Annual Review 2012-2013
Who We Are And What We Do
Founded in 1994, The Benjamin Foundation is a Norfolk charity that exists to help people across the county deal with many of the challenges that life throws at them. We have accommodation centres for homeless young people across Norfolk. They provide support and a safe place to live for vulnerable 16–25 year olds with no home, helping them get their lives back on track. We can also accommodate young people who may benefit more from living in a family home. Our team provides support for families in crisis helping them repair damaged relationships and create happier families. We also work in schools to support children with a range of issues including bullying. We help with everyday issues such as finding affordable childcare with our nurseries and clubs in North Walsham, Hoveton and Ditchingham. This helps parents to continue with their jobs knowing their children are in safe hands.
We operate two social enterprise schemes, the profits from which go back into the charity. Our Restore branches in Holt, Dereham and Norwich sell donated furniture and white goods. Kidstore, in North Walsham, sells nearly new children’s clothing, baby equipment and toys. Last year The Benjamin Foundation helped nearly 2,000 people in Norfolk through difficult times by providing them with Hope, Opportunity, Stability and Independence. Everything we do is driven by the needs of people in Norfolk.
Our Journey
Following the tragic death of their son Benjamin, Richard and Vanessa Draper wanted to create something special to celebrate his life. In 1994 The Benjamin Foundation began by delivering rural youth services in North Norfolk and now, 19 years later, we have grown to help thousands of people from different age groups and backgrounds across Norfolk. Today we provide a diverse range of services which are all driven by the needs of people who live and work in our county.
Messages from Our Chairman and Chief Executive
Diana Clarke, Chairman
Richard Draper, Chief Executive
We have had a fantastic time in so many ways in our corporate year from April 2012 to March 2013. Here are a few of the things that stand out to me:
In the current economic climate one natural and perhaps understandable response of any organisation would be to hunker down and consolidate. But that’s not The Benjamin Foundation way. Instead the Board of Trustees chose to invest significantly in the development of new services as well as the expansion of existing ones. Examples of this include the following but there are many more too:
•O ur 18th birthday party celebrations with TV chef Galton Blackiston cooking butterfly cakes with the residents of our supported accommodation in North Walsham. • The continued support from our major Patron David Tams and the Edith Murphy Foundation. • Launching a range of amazing new services for young people across Norfolk. You can see details elsewhere in this Review. Last year we identified the four words Hope, Opportunity, Stability and Independence as being a great summary of what we deliver to all the people we support, whether this is children in our nurseries and school, young adults in our accommodation or parents. We are diverse in what we deliver across Norfolk but these four words run through all our work so we have used them as headings for some of the following pages to describe our work in more detail. Recently I was going through some stuff in the attic and came across these words: “Houses are roofs over head , Houses are warmth . No house means no place to hide in when you are upset or worried. Think about the homeless when it is raining or snowing and cold outside. No warm kitchen, no warm fire, no warm bed . No House means no home”. One of our missions is to reduce homelessness and with accommodation centres around the county and a growing group of host families this is just one way we are providing vulnerable young adults with Hope, Opportunity, Stability and Independence.
• Opening of The Boat House, Gt. Yarmouth, an eight-bed residential home for children in the care of the local authority. • Copperfield School, Great Yarmouth, opened with capacity for twelve 11-16 year old pupils with significant additional needs and it achieved a ‘Good with some areas outstanding’ report in its first Ofsted inspection. • Development of Walmington Court, Thetford, a 14 place centre for homeless people aged 16 to 25. • Taking on management of the residential side of Plaxtole House, King’s Lynn, an educational and residential centre for people aged 16 to 25 with learning difficulties. • Significant expansion of our “Heart & Home” service where young homeless adults live with our network of host families as a step towards independent living. • Opening our third ‘Restore’ branch in Norwich selling good quality, donated used furniture and electrical goods. The last year has reinforced what an amazing and dynamic charity The Benjamin Foundation is by providing a diverse range of services and with an ethos and culture that is really very special. Having now ‘come of age’ we look forward to even greater developments in the years ahead.
People We Support: Real Quotes and a Real Story
“I can truly say that my life has changed – all down to the help and support I’ve received.”
“You’re the lady that made my sister smile again.”
“The team are brilliant. I wouldn’t have coped without their help.”
