line with the projects approved by the trustees.

The Slack Fund represents a fund transfer from endowments of £0.9m following permission from the Charity Commission in June 2024, for the public benefit to care for and support children and young people in need, whether material, physical, mental, emotional, spiritual or otherwise by promoting or otherwise advancing their education or training (including by way of apprenticeship schemes) in such ways as the Children’s Society, as trustee, thinks fit.

Restricted funds represent the remaining unspent amount of donations, grants and legacies given to be used for specific purposes or in specific areas. Details of grants received are in note 24.

Endowment funds have additional restrictions on the use of capital. The funds are held as part of our investment portfolio. The Children's Society Fund and The Spooner Trust are held to generate income to use for the purpose and mission of the charity and have been merged together. The George and Marion Slack Fund is held to provide educational opportunities for disadvantaged children and young people. Charnwood House, Charnwood Forest, Hampshire Boys & Girls Trust and The Children's Society are held to generate income to provide care and support to children and young people in specific places in England. The Children's Society was transferred into Hampshire Boys & Girls Trust. The Croghan Fund is to support young people in education.

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Notes to the financial statements (continued) Year ended 31 March 2025

Notes to the financial statements (continued) Year ended 31 March 2025

21 Financial instruments

Financial instruments
Group Society
2025 2024 2025 2024
£000 £000 £000 £000
Financial assets measured at fair value through proft and loss
Financial investments 38,134 41,204 38,134 41,204
Debt instruments measured at amortised cost
Trade debtors 2,862 2,533 594 1,401
Other debtors 31 9 31 9
Amounts due from subsidiaries - - 697 -
Financial liabilities measured at amortised cost
Trade creditors 656 692 656 692
Accruals 2,325 2,493 2,325 2,493
Other creditors 109 118 109 118
Amounts due to subsidiaries - - - 1,648

22 Subsidiary undertakings

The Society owns the whole share capital of The Children's Society (Trading) Limited, registered in England and Wales no. 885496 whose principal activity is to carry out commercial activities that generate funds in aid of the Society, and The Children's Society (Services) Limited, registered in England and Wales no. 4545124, whose principal activity is to provide funded direct services for the beneficiaries of the Society.

Both companies have entered into an agreement to donate their taxable surplus each year to the Society under the corporate Gift Aid scheme.

A summary of the information disclosed in the companies' accounts for the year ended 31 March 2025 is:

Services Trading
2025
2024		 2025 2024
Summarised proft and loss account
Income 7,630
5,137		 306 335
Expenditure (6,973) (4,721) (226) (237)
Proft for theyear 657
416		 80 98
Gift Aid distribution to The Children's Society (657)
(416)		 (80) (98)
**Retained earnings ** -
-		 - -
Summarised balance sheet
Current assets 2,613
3,125		 272 195
Current liabilities (2,613)
(3,125)		 (272) (195)
Net assets -
-		 - -
Share capital –
–		 – –
Retained reserves –
–		 – –
Total reserves –
–		 – –

23 Related parties

Information on Trustees' expenses is set out in note 9.

The total amount of Trustee donations made, without conditions, was £4,625 (2024: £8,575).

Transactions with subsidiary undertakings 2025 2024
£000 £000 £000 £000
Services Trading Services Trading
Balance sheet amounts
Amounts due to the parent undertaking 645 52 - 195
Amounts due from the parent undertaking - - 1,593 -
Income
Donations from the parent undertaking - - - -
Expenditure
Donations to the parent undertaking 657 80 416 98
Grants received
The National Lottery Community Fund (previously The Big Lottery)
Reaching Communities Grants
Disrupting Exploitation 39
Other Grants
BBC Children in Need - Safeguarding Children At Risk -
Prevention and Action 250
Other grants from charitable bodies in the year amount to:
National Prevention Project CSE/A 715
Safe Zones 287
Other 96
Total 1,387

24 Grants received

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Section J: Corporate information

The Church of England Children’s Society

(A company limited by guarantee) Also known as The Children’s Society

Registered office

Whitecross Studios 50 Banner Street London EC1Y 8ST Company registration no: 40004 Charity registration no: 221124

Telephone

Honorary vice-presidents

Mrs A Lush MBE Dr N de M Rudolf MA BM BCh FRSM

Young trustees

Brogan Cree Esther James Jo Maryam (stepped down November 2024) Muna Rose

020 7841 4400

Board of trustees

Website

https://www.childrenssociety.org.uk/

Subsidiary companies

The Children’s Society (Services) Limited, company no: 4545124 The Children’s Society (Trading) Limited, company no: 885496

