free@last - annual report 2013
DESCRIPTION
Annual report 2012 www.freeatlast.st www.freaxadventures.co.uk www.icanb7.co.uk www.wayderaphael.co.uk www.miscfit.co.ukTRANSCRIPT
ANNUAL REPORTTHE STORY 2013
to free@last’s annual report2013.We hope you enjoy
reading about another yearin the life of our service to
the people of Nechells,Birmingham. Please feel
free to contact us for moreinformation or if you want
to support us throughprayer, finance or
volunteering. Thank�you.
Welcome
VISION
To improve the lives of the children and
young people of Nechells.
MISSION
free@last is committed to providing
opportunities, activities, mentoring and
support for children and young people in
Nechells, and to further their interests by
working with their families, other
agencies and relevant professionals.
VALUES
Giving opportunities to all young people
in Nechells without distinction.
AIMS
To engage children and young people in a
range of developmental and progressive
activities which provide opportunities for
success and to broaden their horizons.
To support children and young people through
life’s challenges and difficulties.
To support their families to provide the best
possible environment for their children to
grow, develop and flourish.
To take a multi-agency approach to improving
the lives of children and young people.
There have been many changes in our country this past year and many things that
significantly affect the people who we work with. A massive reduction in public spending
and increased competition for charity fundraising has resulted in the closure of many
local services; and subsequently increased the pressure on those of us who are managing
to survive through these difficult times. The benefit system changes and increasing
difficulties in securing long term employment has affected all of us, but those who live in
poverty have to cope with these changes without the resources (financial and emotional)
available to them.
However, in this grim time of inner city life in 2013 we are continually blessed by God as
He provides the necessary resources, relationships and support for us to continue
offering services to the people of Nechells. Our business developments have enabled us
to secure building core costs and become self-sustaining. Our relationships have
continued to blossom and we are moving into a new era with new people joining our
board and specialist committees in 2014. With the plans for our building also moving
forward and the great team that we have, we know that the future is bright and
free@last will continue to be at the heart of change for the people who live and work in
Nechells.
There is always room for you to join us and we are eternally grateful to those of you who
are part of the bigger team and family of free@last.
Thank you,
JOHN STREET (Director)
DIRECTORSREPORT
Dear friends,
Once again I would like to thank you for your support, generosity and belief in our vision
to improve the lives of the children and young people of Nechells. Although our staff
team has reduced slightly over these past months we still have a very dedicated and
caring team, which has been added to by an increased amount of volunteers. We
extremely value the special place that volunteers play in our work and have overhauled
our support structure and processes to make sure that all those who wish to commit
their time to us can feel valued, supported and part of the team. We are also making
progress in our plans for future growth and the building programme is pivotal to our
presence and effectiveness in this, and we thank all those who continue to give their time
and support to making this dream of a purpose built facility become a reality.
We recently had a gathering of professionals and local residents to present our work to
them in the hope that they would consider joining our mission. We were overwhelmed
by the response and show of support from such a diverse range of people. As our
strategic board and committees grows and our work becomes more effective we will
continue to fulfil our vision and enable local people to be free@last; and there is always
room for you if you want to join our journey.
Best wishes always,
WINSTON SERGENT (Chair�of�Trustees)�
TRUSTEES REPORT
The heart and soul of free@last is focused
on the children and young people in
Nechells, with the aim of broadening their
horizons through a wide variety of
opportunities and unconditional support
to help them through the difficulties and
challenges they face. We are a needs led
organisation that builds positive,
meaningful relationships with the young
people and through these relationships
we are able to constantly adapt and
develop our work to reflect the desires
and dreams of those we are here to serve.
Youth Clubs
At free@last we run several youth clubs
to help give children aged from 5 to 18 an
environment to be safe in, relax and have
fun together whilst building confidence,
new friendships and positive relationships
with the staff. The clubs offer access to
our other services as well as offsite trips
and activities.
p@l Mentoring
The p@l mentoring programme was
started in 2010 to support children and
young people with their personal, social
and educational development. The
programme has continued to support and
minimize the complex needs of 5 to 16
year olds, and also to support their
families too. The main issues we deal with
are anger, confidence and
academic development.
This year we have had 22 new referrals
and to date 58 referrals. One of the main
issues for recruiting has been families
thinking we are connected to social
services. We are currently working on
how to overcome this. Although we
haven’t yet reached the target for the
project we continue to work hard to
encourage the children who need this
service to become involved.
Some of the comments from children
about their involvement in the project
include “I’m�beginning�to�feel�confident
about�myself” and from parents “I�feel�the
mentoring�has�brought�me�and�my�son
closer�again” and from referrers “it’s
great�that�we�can�have�a�service�that�a
school�can�use�to�support�us�in�filling�an
important�part�of�a�young�person’s�life,
their�well-being.”
