CHILDHOOD FIRST UPDATE, Autumn 2011 Warmest greetings from all at Childhood First. This is the first edition of a new update for our patrons and supporters, to keep you more closely in touch with what is happening in the charity and how we are progressing. These updates will be circulated twice a year. We hope that you will find them interesting and informative.
Childhood First’s 40th Anniversary Dinner On 10th March, more than 300 guests gathered at the newly reopened Savoy hotel for a special dinner held to celebrate the charity’s 40th Anniversary and launch our Putting Childhood First appeal.
Stephen Blunden, CEO of Childhood First, addresses the 40th Anniversary guests.
Our aim was, above all, that everyone had a good time on the night, and feedback suggests that this was more than met – it was a spectacular and enjoyable event, which also powerfully communicated the predicament of the children we look after, and the effectiveness of our therapeutic approach in facilitating their recovery. Over £166,000 of funding for new developments was raised by the event, about half of which was pledges donated to specific projects. This was an extraordinary result for our first such event, and a great reward for the energy and time invested by everyone involved in its organisation. The Savoy provided a wonderful venue which added to the magic of the evening.
Members of the 40th Anniversary Dinner Committee (pictured from left to right): Martine Olsen, Lulu Wilson, Rachele Harrison, Karen Rix, Alexandra Lavery, Flora Lyon, Margaret Wilson OBE and Penny Treadwell.
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One of the 40th Anniversary dinner’s first funding successes is the creation of a new state of the art, fully equipped studio (some pictures are shown below and overleaf).
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Lights, Camera, Action!
The studio will support a performing arts programme and drama workshops for our young people (12-18 years old) at Thornby Hall. The majority of the funding for this project was provided by the generosity of our 40th Anniversary dinner guests. Other projects which have received funding from this event include: • • •
A planned new ARC (Assessment, Respite and Crisis) service for traumatised children and young people Therapy programmes for families in crisis Redevelopment of the kitchen/dining area at Greenfields House
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Future projects which we hope to fund through the Putting Childhood First appeal include: •
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New projects designed to extend our reach, to meet the needs of more children and young people who are emotionally and behaviourally disturbed Developing extra capacity at our centre in Kent for younger children and a new onsite therapeutic school The improvement and extension of our therapeutic school in Northamptonshire for young people The development of extra capacity to take more children at our two homes in Norfolk.
Childhood First’s BBC Radio 4 Appeal (February 2012) We are delighted to announce that Childhood First has been selected as one of the charities to be featured in the BBC Radio 4 Appeal 2012. Childhood First’s appeal slot will be broadcast on Sunday 19th February 2012. Please tune in to support us if you can.
Childhood First Welcomes New Patrons In 2010-11, we were pleased to welcome 6 new Honorary Patrons, representing our wish to strengthen local support for our children’s homes. Viscountess Knollys OBE DL, the former High Sheriff, and Richard Jewson JP, the Lord-Lieutenant, have been unstinting in their support for us in Norfolk. In Kent, Peregrine Massey, the former High Sheriff, his wife Deirdre, and Tim and Marylyn Bacon, have been instrumental in a highly effective campaign of awarenessraising and recruitment of support. We are extremely grateful to all of our Patrons for the difference which they make to the lives of traumatised children. 5
Friends of Childhood First The last twelve months has seen the charity continue to develop stronger support networks in Kent, Norfolk and Northamptonshire. Pioneered in Kent, the formation of local Friends groups is taking shape, to raise awareness and support fundraising. Our grateful thanks to all who have helped make this possible.
Challenge Events Fundraising We would like to thank all our enthusiastic challenge event fundraisers for making 2010/11 such a fantastic year.
Our Virgin London Marathon 2011 team did fantastically well, running on a very hot April day to raise £65,000. Also 9 brave supporters swam, cycled and ran the Virgin Active London Triathlon in July raising almost £4,000. Amongst the many individuals who took on their own challenge in support of Childhood First were a father and son duo who climbed Mount Kilimanjaro raising over £10,000 and a committed cyclist who biked 400 miles over 50 hours raising over £6,000 for our Kent community. 6
In addition, a team of 10 from corporate law firm Covington and Burling took on the 3 Peaks Challenge in just over 24 hours and raised £3,000 (the team members are pictured below).
Trusts Fundraising In 2010/11, we have had some very exciting developments with our Trusts Programme. We are very grateful to all the trusts that have supported Childhood First in the last year. We would like to thank the Variety Club for a very generous grant of £10,000 towards our performing arts programme at Thornby Hall. The grant was used to purchase equipment for our new state of the art studio, which supports the programme. Our thanks must also go to the following trusts for their generous donations totalling over £80,000 towards our large scale initiatives: • St. James’s Place Foundation • The Bernard Sunley Charitable Trust • The J Paul Getty Jr Charitable Trust • The Ladham Charitable Trust • The Clover Trust. 7
New Year Honour for Childhood First Trustee In the 2011 New Year’s Honours List, Childhood First trustee Margaret Wilson JP was honoured with the award of an OBE in recognition of her services to the administration of justice in London.