Royal president

HRH The Duchess of Gloucester LG GCVO

Presidents

The Most Reverend and Right Hon the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury The Most Reverend and Right Hon the Lord Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell

Vice-presidents

Diocesan Bishops of the Church of England

The Rt Rev’d Elizabeth Lane, Bishop of Derby, interim Chair (appointed in November 2024) (c)

Diane Blausten, Senior Independent Director (SID) (c) Alyson Coates (a) (b) Jim Clifford OBE (term ended in November 2024) (b) Chris Coles (a) Deborah Harris-Ugbomah FCA (b) Helen Keppel-Compton (a) Florence Kroll CBE (b) Sam Monaghan (c) Sarah Payne CBE (c) David Ramsden, Honorary Treasurer (a) Diane Noble (sabbatical in 2024/25, stepped down April 2025) Sharon Ward (appointed in November 2024) (b) Stella McAteer (appointed in November 2024) Jamie Elliott (appointed in November 2024) Will Fernandez (appointed in November 2024)

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The Children’s Society

Members of committees

Vincent Anane-Nimoh (c) Sara Boiten (c) Raj Cheema (b) Alison Hopkinson (a) Nasima Patel (b) Leon Ward (c) Vannessa Whitehead (b) Alexandra Barrington (appointed in August 2024) (b) Alaba Dayo-Payne (appointed in August 2024) (b)

Company Secretary

Matthew Scott-Pearce

Chief Executive Officer

Mark Russell

Executive Director, People, Culture & Transformation

Michelle Clark

Executive Director, Youth Impact

Nerys Anthony

Executive Director, Finance and Strategy

Segun Olowookere

Executive Director, Social Impact

Joe Jenkins

External Auditor

HaysMac LLP, 10 Queen Street Place, London EC4R 1AG

Bankers

Barclays plc, 1 Churchill Place, London E14 5HP

a. Member of the Finance and Investment Committee b. Member of the Risk, Audit, and Compliance Committee c. Member of the Organisational Development Committee

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Trustee board and committee attendance (from 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025)

Name Trustee Finance and Risk, Organisational Trustee
board Investment Audit, and Development board
Committee Compliance Committee away
Committee days
Trustee board members
The Rt Rev’d Elizabeth
Lane, Bishop of Derby,
interim Chair (appointed		 5/6 3/4
in November 2024) (c)
Diane Blausten, Senior
Independent Director 6/6 4/4
(SID) (c)
Alyson Coates (a) (b) 5/6 4/4 3/4
Jim Cliford OBE (term
ended in November 2024) 1/3 3/3
(b)
Chris Coles (a) 5/6 4/4
Deborah Harris-Ugbomah
FCA (b)		 5/6 4/4
Helen Keppel-Compton (a) 5/6 2/4
Florence Kroll CBE (b) 4/6 1/4
Sam Monaghan (c) 3/6 3.5/4
Sarah Payne CBE (c) 2/6 4/4
David Ramsden, Honorary
Treasurer (a)		 6/6 4/4
Diane Noble (sabbatical in
2024/25, stepped down 2/2 2/2 1/1
April 2025)
Sharon Ward (appointed in
November 2024) (b)		 2/4 1/1
Stella McAteer (appointed
in November 2024)		 2/4
Jamie Elliott (appointed in
November 2024)		 4/4
Wil Fernandez (appointed in
November 2024)		 4/4
Name Trustee Finance and Risk, Organisational Trustee
board Investment Audit, and Development board
Committee Compliance Committee away
Committee days
Committee members
Vincent Anane-Nimoh (c) 0/4
Sara Boiten (c) 4/4
Raj Cheema (b) 3/4
Alison Hopkinson (a) 2/4
Nasima Patel (b) 4/4
Leon Ward (c) 2/4
Vannessa Whitehead (b) 1/1 1/4
Alexandra Barrington
(appointed in August 2024) 1/1 2/2
(b)
Alaba Dayo-Payne
(appointed in August 2024) 1/1 2/2
(b)

Honorary Lifetime Membership

During 2024/25 two individuals were awarded honorary lifetime membership to The Children’s Society for their outstanding contribution to the charity

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Thank you to our supporters

We’re so grateful to our strategic partners and funders supporting our work over the past year:

Thank you to our kind supporters who chose to leave us a gift in their will to in the last 12 months. We remember them with heartfelt thanks below and pay tribute to their support.