CHILDREN & YOUNG PEOPLE
Nechells Young Leaders
Working with a small group of young
people aged 15 to 18 we have delivered a
new 12 month programme to enable and
equip them to fulfil a leadership role
within a variety of arenas within their
own community, including free@last.
Over the past year the young leaders have
had the opportunity to work with the
Police, Fire Service, large and small
businesses and even visit the local council
house. At the end of their training the
group went to Bulgaria to work with 2
organisations supporting the Roma
community in Stara Zagora. Funding was
raised by Birmingham City University
Business School students, local businesses
and 3 local funders to achieve this
amazing experience. Each young leader
also had their own personal mentor,
professionals from businesses, education,
emergency services and the voluntary
sector; who were able to help, guide and
support them through the programme.
The young leaders have now started
working on their individual projects,
ranging from running youth clubs to
organising trips for other young people.
As a pilot project we have been externally
evaluated, which has shown that this is an
excellent project that should be replicated
as it will provide many other young
people with the opportunity to learn skills
in leadership.
Duke of Edinburgh Award
Since the year 2012 we have had 24
people sign up to do their Duke of
Edinburgh. We’ve had 9 people sign up to
do their gold Duke of Edinburgh, 5 to do
silver and 10 for Bronze. Our very own
Adrian completed his gold award this year
and went to meet the Duke himself.
We have successfully signed up a new
bronze group with a team of 5 young
people for the up and coming year 2014,
and we hope to give them a good
experience with us and hopefully see
them all the way through
to their gold award.
new application form, induction
procedure and safeguarding checklist has
been developed together with a new
volunteer handbook, volunteer
agreement and confidentiality policy.
Training for all staff regarding the
volunteer policies & procedures will
enable a recruitment drive for new
volunteers during the early part of 2014.
Over this past year we were able to
secure a 12 month grant from Scottish
Power Energy Peoples’ Trust and have
secured a further 4 years of funding from
BLF Reaching Communities, taking
us up to 2017.
We have continued to provide a specialist
service that helps local people with their
debt and benefit. Our experience shows
us that a supportive, understanding and
approachable service is needed to enable
people with financial difficulties to feel
relaxed and comfortable speaking about
these difficult subjects. We provide a
positive influence to our clients in their
money management and benefits
entitlement awareness.
Over the past year we have dealt with 652
debt & benefit cases (128 more than the
previous year) with a financial value of
£2,443,513. Since the project began we
have dealt with debt and benefit cases
valuing over £10 million.
The middle of this last year saw the end
of our Lottery funded workshops, which
have been running for over 4 years. For
the first time in our history we do not
have available funding for dedicated
DDIT! work, although we continue to
provide advice, guidance and support to
dads within our core services. A handful
of dads have also received advice and
signposting to additional services.
Volunteering
Following an Awards for All grant we have
overhauled our volunteer structure and
framework for volunteering, including all
policies and procedures.
free@last now has a generic volunteer
role description that focuses on personal
qualities as well as skills and following
discussions with volunteers and staff a
FAMILIES
As well as providing advice and support
for those in financial hardships we have
been given the opportunity to distribute a
variety of toiletries to our service users .
These items have been donated by Sysco
and provide each person with about 2
weeks supplies of toiletries, which
they collect from our office on a
fortnightly basis.
The Norton CentreTwo years on from the purchase of our
building we are still a long way off from
converting the old garage site into a
multi-purpose youth and family centre.
However, we are continually blessed by
meeting people who believe in our work
and have become involved in our building
plans and development. The Erdington
Rotary Club continues to raise funds to
support our work and has recently
enabled us to create a youth area in the
front upstairs offices. This will provide a
small chill out area which can be accessed
from the car park and self-contained by
the youth workers, providing a warm,
friendly and safe space for young people.
Our design team has increased and
joining our longstanding architects and
quantity surveyor, we now have a
consulting contractor and a Structural
Engineer. All of these men continue to
give their time and energy freely. We are
forever grateful for their support
and generosity.
We have had 2 groups of young people
from The Challenge come and paint and
graffiti the main hall, with paint provided
by Dulux. It looks great now.
Freax Adventures have again had a very
busy year with many new developments
which has allowed the company to
continue to grow, including new
partnerships with schools and colleges
from Birmingham and London.
We have increased our Prince’s Trust
Residential provision to work with Central
Eltham Youth Project, Lambeth and
Newham colleges from London and Young
Gloucestershire, as well as continuing
with Birmingham Metropolitan College
and Solihull colleges.
It was good to see this year many repeat
bookings from the previous year with
large bookings from several secondary
schools from different parts of the
country using Quinta Hall as their
residential base. We again worked with
Stockland Green School on their
Transition programme for their future
year 7 students and have continued to
deliver onsite camping experiences for
primary schools. We have also continued
to deliver enterprise and whole year
groups activity days for Heartlands
Academy, sometimes working with, over
160 students at once.
