**NORTHERN IRELAND NEWPIN** ## **COMPANY LIMITED BY GUARANTEE** ## **TRUSTEES' ANNUAL REPORT** ## **YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2023** ## **Structure, governance and management.** The Charity is a 'not-for-profit' organisation, is limited by guarantee and has no share capital. The company is governed and managed by the board of directors and management committee. The directors who served the Charity throughout the year are shown below. The registered office and details of other professional advisors are listed on page 1. The board of directors carry out their governance role throughout the year by way of meetings on a regular basis to review the performance of the Charity and to make decisions regarding the Charity's financial and operational matters. The directors govern the activities of the company in line with the objectives set out in the governing documents of the charity, namely the Memorandum and Articles of Association and the charity's constitution. ## **Objectives and activities** The objects of the charity during the year were to enable isolated families to cope emotionally with the stresses of parenting and to make lasting changes in their lives and relationships with their children. The core work of Newpin and the process is about developing strengths in people, not focusing on problems. Newpin achieves its objectives by: - Raising the self-esteem of parents who are suffering from depression and isolation. - Encouraging within each individual an awareness of their own value as a person, a parent and a fulfilled member of the community. - Nurturing positive, loving, and supportive parenting. - Helping to provide the opportunity for the children to develop emotionally, physically, and psychologically at their own pace in a secure and caring environment. - Ending repeat effects of destructive family relationships. - Preventing the hurting (emotional and physical) of children. - Enabling mothers to come to terms with their past and prevent trans-generational trauma. During the year, the following attendances were recorded at Newpin: |Adults|2191| |---|---| |Children under 5|1,531| |Children over 5|1,036| There were in total 79 mothers referred or self-referred to Newpin during the period with their 112 children. Newpin offers a weekly therapeutic group session, and 449 individual adult counselling sessions were carried out during the period and 160 child psychotherapy sessions. ## **Achievements and performance** Newpin works on a cross-community and multi-cultural basis, supporting families where there has been stress due to a combination of challenges including poverty, domestic violence, addictions, transgenerational trauma, inadequate housing, mental health difficulties. Our objectives are: - Build resilience and the ability to navigate during periods of difficulty, drawing on psychological, social, cultural, and physical resources, which will support the person's wellbeing, thriving and daily functioning. - To provide a safe and supportive environment for vulnerable parents/children where learning, confidence building, and safe reflection can take place to enable participants to be more proactive in taking care of their own feelings and promote self-efficiency. - To improve life skills such as building up self-esteem, managing emotions and relationships, promoting a positive self-image, negotiation skills, problem solving, critical thinking and decision making. **-2-** ## **NORTHERN IRELAND NEWPIN** ## **COMPANY LIMITED BY GUARANTEE** ## **TRUSTEES' ANNUAL REPORT** _**(continued)**_ ## **YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2022** This has been one of the most challenging years at Newpin and one where we have been seeing the affects of COVID19 on mothers who gave birth during that period. The loneliness’, fear and isolation has had a great impact on their mental health. Depression and anxiety have gone undiagnosed and led in some cases to social services intervention and the risk of losing their child/children. This has weighed heavily on Newpin staff and compounded with the challenge of securing funding, has been a struggle for all of us. We have also almost finished a pilot scheme for a ‘Dad’s project’ which has been very successful. We have been doing this programme on Saturday morning to encourage more dads to attend and who may not be able to attend during the week due to work commitments. Newpin was also able to secure funding for the older children (10-15 yr. olds) and were able to introduce Drum Therapy and Art Therapy which eased the awkwardness of group or face to face counselling for this age group. This was so successful that we also secured funding for the mums and was greatly welcomed Particularly by mums from other nationalities who, although had good English, found it difficult to communicate how they were ‘feeling inside’. They have All produced some beautiful art works which we are hoping to put on show in an exhibition about the impact of maternal mental health. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all our volunteers who have been there every day and most weekends to help us in delivering programmes. We would be lost without these selfless individuals who really do care about the community they live in. ## **Plans for future periods** We have seen an increase in referrals from various organisations for mums and their children from countries who are involved in conflict and have found themselves living here and trying to cope with trauma. We are in the process of developing a programme to help these mums using Art Therapy and also a hands-on parenting programme. We hope to have this up and running mid-summer. The directors and management committee will continue to govern the company in line with the constitution to achieve the objectives noted above.