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CHARITY INFORMATION
Charity no. 108027
Company no. 648017
Charity Registered May 2021
Address
Irish Street Community Exchange
21 Lower Irish Street
Irish Street Car Park
Downpatrick
BT30 6BW
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All LIVES ARE PRECIOUS TRUSTEES REPORT FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30[TH] SEPTMEBER 2023
Charity/ Company Directors 22/23
Mrs Bronagh Reid
Mr Eamon Mc Grath
Mr Peter Cunliffe
Mrs Rosin Hampton
Mr Ronan Gilchrist
Mrs Aisling Mc Menamin (Resigned APRIL 2023)
We emerged when a group of individuals came together to respond to the Connecting for Life strategy in the Republic of Ireland and the introduction of the Flourish Initiative in Northern Ireland. Since then, operating mainly from resources garnered through community commitment and fundraising,
ALPS has established itself as an organisation that responds to well-being, awareness raising, training and development and the therapeutic service provision needs of individuals, families, schools, and communities.
Since its inception ALPS has engaged with over 150,000 individuals in communities throughout the country.
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Our Vision
We are an ambitious organisation that works with individuals, families, communities, and organisations to make that difference to their mental health.
Our Mission
We will make that difference by delivering a suite of high-quality training, development, prevention and intervention programmes and services that support individuals and communities to improve their understanding, awareness, and experience of mental health.
Our Values
As we strive to make that difference are driven by our core values of
Ambition
ALPS would not exist if it were not for the ambition of our people, service users, fundraisers, and champions to improving mental health. We are committed to maintaining our ambition to make that difference through ongoing and structured engagement with community fundraisers, statutory agencies, government departments and private sector organisations who can provide us with the sustainable resources to embed our organisation in the mental health landscape throughout the island of Ireland.
Inclusiveness
No one’s identity should impact on their right to receive the right service, at the right time. At ALPS we are committed to working with individuals, families, communities, and organisations regardless of age, ability, gender, race/ethnicity, political or religious affiliation.
Accessibility
Where you live, work or play should not inform your accessibility to the right service, at the right time. At ALPS we will continue to ensure that our prevention and intervention services are available throughout Northern Ireland and will continue to seek resources to focus support into our rural communities.
Responsiveness, Resourcefulness and Resilience
At ALPS we will continue to be informed by the resourcefulness and resilience of individuals, families and communities impacted by mental ill-health. With this in mind, we will remain consistent in our commitment to seeking resources and developing services which are in a position to make that difference.
Alps Grew from very humble beginnings but year on year has continued to grow solely due to the demands of the community.
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The work of the organisation can be split into four areas and for the purposes of this report this is what we will follow.
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Counselling
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Schools
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ALPS In the Workplace
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Community Outreach
Counselling.
From October 1[st, 2022,] to September 30[th, 2023,] this service has seen a huge rise in the number of people looking to gain access to it.
The counselling team in ALPS grew throughout the year significantly and we now have a team of 8 fully qualified and accredited counsellors and continue to have three student counsellors on our books.
The service continues to work right throughout the country, we have five therapists working from Portglenone, 5 based in the monastery in Downpatrick/Crossgar and one based in Bangor.
We divide our week as follows to meet the need within the community
Monday – Bangor/ Portglenone Tuesday – Downpatrick (Monastery) and Portglenone Wednesday – Dungiven and Portglenone Thursday - Derry City and Portglenone Friday – Portglenone Saturday – Downpatrick (Monastery)
Schools/College Workshops
One of the major successes of ALPS continues to be our Schools and Colleges work, from our inception we have delivered our programmes in these settings.
In the 2022/23 Academic School we once again had the privilege of visiting schools everywhere. In the year we conducted workshops on Wellbeing, Resilience, The Power of Human Connection and Mental awareness to over 10,000 pupils in upwards of 100 locations all throughout the county.
We continue to work alongside children and young people from the ages of 4 to 19 on these activities.
This year we have also been very fortunate to continue to provide Accredited Suicide Prevention Training to upwards of 200 Teaching and Support staff in Lisburn, Belfast and Magherafelt.