Case Study This is a true story of how we helped one young person. We have changed their name so they remain anonymous. This story is typical of the work our staff deliver day in day out in Norfolk. Matthew was a quiet lad with very little confidence in himself. He wasn’t a trouble maker at all but was not happy to put himself forward to do anything and was in danger of missing important life opportunities. This led to him avoiding social situations and he was not keen on going on to college once he finished school.
It took a bit of convincing but we got Matthew to agree to come on a trip run by our BOOM! service which provides positive activities for young people. From there he came out on a couple of other activity trips and he made friends with some of the other young people. He has a love of music and expressed a desire to become involved in our regular music group. From this, Matthew has developed his drumming, learned the basics of playing the bass and is particularly interested in the technical “behind the scenes” aspect of music and stage performance, which he has had the chance to gain experience of within the group. Matthew is now a confident member of our music group, he has successfully applied for a college place studying music and he has a wider group of friends thanks to the trips he has been on, including a residential trip, and the music group. He now has a girlfriend and is just a transformed character. We’re delighted to have played a part in helping Matthew reach his potential.
Our 18th Birthday
In October 2012 we celebrated our 18th Birthday – a milestone in any life as it symbolises reaching maturity and adulthood. For us, as a charity, it shows that we have been delivering services in Norfolk for a long time so we are certainly needed and respected for what we do. We have spread our wings too from our origins in rural North Norfolk so that we now cover all corners of the county.
The Butterfly Cake Bake For our 18th birthday we wanted to find a way of letting our staff, the people we work with, our supporters and the public in general join in the celebration. With a striking butterfly logo we thought that baking butterfly cakes would be relevant, fun and tasty! We asked people across Norfolk – families, schools, playgroups, businesses - to run their own “Butterfly Cake Bake”. Each event was a chance for people to raise money to support our work. Mary Berry, the renowned baking expert, was kind enough to give us approval to use and share her recipe for the cakes. Another celebrity helped launch the Butterfly Cake Bake with local TV chef Galton Blackiston visiting our accommodation centre for young homeless adults in North Walsham. Galton and our residents cooked butterfly cakes together in front of the ITV Anglia cameras. Richard Gauntlett, who played Aladdin in Norwich Theatre Royal’s pantomime, went to a local primary school and baked butterfly cakes with the pupils.
“Life At 18” Film Some of our service users compiled a short film to talk about their own “Coming of Age” and reflect on their personal thoughts about this milestone. We held a premiere of the film in Norwich for key stakeholders, supporters and staff. We used social media to promote the film and uploaded it onto YouTube.
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Birthday Celebrations for Staff and Service Users We encouraged all our staff to hold their own celebrations on or close to the actual 18th birthday on 25th October. Examples include: At our “Aspire” accommodation centre in Great Yarmouth for homeless young adults they held an open day selling tea and cakes to the local community. Ditchingham Day Nursery staff and children dressed up as butterflies and held a party. Our “Meet Up” service in Thetford held a birthday party for local children with music, food and dance. The young adult residents of our Fakenham homeless accommodation centre decorated and iced their butterfly cakes. Our “Time for You” service works in schools with children who need extra support and they held craft workshops making a range of butterfly items.
How Others Celebrated our Birthday Buxton Primary School dedicated a whole day to our birthday that included: • Nature activities linked to butterflies •E vents for parents, grandparents and siblings too •C raft session making butterfly masks, collages and •B aking butterfly buns to sell and raise funds for us. Several other schools took part too as well as a diverse range of other organisations including East Coast Plastics, North Norfolk District Council and Great Yarmouth Lions.
Thank You! We would like to thank everyone who took part in our 18th Birthday celebrations and the Eastern Daily Press and other media outlets for their excellent coverage throughout.
How we deliver Hope to the people we support
The Benjamin Foundation is about more than providing a roof over someone’s head or regular child care. It is about building relationships with people and helping them to develop hope and optimism for the future. Our staff offer hope to service users which can stimulate, motivate and inspire them to better themselves by learning, gaining experience or taking control of their lives. In this section, we’ve illustrated how we deliver hope to the people we support in Norfolk.
Time for You Time for You provides face-to-face confidential support in over 65 schools across Norfolk helping students deal with and move on from issues including bullying, family problems and substance misuse. We typically work with over 300 young people each week across the county.
Our teams provide hope, improved family relationships and educational performance
Parent Support Advisers Our team of parent support advisers give parents hope by working with them to solve any conflicts they may have with their child, such as making sure they get the most from their school life or helping prevent difficult behaviour from escalating into a bigger problem. We deliver this support through our links to over 40 schools across Norfolk. At any one time we will be supporting over 200 families.
