OBJECTIVES AND ACTIVITIES
The organisation’s objects are to relieve sickness amongst people suffering from substance misuse by the provision of support, advice and counselling for their families, and to educate the public in all matters relating to substance misuse.
Public Benefit
In considering the objectives and activities, the Trustees have considered the Charity Commission’s guidance on Public Benefit to ensure that the organisation is meeting its Public Benefit requirements.
ACHIEVEMENTS AND PERFORMANCE
Sanctuary Family Support is a frontline organisation that deals with people in crisis, who are affected by substance misuse. Our service users comprise family members, the substance misusers themselves & kinship carers. Sanctuary’s mission is early intervention and to work with service users in order to prevent the problems getting worse.
The last 12 months were very challenging due to staff shortages, lockdowns, sickness, problems with a leak from the upstairs flats, which have had a detrimental effect on myself & staff. This has happened on a number of occasions and has caused our services to be cancelled at some point, although the service users were still supported over the phone as the staff worked from home.
The staff came back into work on the 3rd August 2020, after working from home for 5 months due to the lockdown associated with Covid. They continued to support people not only with substance misuse problems but with their mental health problems as well. After returning to work some our service users were a bit reluctant to come to the office so we continued with support over the phone. The Staff returned to work on Monday the 4th January 2021 only to have another lockdown put in place, staff returning to work 6th April 2021.
Although we couldn’t gain full admission, due to covid, Sanctuary delivered 30 Easter Baskets to 3 of the Sheltered accommodations owned by Torus Housing, one of our partners; in December we also delivered 30 gift bags to 3 of the sheltered accommodations owned by Torus. Sanctuary has delivered Health & Wellbeing courses to the over 55’s in these accommodations.
During the lockdown I attended many zoom meetings on behalf of Sanctuary, some included Adfam, the national charity for families affected by substance misuse; There was a zoom meeting for Addiction professionals; this was a very interesting way of learning how important Family Support is to other drug services and how the family should be included in the recovery process.
TRUSTEES’ANNUAL REPORT FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30TH JUNE 2021
Over the last 12 months our work with social services has increased; the amount of time spent working with a client due to advocating at meetings, phone calls etc is time consuming.
Due to Sanctuary being based in the diverse community of Toxteth we serve this community with people from different cultures who engage with our organisation. We have a good relationship with the local Councillors, local G. P. surgeries, Housing Associations, The Life Rooms, Mersey Care, We Are with You, Social Services, the local Mosque and other cultural organisations together with other drug & alcohol organisation.
Training Workshops
We hope to update our safeguarding training in the next couple of weeks.
Play Therapy – Counsellor EMDR – Counsellor
Children’s Counselling
We felt because of the large waiting times for CAMHS and the amount of children & young people needing this service, Sanctuary applied for funding to deliver counselling and has recently been successful with the funding to offer counselling to children & young people 8 to 17.
Staff
One of our Family Support Worker’s left our employment in April 2021 as she wanted a full time post. We eventually employed Kim, who had been a volunteer at Sanctuary 10 years earlier. I would like to report that Kim is doing very well.
Volunteers
Two of our service users are now volunteers with Sanctuary and are doing very well. Christina Dempsey, who has recently retired from LCVS will be coming on board at Sanctuary as a Trustee & volunteer.
I wish everybody well and hope that people can start rebuilding their lives after life with Covid.
Activities from July 2020- June 2021
| Family Support Worker 1-1 | 96 |
| Counsellor 1-1 | 49 |
| Family Support Worker 1-1 phone sessions | 1,147 |
| Counsellor phone sessions | 358 |
| Holistic Therapies | 77 |
| Peer to Peer sessions | 36 |
| Exercise Sessions
Support for Service Users |
36 |
- Sanctuary dealt with 290 service users over the last 12
- 95 male substance misuser clients & 89 female user There were 106 family clients: 4 male and 102 female.
- Ages ranged from: – (0-24) 6% (25-64) 79% (65+) 15%
- Ethnicity (66%) white/mixed white, Mixed/Ethnic groups (8%) Asian/Asian UK (7%) Black/African/Caribbean/Black UK (19%)
- (51%) had no religion (38%) Christian Buddhist (1%) Judaism (1%) Muslim (1%) Sikh (5%) other (3%)
- Sexual Orientation; (91%) heterosexual, Other (9%)
- (65%) people had health issues;( 35%) healthy (20%) were classed as disabled
TRUSTEES’ANNUAL REPORT FOR THE YEAR ENDED 301H JUNE 2021
FINANCIAL REVIEW
Total income for the year was £91,905 (2020: £113,030), of which £88,372 (2020: £89,618) related to funding for projects upon which restrictions are placed.
Total expenditure for the year was £82,905 (2020 restated: £95,037) leaving a surplus for the year of £9,000 (2020 restated: surplus £17,993).
At 30th June 2021 the Charitable Incorporated Organisation’s reserves stood at £49,645 (2020 restated: £40,645) of which £44,469 (2020 restated: £28,080) represented restricted funds.
Risk Management
The main risks to which the Charitable Incorporated Organisation’s is exposed as identified by the trustees have been considered and systems have been established to mitigate those risks.
The Charitable Incorporated Organisation has cut the risk of Covid 19 to staff and families by offering one to one support service over the phone. During Covid 19 there has been no activities income and fundraising events affecting unrestricted reserves Once restrictions are lifted plans are in place to build up the unrestricted reserves through fundraising and activities.
Reserves Policy
It is the policy of the Charitable Incorporated Organisation to maintain unrestricted funds, which are free reserves at a level to cover redundancy provision and three months’ running costs should no further funding be received.
As at the end of the financial year, the unrestricted funds totalled £5,176 less tangible fixed assets of £202 leaving a balance of free reserves of £4,974. The charitable company requires
£5,987 for redundancy provision and £2,730 for three months’ running costs, (Total £8,717).
Plans for the future
Sanctuary plan to continue with their valued work of one-to-one support for people affected by substance misuse together with the counselling we are offering to children & young people.
We are looking forward to having an Open Day, where we can showcase our very important work to the community.
If we are successful with an application to the Police Fund, we will be offering 6 Square Peg workshops, 6 Creative writing workshops, 6 Connecting Youth workshops to all our service users.
We will continue to fundraise for the activities that are not funded by the National Lottery Community Fund.
SANCTUARY FAMILY SUPPORT WOULD LIKE TO THANK OUR FUNDERS OUR SERVICE USERS AND OUR VOLUNTEERS.
Sanctuary Family Support 