We continue to be humbled by the reception we receive in Schools throughout the country, we don’t look to visit any setting but are inundated with requests to visit.
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We have also now been selected by The Northern Ireland Executive, Choice and Ark Housing and the Lisburn Schools community to lead on a large-scale community project which will see us interacting with thousands of young people in the 23/24 academic year.
ALPS IN YOUR WORKPLACE
In Partnership with Talk to Tom and Live and Learn we have created a dedicated professional team of individuals to offer an extensive programme of activity in the Workplace to promote Wellbeing and Suicide Prevention.
We have spent considerable time in 22/23 building these links and have many opportunities to engage further companies moving forward. The growth of this sector is pivotal to our future and moving forward we will continue to concentrate our efforts in building upon the successes we have already in this field.
In 22/23 we have become nominated charity of the year for SDC Trailers, Bloc and Fast Technologies as well as continuing to be supported by Kerry in Coleraine.
Community Outreach
Our main objective for the whole organisation is to be here, our aspirations are not to be a large organisation but just a family and community of people with the common goal to support one and other.
We strive to reach the whole community and concentrate our efforts to achieve this. Working in partnership with communities across the country we have been very fortunate to amass a large following.
Throughout the year we have been very fortunate to be involved with events right throughout the country.
Here is just a snapshot of some of our work throughout the year.
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Throughout the year we have continued to train in the community and have been very fortunate to have trained over 350 people in Accredited Suicide Prevention in Counties Down, Antrim, Tryone and Derry as well as continuing to provide access to this programme in counties Monaghan and Cavan.
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In the year 22/23 we continued to develop our links with the Footballing community in the greater Downpatrick area, we continue to be league sponsors for the Downpatrick Youth League and have continued to develop our partnership with Downpatrick FC. In addition to this we continue to be the official partners of the Downpatrick and District Men and Women’s Darts Leagues.
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In the year 22/23 we took over the management of the East Down Men’s Shed, fully incorporating them into the ALPS family. The shed consists of twenty men, and they now meet daily from 9am to 3pm in our Irish Street premises. They now operate under the name ALPS Men’s Shed East Down.
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In October we had the honour of being nominated as finalist in the Ballymena business of Excellence Awards and attended their gala ball and awards ceremony in
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the Tullyglass Hotel to be presented with an award. In addition, to this we joined the staff team in JP Corry’s Ballymena for a World Mental Health Day event held on their premises. Also, during October, we introduced an online referral process for engagement with ALPS and our services, now almost 90% of our interactions with the public are run through our website.
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In November we had the opportunity to travel to the United States for the first time to discuss our work and explore potential projects with the Irish community there, we visited the Irish Pastoral Centre in Boston and forged links all throughout the city. Also, in November we had the opportunity of providing our first ever training to a farming group and conducted accredited Suicide Prevention to the Co Down Young Farmers group.
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In December we where very active in our outreach, we spent three weekends working alongside the youth league and had a presence to present all their trophies and prizes for their cup competitions. In addition to this we worked alongside the young farmers group in Downpatrick to put on a Christmas themed Tractor run, a huge event with upwards of 1000 participants. We joined our friends in Portglenone community shed for their annual Christmas event and in doing so forged strong working relations with the group for the future.
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January 2023, we joined forces with Northern Ireland Electricity to provide training and emotional support for their apprentices for their 22/23 intake. This partnership will involve yearly activities with the company moving forward.
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During the month of February, we had the opportunity of visiting several GAA clubs in counties Tryone and Derry to conduct workshops on the power of human connection, in addition to this we also worked alongside every child in Saint Patricks the Rock on emotional well being activities. We also held a drop in coffee morning in Ballynahinch catholic church. As an organisation we celebrated a significant milestone during this month also with it being our first anniversary working out of Tobar Mhuire Monastery, in this period we have provided over 500 hours of therapy to the community.