Kathleen Mary Cross Lillian Amy Currell Barbara Alice Cutter Jocelyn Dalton Rosemary Jeanetta Dampier Una Margaret Davis Charles Ivor Davis Peggy Jean Denman Stella Elizabeth Dibble Sheila Frances Dobner Hazel Doughty Margaret Joan Duxbury Marian Elizabeth Eagles Irene Easey Jennifer Isabel Elston Brian Emmett Margaret Anne Exley Bernard Manion Fennell Margaret Ferguson Joan Finch Jean May Findlay Barbara Firth Bryan Ivor Follett Peter Hugh Ford Patricia Foster Valerie Jean Fox Elsa Margarethe Fraser Jeanette Freeman Mrs Fry

Edna Ackroyd Heather Joan Alliston Jill Allum Philip H Andrews Joyce Ann Appleton Philip Arthur Avery Susan Makascal Bailey Margaret Ann Ballard Barbara Jean Barker Betty Grace Constance Barnett Joan Marion Barnett Margaret Mary Baynes Jean Beardow David John Bennett Cynthia Ruth Berry Avis Blake Diane Yvette Bonny Irene Broadhead

Elaine Margaret Hault Mary Hawker Marta Haworth Marilyn Jane Healy Peter John Helm Joan Hey Betty Heyworth David James Hill Dorothy Mossop Hilton Janet Hobbs Douglas Pilkington Hodgson Joyce Beryl Holliday Michael Holt Margaret Elizabeth Holthouse Kathleen Ann Horsley Sheila Ann Horswill Jennie May Howard Audrey Howgate George Raymond Huck Philip Laurence Hutchinson Evelyn Louise Jeffs Penelope Anne Jones Jillian Kennaugh Christopher Allen Lane Barbara Mary Latham Jennifer Daisy Latto Philip Walter Lawrence Gordon Leaf Margaret Elizabeth Lee Trevor Vincent Lewis Ann Mary Lewis Mary Jeffrey Lillie Kathleen Mary Lindsay Anthony David Lloyd-Jones Carol Long

June Dorothy Brooks Norah Kathleen Broomfield Ann Elizabeth Brown Lois Muriel Buckley Margaret Buckley Joyce Dorothy Bullock Robert William Bunn Mildred Elise Burgoyne Edith Gillian Buxton Margaret Campbell Bessie Ann Canning Valerie Jane Carlisle Janet Margaret Chadwick Audrey Mary Cheeseman Mair Claret Janet Mackenzie Clark Margaret Clark Lexie Clarke Gillian Elizabeth Cleaver Margaret Clipsham Walter Philip Charles Cobb John Alexander Cole Nora Josephine Colley Joy Margaret Connell Anne Cecelia Cook Geoffrey Cooke Pauline Ann Cooper Christine Anne Coulthread Sheila Mary Croft

Dorothy Marguerite Fuller Yvonne Jacqueline Gadd Barbara Gardiner

Prudence Mary Gingell Elspeth Alison Drummond Gordon

Brenda Gove Shirley Barbara Stafford Grist Audrey Grocott Jean Grundy Gillian Ann Hale Eileen Hall

Sheila Margaret Loraine White Alfreda Mary Lowe-Willetts Derek Macklam Roger A Marks Nancy Lilian Martel Doris Ellen Joan Martin Margaret Anne Martin Avery Elizabeth Matthews Alistair James McArthur John McCann Muriel Metcalfe 115

Patricia Mary Hilda Halsall Dorothy Edna Hardwick Pauline Hardy Reginald Arthur Harlow Kathleen Margaret Harris Margaret Hartley

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Beatrice Fanny Millichap Ruth Milverton Barbara Mitchell Janet Moody Edna Moore Pamela Jean Moorhouse Mary Marjorie Morgan-Lewis John Haworth Myers Jean Morrison Neal Thelma Newman Joan Margaret Newson Michael John Ney Marjorie Nunn Ian Douglas Ogilvie Olugbemisola Olubukola Oshingbile P J Otto Elizabeth Ann Park Barbara Jeanne Payne Jean Peacock Joan Pearson Leo Pemberton Shirley Pentland Elizabeth Perrott Margaret Anne Perry Heather Grace Phillips Pauline Olive Player Anne Pauline Ponter Eileen Lilian Violet Potten Rosemary Potter Nora Millicent Powell Monica Evelyn Pratt Pamela Mary Pritchard