Freax Adventures has become an
Approved Activity Provider for the Duke
of Edinburgh’s award scheme and have
been working with Waverly Studio
College, Waverly School, Aston Manor
Academy, City United and Holte School
bringing the number of young people we
are currently working with to over 200.
This is the first year we have worked with
Living Social and Groupon to deliver
activities at Southfields Farm in Coleshill,
which has kept Freax busy during school
holidays and for weekend bookings.
BUSINESSES
The FFZ is an entertainment venue at
Birmingham’s largest entertainment
complex, Star City. We have 2 shooting
ranges offering Archery, Crossbows, BB
Guns and Slingshots; an arts & craft area;
a soft play area and in the warmer
months kayaking on the canal. The FFZ is
open on Saturdays and Sundays from 12
till 8pm and throughout local
school holidays,
There have been some changes to staffing
during the past few months, however the
FFZ currently employs 6 regular and 3
sessional members of staff, 4 of whom
are young people from Nechells.
The FFZ has evolved significantly over the
past 18 months and much of this has
been through the hard work of staff and
other organisations/businesses who have
supported us along the way. Foresters
Insurance Company have held several
family days at our venue and a couple of
volunteer days to help us paint and
upgrade the unit. The ceiling was finally
replaced in the entrance of the FFZ and a
new 2 storey soft play area installed in
the right hand entrance. This was
purchased part from FFZ profits and part
from the generosity of Erdington Rotary
Club, which has meant our ‘temporary’
look inside has gone and we have our
new permanent look.
We are developing a dedicated party area
and are expanding our range of party
packages. In addition to this we are
launching a “My School” reward scheme
where participating schools earn 10%
cash back when their pupils
purchase activities.
We have also started working with a new
Rotary Club in Solihull who are using their
business skills and experience to help us
increase our footfall and marketing
of the Fun Zone.
This is now a registered business with one
of the directors being a local lad Wayde,
who is our graphic designer. Although we
have already secured a small amount of
business we will be moving forward at
speed during 2014 to develop this
business, beginning with a strong focus on
design work.
FINANCE
free@last Supporters Our thanks go to the following for their
support during 2012/2013
Awards For All
Barrow Cadbury Trust
BBC Children in Need
Big Lottery Fund
Birmingham City University Business School
Business in the Community
Candy Bubbles & Balloons
Chamberlain Forum
CHK Charities Limited
Comic Relief
Community Development Foundation
Costco, Birmingham
Cromwell School, Nechells
David Symonds Associates (Structural Surveyors)
David Wilson Partnership (Architects)
Dorcas Housing
Dulux Let’s Colour
Erdington Rotary Club
Foresters
Four Acre Trust
Frankton-Hill Ltd (Chartered Quantity Surveyors)
Glendale
Heartlands Academy, Nechells
Learning Curve
Locke Williams Accountants
Lloyds TSB Foundation
Nechells Community Chest
Nechells Community First
Nechells POD
Nechells Primary E-Act Academy, Nechells
Print Design Team
Quinta Hall Conference Centre, Oswestry
Sandwell Lions
Scottish Power Energy Peoples’ Trust
Shaylor Group PLC
Smurfit Kappa SSK
Solihull Rotary Club
Southfields Farm
St Clement’s Academy, Nechells
St James’ Place Foundation
St Joseph’s School, Nechells
St Matthew’s School, Nechells
St Vincent’s School, Nechells
Star City Entertainment Centre
Sysco
The Challenge Network
The Norton Foundation
West Midlands Police, Nechells
West Midlands Fire Service, Aston
and all the individual friends and
supporters of free@last
Thank You
Director
John Street
Administrator
Jan Street
Youth Work
Moznur Rahman
Adrian Porter
Dawn Russell
Marian Hills
Pat Short
Naomi Spencer
Families Work
Stuart Radburn
Lin Street
Advice & Guidance
Yousef Behfar
Freax Adventures
Aaron Stone
Adam Male
Daniel Reilly
Shelima Begum
Nick Roberts
Lin Street
Louis Deeley
Stuart Goodwin
Family Fun Zone
Stuart Radburn
Abi Day
Adam Street
Luke Street
Jacob Parris
John Costello
Jonah Street
Free Spirit Media
Wayde Raphael
Trustees
Winston Sergent – Chair
André Wilkinson – Treasurer
Jacquie Sergent – Secretary
Anne Ebdon
Ricardo Atlan
THE TEAM
Websites
www.freeatlast.st
www.falsap.co.uk
www.freaxadventures.co.uk
www.familyfunzone.co.uk
www.dadsdoittoo.co.uk
2�Cattells�Grove
Nechells
Birmingham
B7�5RA
( :0121�327�5959
7 :0121�327�8959
www.freeatlast.st
www.familyfunzone.co.uk
www.freaxadventures.co.uk
www.dadsdoittoo.co.uk
Registered�Charity�number:�1101078��
Private�Limited�Company�number:�4723576
“I have come that you may
have life, and have it to the
full” John 10:10