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In March 2023, due to the growth of the organisation we held our first ever in house training weekend, when we got all facilitators together to complete child protection/ vulnerable adult training. In addition to this we partnered with and visited for the first time with Fast Technologies in Derry. Here we presented to their staff team on the Power of Human Connection.
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In April we visited communities in Dungiven, Magherafelt to conduct Suicide Prevention Training and worked along all the junior players of St Canices GAA Club. In addition to this we were invited to conduct suicide prevention training in partnership with Banardos and the Northern Ireland Prison service on the family matters programme in Maghaberry Prison.
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In May 2023 we hosted free community Dawn walks events in 24 different locations, these were as follows
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Downpatrick, Ballykinlar,Drumaness, Dungannon, Stewartstown, Donaghmore and the Rock. Randalstown, Rasharkin, Belfast, Loughgiel Kilrea, Bellaghy, Lavey, Swatragh, Dungiven, Magherafelt, Drumsurn, Claudy, Moneymore, Ballinascreen, Faughanvale, Ballinderry and Ballymaguigan.
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In addition to this we introduced First Aid Training into the many services now being provided by ALPS. Another Milestone was celebrated also this month as ALPS celebrated two years in our office premises in Portglenone.
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June 2023 is a month that will go down in the history books of ALPS forever and it was this month that ALPS was named Northern Ireland Mental Health Charity of the Year at the Family First awards in Belfast. During this time also we also worked alongside the County Derry Ceoltist and a team from ALPS was present for a week in Dungiven and Derry at the county Fleadh.
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In July of 23 we had the absolute privilege of completing our first ever Camino Walk and were joined in Italy by 20 individuals from across Ireland. Also, this month we held our first Golf Day in Downpatrick Golf Club, with upwards of 100 people taking part.
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August 2023, with the return of School teaching staff at the end of August we had the honour of hosting a teachers’ conference in the Armagh City Hotel, an event that was attended by over 200 people. Furthermore, during teacher training week, we were fortunate provide training to the staff teams of Edmund Rice College in Belfast and St Patricks Academy in Lisburn.
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September 2023, we visited Kerry group on three occasions to conduct Suicide Prevention Training for their staff team , in addition during this period we conducted a further three suicide prevention training with the staff team of Bloc Blinds as well as visiting three GAA clubs in county Tryone for wellbeing workshops. Also, during September, we shot a video with children from 4 schools from the greater Lisburn area.
Properties
ALPS has agreements for several property and locations across the county, we lease properties in Downpatrick, Crossgar and Portglenone and have rental arrangements on a shed, garages and a plot of land on the outskirts of Downpatrick. In addition to this we pay an hourly fee for using facilities in Dungiven and Derry City.
Financial Review
Alps continues to grow and develop, during the year 22/23 we received no grant funding, but have been able to bring in an amount of £169,349 through our activities and work. All these monies are unrestricted.
We had an operational loss for the 12-month period of £17,885, however at the yearend as highlighted in our accounts we have a cash balance of £ 35,296.
The organisation is in a very strong position and the team behind ALPS continue to put all their efforts into securing its future. There are no debts within the organisation with all overheads taken out on leases and agreement arrangements which can be terminated should the need ever be required.
There is still only one staff member receiving a monthly wage in alps and all others working for the organisations are paid as self-employed facilitators.
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As an organisation our directors are in constant communication with each other, indeed four of us speak on an almost daily basis and as directed we have had 4 full meetings throughout the year, in addition to this we have created an ALPS working group made up of representatives of community, sporting organisations and professionals from across the county.
ALPS is now a team of almost 25 individuals and a vast support network of friends all throughout the country.
As you can see, ALPS has firmly cemented its place within the community and continues to engage communities across the country. The year 22/23 the organisation has literally engaged thousands of people from communities across the country and our work is now drawing attention and being recognised internationally also.
We are tremendously proud of all achievements and are humbled by the position we are in. We thank everyone that interacts with the work of ALPS and are indebted to them for their support. We look forward to 23/24 immensely and the journey that is in store for us.
28[th] November 2023
Signed
Ronan Gilchrist
Director
Peter Cunliffe
Director