Jill Pullman

Frederick James William Rabbatts Doreen Mabel Raby-Wood Kathleen Olive Reynolds Margaret Jean Richmond Helen Ridehalgh Brenda Alison Ridgeway Kenneth John Riley June Patricia Robinson Lena Joan Vera Roger-Jones Gary Rowbottom Eleanor Rutherford Doris Caroline Saxby Constance Jessie Schofield Elizabeth Hilary Sheard Audrey Violet Shilling Rosemary Violet Simmons Farley Casey Lindsay Sinclair Vera Ann Sloman Bridget Murray Smedley William Henry Smith Shirley Rose Smith Christine Elizabeth Smith Lillias Smith Jean Smith Margaret Snowling Daphne Joan Sommers Audrey Maud Spofforth Janice Anne Stables Sally Anne Stephens Phyllis Mary Stokes Dawn Stroud William Sutcliffe

To find out about how you can make a difference through a gift in your will, please contact our supporter care team:

t: 0300 303 7000 e: legacies@childrenssociety.org.uk childrenssociety.org.uk/gifts-in-wills

Kathleen Vera Symonds Myron Tabora Dorothy Elizabeth Ann Tandy Jean Taylor Christine Taylor Pauline Felicity Taylor Margaret Anne Telford Ralph Harry Thornton Kathleen Dorothy Joan Towells Kate Emily Louise Tucker Penelope Ann Underwood Alan Paul Verrall

Michael Howard Wadmore Barbara Anne Wadsworth Pamela Doris Waite Joy Dorothy Walker Henry Dennis Ward Alan Watts

Mary Barbara Patricia Whatley Elizabeth Wheatly Pauline Margaret Wheeler Matthew Charles Murray Whelan Alan Arthur White Thomas Vincent Whitehead Margaret Whiteley Michael Lewis Whitfield Fenella Ruth Wilkinson Margaret Wilkinson Gordon Stewart Williams Mary Louisa Woodward Nancy Woof David Cordrey Wooster Anthony Beresford Wright

Glossary

Child abuse

When a child is being deliberately harmed or neglected, either by an adult or another child, this is child abuse. It might happen just once, or repeatedly over a longer period of time, and it can happen online and offline. It might be sexual, physical, or emotional abuse, or neglect (where a child is not given the love and care they need). The impact of child abuse may not always be obvious or physical. See also definition of ‘domestic violence and abuse’.

Child criminal exploitation

When an individual or group takes advantage of an imbalance of power to coerce, control, manipulate, or deceive a child or young person under the age of 18 into any criminal activity. This may be in exchange for something the victim needs or wants, for the financial or other advantage of the perpetrator or facilitator, or through violence or the threat of violence. The victim may have been criminally exploited even if the activity appears consensual. Child criminal exploitation does not always involve physical contact; it can also occur through the use of technology.

Child poverty

When a child grows up with limited or no access to the essential resources they need to survive and live a healthy, happy life, this is child poverty. For example, their family may struggle to afford things like food, heating, clothing, or household bills. Households are considered to be below the UK poverty line if their income is below 60% of the median household income after housing costs for that year.

Child sexual exploitation

A form of child sexual abuse. It occurs where an individual or group takes advantage of an imbalance of power to coerce, manipulate or deceive a child or young person under the age of 18 into sexual activity. This may be in exchange for something the victim needs or wants, or for the financial advantage or increased status of the perpetrator or facilitator. The victim may have been sexually exploited even if the sexual activity appears consensual. Child sexual exploitation does not always involve physical contact; it can also occur through the use of technology.

Domestic violence and abuse

Any incident – or pattern of incidents – of controlling, coercive, or threatening behaviour, violence, and abuse between those aged 16 years or over, who are or have been intimate partners or family members regardless of gender or sexuality. This can encompass, but is not limited to, psychological, physical, sexual, financial, and emotional abuse. In some cases, young people can domestically abuse their parents and/or siblings, or adults at risk. Domestic abuse often features: controlling behaviour, which is defined by a range of acts designed to make a person subordinate and/ or dependent, by isolating them from sources of support, exploiting their resources and capacities for personal gain, depriving them of the means needed for independence, resistance and escape, and regulating their everyday behaviour, or coercive behaviour, which is an act – or a pattern of acts – of assault, threats, humiliation, and intimidation, or other abuse, that is used to harm, punish, or frighten their victim.