How we deliver Opportunity to the people we support At The Benjamin Foundation we aim to help people identify and take advantage of positive opportunities that they otherwise might not have access to. Often our service users have found traditional training, development and learning challenging and we aim to remove these barriers to participation.
“I’ve started interacting with people my own age, which I never used to do” Mike, 17
Meet Up Thetford Meet Up’s aim as a street level youth and family centre is to enable service users aged 10-24 to access leisure and support provisions in what feels to them to be a safe and informal environment. The delivery of services is based around creativity, largely using the arts to build confidence and social skills and develop positive attachment relationships and overall wellbeing. Thanks to Big Lottery Funding, Meet Up has developed a number of new services for children, young people and families over the past year. These include: • A lunch group for 16-24 year olds who are not in full-time employment, education or training. This is an informal yet supportive environment where young people can relax and socialise with each other and access any support they may require to help themselves make positive changes in their lives. • A nurture group for selected 10-16 year olds who present with the most challenging emotional, social and behavioural difficulties. The staff in this group use the Nurtured Heart Approach intensively and provide elements of oneto-one support. The group aims to develop life skills and build emotional recognition, literacy and regulation. • A parents’ support group meets once a week. Provided by Meet Up staff and Parent Support Advisers, the group is a supportive network for local parents to meet in an informal but structured environment.
Fast Facts • Meet Up has successfully helped 4 volunteers into paid work this year and provided the opportunity for at least 6 service users to become volunteers. • Membership has increased to over 400. • Meet Up staff have the flexibility to work more closely with individual families if and when required.
“It’s a good place to talk about problems and good staff to listen to you; it’s helped me cope with issues and doubts” Bradley, 18
Map of Our Services
Holt Furniture
WELLS NEXT THE SEA
HUNSTANTON
HOLT
3
2 15
FAKENHAM
NORFOLK
4
REEPHAM
AYLSHA
1
KINGS LYNN Dereham Furniture Store SWAFFHAM DEREHAM
DOWNHAM MARKET
TAVERHAM
Norwich Furniture Store
ATTLEBORO
MUNDFORD
LONG STRATTO
BRANDON
5
13 THETFORD DISS
The Benjamin Foundation Providing Hope, Opportunity, Stability and Independenc
Our Services Corporate Office
Supported accommodation for young people
e Store CROMER
6
01493 858270
2. Right Tracks
01553 774444
3. Steven Newing House
01328 855181
4. The Hub
01553 777026
5. Walmington Court
01842 760143
6. Winston Court
01692 405405 01692 502154
Child and youth services
Kidstore
Child care/youth groups BOOM! (covering the whole of Norfolk) 07880 242374
11
NORTH WALSHAM
8 12 STALHAM
9
10
HEMSBY
ACLE NORWICH
1
14 16 17
WOODTON
LODDON
7. Ditchingham Day Nursery
01986 895091
8. Kidzone
01692 407012
9. Kidzone St Johns
07579 969582
10. Hoveton Pre-School
07849 876337
11. Town Tots
01692 407012
12. Worstead Youth Group
01692 500999
13. Meet Up
01842 820871
Youth Advisory Board Breckland area base North Norfolk area base
WROXHAM
GT YARMOUTH
07889 757234 07881 012553
Schools 14. Copperfield School
01493 849499
Residential / education 15. Plaxtole House
01553 772734
16. The Boat House
01493 849490
Training 17. The Bass-ment
01493 858270
Emotional Well-being Support Time for You schools
01692 501039
Used clothing and items for children and babies Kidstore
07899 914254
Parenting support
7
Parent Support Adviser schools
ON
ce
1. Aspire Young Persons Centre
Heart & Home supported lodgings
Corporate Office
AM
OUGH
01692 500999
01692 501039
BUNGAY
Counselling/support groups Side by Side (in locations across Norfolk)
SUFFOLK
01692 501039
Furniture Stores Selling used furniture & electrical goods Norwich Store
01603 661921
Holt Store
01263 713721
Dereham Store
01362 692392
How we deliver Stability to the people we support
Stability, for The Benjamin Foundation, means providing a safe, reassuring place in our service users’ lives. Stability requires trust and confidence in our ability to deliver the services we set out to provide.
Across our day nursery, early years pre and afterschool clubs we care for approximately 150 under-fives each week.