New Chairman of Trustees After 4 years as Chairman of Trustees, Jan Pethick stepped down from the role in September 2009 and took on the role of Chairman of our Fundraising. During his time as Chairman of Trustees, Jan led our fundraising in taking a major leap forward, including personally securing substantial new funding, and led the charity in consolidating and strengthening its work. John Harrison has succeeded Jan as Chairman of Trustees, and is continuing to develop a strong focus on voluntary fundraising, as well as providing the support and challenge that every CEO needs. Childhood First, as Peper Harow before, has always been extremely fortunate to have such committed and dynamic trustee leadership. It has been key to the charity’s unique success in our field.
Clinical Development We are currently seeking to strengthen our staff clinical expertise in various ways: • to meet the needs of today’s disturbed children; • to further develop and promote our therapeutic approach. We are in the process of seeking clinical licensing for our unique training programme, so that our fully trained staff may have the status of qualified psychotherapeutic counsellors. If we are successful in this quest, we would be the only children’s home provider whose care staff were, as a matter of routine, clinically qualified. 8
The CEO and Jenny Carter, our Research Officer, recently led a highly-rated seminar on psychoanalytic and systemic approaches for the Royal College of Psychiatrists therapeutic community conference, and our community directors led a seminar focusing on past and present Childhood First communities at the international Institute of Group Analysis annual conference.
The Year Ahead With local authorities under financial pressure, residential child care is inevitably being further squeezed. Many mainstream children’s home providers are facing a bleak future. As a specialist therapeutic provider, however, providing for the needs of the most disturbed children, we have continued to receive a strong flow of referrals and most of our homes are full. We are determined that the children who need our unique help, who are amongst the most disadvantaged in the UK, will not be casualties of the economic recession. We are therefore dedicating additional resources to the development of our work, and to expanding our capacity. We are focusing on voluntary fundraising to support us in extending our provision to help more children. We note the growing recognition of the importance of emotional and psychological factors in many social problems, and the shift in focus of national mental health policy from drugs to ‘talking cures’. We believe that this will provide new opportunities to ensure that emotionally and behaviourally disturbed children and their families receive the help that they need. Very few organisations are capable of meeting the needs of the more severely disturbed children who need residential therapy. Developing the capacity to do so has taken us 40 years. 9
Our work is almost unique. This places a big responsibility upon us to expand and diversify what we offer, to make it available to more children and families. We are actively seeking out new opportunities to do this work, and are very keen to hear from those who wish to join us in it by funding new developments and extending existing facilities.
Fundraising for new developments With ever-increasing pressure on statutory income, fundraising has become even more important to the development of our mission. We are fortunate, amongst charities, in still receiving our basic running costs from statutory sources – there is a statutory obligation on local authorities to house children in their care. But the state does not fund the development of our specialist facilities, the development of our specialist expertise, the development of new projects, etc. We need to continue to grow our voluntary income to fund all of our development costs, and some of our specialist therapeutic care. We are hugely grateful to all who so generously support our work, and in so doing join us to make this life-saving work for children part of their own mission in life. Do please consider whether you would like to donate to the further expansion of Childhood First’s work, or to support or partner us in other ways. Please feel free to contact me, at any time, if you wish to discuss possibilities.
Staff Changes At the beginning of the year, we welcomed two new faces to our senior management team. Greg Whelan stepped into the role of Finance Director when Mark O’Kelly bade farewell to Childhood First after 6 years to join the Barrow Cadbury Trust. Roger Stephenson joins us in the newly 10
created role of Business Development Director. Both bring high-level professional expertise to the team.
Childhood First Values The values which guide Childhood First are those we learn on a daily basis from each other in this work: • interdependence • hope • thoughtfulness • authenticity • perseverance. Some years ago, I came across an administrative colleague who had cut this list of values out of our brochure and stuck it on the wall next to her phone, to support her in embodying them in her work and life. I was moved by this simple commitment to what it means to work for Childhood First, and have since tried to develop a habit of regular reflection on these values. Every member of Childhood First, children and adults alike, learns so much from the others. It is openness to learning from others, at a profound human level, across all ages and roles, that is the core of our work and the ‘method’ of our community.
Stephen Blunden Chief Executive Email: s.blunden@childhoodfirst.org.uk Mobile: 07950 494555
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Childhood First, 210 Borough High Street, London, SE1 1JX Phone: Email: Web:
020 7928 7388 support@childhoodfirst.org.uk www.childhoodfirst.org.uk
Registered charity no. 286909 and a company limited by guarantee registration number 1708301
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