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Early support

Early support services work with children and young people at the earliest possible opportunity, supporting them before or as soon as things start to feel different or difficult in their lives. The Children’s Society’s practitioners at these services help to prevent young people from needing more intensive support in the future.

Mental health

Our mental health affects how we think and feel and how we cope with stress and relate to others. It can change throughout our lives. Some of us might experience mental health issues for a few months or a year; others might face more long-term challenges.

Responding to risk

Our services responding to risk support children and young people who have already been put at risk of harm and experienced challenges in their lives, like abuse, including exploitation, or mental health issues. These services are designed to help young people process what has happened to them, feel safe, and recover.

Risk

When we talk about young people being at risk, we’re referring to factors and situations that might threaten a child’s safety, for example, abuse, including exploitation, or neglect.

Systems change

Systems change (or systemic change) is about working collaboratively to redesign and influence positively the people, processes, rules, power, and structures that make up the systems impacting children and young people. In this way, we can break the cycles of disadvantage that perpetuate the challenges that young people are facing.

Wellbeing

Wellbeing is about how we’re doing. It’s about how we feel about our lives and ourselves. There are two different measures of wellbeing. Objective wellbeing focuses on social indicators of quality of life like health, education, and income. Subjective wellbeing is about personal experiences and an individual’s own view of how they feel about their lives. It can be affected by our mental and physical health and vice versa, as well as other things happening in our lives. It is not the same as mental health.

Youth participation

Youth participation refers to the ways in which we actively engage with young people in our work. It includes activities like consultations and residentials, as well as other opportunities for young people to share their insights, stories, and experiences with us.

Youth voice

Youth voice describes the different ways we listen to and act on the views and experiences of young people in The Children’s Society’s work. Our youth voice work is guided by our youth voice charter, which lays out how we enable, equip, and support young people to influence our work.

Endnotes

Briefing No. 1. London: UCL Centre for Edu-

cation Policy and Equalising Opportunities

& Sutton Trust. Available from: cosmostudy.uk/publications/mental-and-physical-health

Other organisations have also highlighted the links between school exclusion and child exploitation. See: Just for Kids Law (2020) Excluded, exploited, forgotten: Childhood criminal exploitation and school exclusions. Available from: justforkidslaw.org/ sites/default/files/fields/download/ JfKL%20school%20exclusion%20 and%20CCE_2.pdf

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18 ibid.

Available from: ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/ articles/domesticabusevictimcharacteristicsenglandandwales/yearendingmarch2024

It’s not possible to accurately assess the number or children who have witnessed domestic abuse because data is not collected on how many children live in each household where there has been abuse, but in 2023 the Foundations organisation (formerly the What Works Centre for Children and Families) estimated that over 827,000 children were present in the household where there was partner abuse between adults in the last year. See: Foundations (2023). Available from: foundations.org.uk/ press-release/over-827000-childrenestimated-to-have-experienced-domestic-abuse-this-year-with-concerns-ofincrease-at-christmas-underscoring-urgent-need-for-stronger-support/

22 Defined as less than 60% of the national median household income after housing costs that extends for at least 3 out of 4 years. See: Department for Work and Pensions (2025) Income Dynamics: Income movements and the persistence of low income, 2010 to 2023. Available from: gov. uk/government/statistics/income-dynamics-2010-to-2023/income-dynamics-income-movements-and-the-persistence-of-low-income-2010-to-2023

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37 See: bbcchildreninneed.co.uk/grants/ the-work-we-do/our-focussed-funding/ a-million-and-me/

“We will continue to spread The Children’s Society’s message of hope, showing young people they’re not alone and there’s light at the end of the tunnel”

Young trustees

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Every young person has the right to be safe, happy, and hopeful about their future.

That’s why we run services and campaigns to help children transform their lives and to change the systems that are putting young people in danger. Together, we can protect every childhood.

childrenssociety.org.uk

Bluesky: @childrenssociety.bsky.social Instagram: @thechildrenssociety Facebook: childrenssociety Tel: 0300 303 7000

© The Children’s Society 2025. The copyright of all material appearing in this publication belongs to The Children’s Society. It may not be reproduced, duplicated or copied by any means without our prior written consent. Charity Registration No. 221124 Photos: Chris O’Donovan, Francis Augusto, Ieva Umbrasaite, Laura McClusky. OB153/0725.