Examples of how we provide stability can be seen in our childcare provisions; such as our affordable day care nursery, pre-schools, after-school and holiday clubs. Not only do we provide stability for the children who attend, we provide stability for parents who know that their child is in a safe, caring, educational and nurturing environment.
Ditchingham Day Nursery The nursery looks after children aged from three months to five years old and is open 51 weeks of the year. It provides a childcare service for working parents in Bungay, Beccles and the surrounding areas. This well established service has a beautiful rural setting. The lovely new baby room opened in Spring 2013. Thanks to a grant from Norfolk County Council we have been able to create a large, bright room which can accommodate up to twelve children under the age of two. There is a separate area for smaller babies to be able to enjoy ‘tummy time’ and a peaceful sleep area with CCTV to keep a close eye on the sleeping children. The snack area is now a really comfortable space and is large enough for all the children to eat together.
Another great piece of news is that work is underway to transform their garden during 2013. Thanks to fundraising by parents and funding from Barclays Bank, we will create raised beds so the children can experience growing their own vegetables and flowers. There is already a fenced patio area so the children can enjoy outdoor activities all year round. We have a large grass mound,perfect for climbing, and are looking for other ways to develop the garden and encourage forest school activities.
How we deliver Independence to the people we support We encourage our service users to become more confident and independent in the way they live their lives. One of the best examples of this can be seen through our Housing and Homeless services. Most people come to our supported accommodation or supported lodging services after falling out with their family or friends and feel lost and alone. By the time they complete their journey with The Benjamin Foundation, they will be equipped with the skills to live independently.
We have space to accommodate up to 72 young people at any one time.
Housing and Homelessness Fast Facts
“Heart and Home” – a family environment
•W e have accommodation centres for homeless young people in North Walsham, Great Yarmouth, Fakenham, King’s Lynn and Thetford.
This service matches young homeless adults to one of our approved host families. The families, with the guidance of our staff, provide a supportive environment where the young people learn independent living skills.
• The residents are aged 16 to 25 years old and live with us for up to two years. • Our staff provide 24/7 support giving young adults the confidence and life skills they need for successful independent living. • We have space to accommodate up to 72 young people at any one time. • “ The Hub”, based in King’s Lynn, provides short term accommodation for seven 16-17yr olds. We work with them and a range of agencies to find the best long term solutions, including family reconciliation.
Since we started our “Heart & Home”service in 2011, 25 young people have moved on and all of them in have done this in a successful planned way to the next stage of being an independent adult.
‘Restore’ Furniture Stores
Our three stores sell good quality, donated furniture and electrical goods direct to the public. They operate as social enterprises: this means they are companies with a community ethos at their heart. The profits from the stores help support all our other work across Norfolk.
Our Furniture Stores Holt – based on Hempstead Road Industrial Estate this was the first store we opened. Dereham – opened in 2011 and is located on Rash’s Green Industrial Estate. Norwich – our newest store – was officially opened by Norman Lamb MP in February 2013. It’s situated at 103 Oak Street.
We gave away over £8,000 worth of furniture, which helped over 240 local families.
Our Norwich store is working with John Lewis in a furniture recycling scheme. When customers buy a new sofa at John Lewis they are asked if they would like to have their old sofa collected when their new one is delivered. The customer pays £30 for this service and the fee is split between John Lewis and ourselves. The old sofa is then given to us so it can be sold with profits supporting all the other work we do. For full details of opening hours, how to donate furniture and other information go to our website www.benjaminfoundation.co.uk
Our stores have the following aims: • Provide consumers with great quality, affordable furniture.
• P rovide those in desperate need with free furniture.
• Prevent good quality, usable items from being sent to landfill.
• Offer volunteering and training opportunities.
•G enerate income that is used to deliver all our other services for people in Norfolk.
Fast Facts • Last year we gave away over £8,000 worth of furniture and household equipment during the last year which helped over 240 local families. • We were delighted to be the first approved partner of The Furniture Re-use Network in the East of England. The Network is a national body that promotes the re-use of essential household furniture and electrical goods to help people in need. • Our stores prevent over 7,000 items each year going to landfill, diverting 105 tonnes of furniture and 20 tonnes of electrical goods from local landfill sites.
How You Can Help Us If you would like to do some voluntary work please call us on 01692 500999.
Donations and Fundraising We are always very grateful for donations to support our work. The easiest way to donate is to visit our website www.benjaminfoundation.co.uk and click on the MyCharitypage.com link. Whether it is a one off donation or a regular amount, large or small you can be reassured someone in Norfolk will benefit. Individuals, social groups, friends of our charity and businesses have also run fundraising events through the last year and again this is much appreciated. As we continue to grow we are always keen to hear from new supporters so please get in touch with us if you would like to discuss this. Contact Chris Elliott our Marketing and Fundraising Manager at chris.elliott@benjaminfoundation.co.uk We are members of the FundRaising Standards Board which is the independent UK body promoting best practice in fundraising. It means that you can have confidence in our fund raising.
Volunteer Volunteers play a really important part in our organisation. During the last year over 50 volunteers worked with us making a huge contribution to our success. The role of our volunteers varies greatly. We have many who contribute time every week working in one of our services alongside our permanent staff. Others choose to volunteer for a day. Businesses support us too by allowing a group of staff to work on a project for a day; often this is a decorating or gardening job to spruce up one of our premises. From driving a mini-bus to building maintenance; youth work to administration: volunteers really make a difference.
Businesses We know that there are many businesses who actively support their local communities and charities. If you would like to discuss how a partnership with The Benjamin Foundation can help your business – whether through team building events, personal development for staff or in other ways – please contact Chris Elliott our Marketing and Fundraising Manager at chris.elliott@benjaminfoundaion.co.uk
Legacies We are grateful for the legacies we have received in the last year. If you would like further information please email claire.reynolds@benjaminfoundation.co.uk
Our Finances
In our financial year ended April 2013 we continued to invest in new services and it’s great to see these already making a positive difference to the people they support. We will continue to look for ways we can grow our support for people in Norfolk who need extra help and where we are confident we can provide this. However, we are always mindful that we need to make sensible financial decisions so that we can continue our work for all the people that already receive our support across the county.
Total Income £3,446,226 Fees charged - £478,662 (e.g. for provision childcare at our nursery and pre-schools) Housing rent and similar - £1,027,140 (e.g. young people staying in our accommodation centres) Donations, fundraising and miscellaneous - £89,360 Charities and public sector bodies £1,544,322 (e.g. Big Lottery Fund) Social Enterprise - £305,445 (e.g. the profit from our furniture stores) Investment income £1,297 Total £3,446,226
Total Expenditure £3,534,473 Charitable activities - £3,517,049 99.5% Governance - £14,524 (e.g. audit of accounts, legal advice) 0.4% Cost of generating funds - £2,906 0.1%
We made a relatively small deficit of around £88,000 during the year. We funded this from our reserves and through a short term loan that will be paid off before the end of 2013.
Looking Ahead
We have always been a progressive and proactive charity and that spirit will continue in the coming years. Where we see an unfulfilled need for a service to help people in Norfolk we will see if and how we could be the solution. It won’t be about growth for the sake of it though – new opportunities will need to be in an area where we have skills already or where we could readily adapt our current skills. This is a fair reflection of how we have grown in the past so whilst we can appear diverse in what we deliver this has arisen through spotting where new services are needed linked to what we provide. Underpinning our choice about any new service is the principle that we will not prejudice the people we currently support and the quality of what we provide to them.
Part of our planned growth is to have an additional office base in Norwich by the end of 2014. We have some office space in our “Restore” used furniture store on Oak Street in the city already which is primarily a base for some of our teams operating around the county. Since that was opened in February 2013 we have quickly seen the benefits of having a city base as a great central point in the county, to have easy access to many current and new stakeholders and for potential new recruits in the county’s biggest job pool. Wherever the next stage of The Benjamin’s Foundation journey takes us it will be driven by the needs of the people of Norfolk and with us continuing to deliver Hope, Opportunity, Stability and Independence to those that need extra support.
Contact Us
Corporate Office Kings Arms Loke North Walsham Norfolk NR28 9FE T: 01692 500999 E: info@benjaminfoundation.co.uk W: www.benjaminfoundation.co.uk The Benjamin Foundation @TBFNorfolk benjaminfoundation
Our Furniture Stores Norwich 103 Oak Street Norwich NR3 3BP T: 01603 661921 Holt Unit 4B Glaven Road Hempstead Road Ind. Estate Holt NR25 6ES T: 01263 713721 Dereham 1a/b Rash’s Green Ind. Estate Dereham NR19 1JG T: 01362 692392
Hope
Opportunity
Stability
Independence
Registered Charity Number: 1124936 Company Number: 3825425