WHY & HOW?

Timpson first supported the NSPCC in 2001 when itadopted the organisation’s high profile Full StopCampaign as its corporate charity.

John and Alex Timpson’s personal commitment tohelping children in distress soon grew into a hugelysuccessful relationship with ChildLine, the 24 hourChildren’s helpline founded by the popular writer andbroadcaster, Esther Rantzen.

Over the years very many Timpson colleagues havegone to extraordinary lengths to raise money forChildLine - by climbing mountains, leaping out ofaircraft and cycling coast to coast in support of thecause. All this activity culminated in Timpson raisingmore than £1million for ChildLine.

Much of that money has been donated by loyal Timpsoncustomers who have happily put a £1 donation in thecharity box in recognition of the outstanding customerservice they have received in-store.

Now it is time for a change of charity. Inside, JohnTimpson CBE explains why, after many years supportingChildLine, Timpson is now adopting After Adoption asits new corporate charity.

In the following pages we reveal how John and Alexhope to repeat Timpson’s highly successful fundraisingformula and, with the help of many truly amazing andsupportive colleagues, raise £1m to help After Adoptiondeliver its highly acclaimed SafeBase programme toadoptive families in need of vital support.

OUR NEW

Donate online www.timpson.com

CHARITY

Spring 2011

The Timpson business is renowned for its exceptional ‘Upside-down Management’culture, where colleagues have the freedom to do whatever it takes to deliver

outstanding customer service and are supported in that mission by every-one else in the business. “Our business is very different to most high

street retailers,” says John Timpson. “We don’t hinder our people byputting set rules and procedures in place, instead we let them

serve their customers in the way they know works best for thecustomer. I personally receive a host of complimentary lettersand emails every week from customers who are amazed by theservice they receive in our shops. I take my hat off to our peoplewho over the years have provided a great shopping experience

or have done a little job for free and directed customers’ appreci-ation into the charity tin on the counter. I genuinely believe I have

the best and kindest shop staff in the country…and customers too. Weplan to keep doing what we do best for our customers and our new charity,

After Adoption - deliver outstanding customer care and put appreciativepounds in the tin.”

John Timpson CBE, Timpson Chairman & CEO

He had a fantastic voice and joined ChesterCathedral choir only to be falselyaccused of passing round nudeillustrated playing cards duringevensong – Alex asked for anapology, but the clergy refused torepent, so Ollie stopped singing.

When Ollie became a teenagerthings got much worse. Hecaused chaos at school, wherehe started an enterprise sellingcigarettes and Vodka. His attend-ance at lessons was spasmodic.We took him away before the Headissued the inevitable red card. At 14he disappeared in one of our carson a 3 day 250 mile joy ride. At 17 he wasbecoming involved in drugs and we had to lock up ourcash. He was so unacceptable in the house he startedliving in a caravan in the garden.

Friends were surprised that we, such experienced par-ents (by then we had fostered over 30 children)couldn't cope. "Send him to us," they said, "he canstay the weekend, we'll soon sort him out." Far fromhelping, these well meaning remarks made us feelworse. They confirmed that we, as parents, were a fail-ure.

When Ollie finally left home we felt a black cloudhad been lifted from our lives. We still worriedabout him but at least we were not awake all nightwondering if he would return home.

About that time Alex went on a foster carers' courseorganised by Cheshire Social Services. The speaker,Dan Hughes, was the first person to tell Alex aboutattachment disorder, the reason why so manychildren in care find life difficult and are tough tohandle. In an afternoon Alex discovered that theway we had been handling Ollie (and many more) waswrong and would never work. "I suppose you havebeen stopping their television and sending them tobed early?" said Dan. "Yes," they allnodded. "Wrong," said Dan. "Concentrate onpraising the things that go right, these childrenneed their confidence built up not destroyed."

Some in the room openly cried, if only they hadbeen told earlier that their children need a specialstyle of parenting.

That afternoon made a big difference, we re-gained our self respect and got back our

life. Immediately our relationship withOllie improved.

Four years ago I got a letter out ofthe blue from Lynn Charltonat SafeBase. It was hardlysurprising that I arranged for usto meet. Alex and I were stillfostering but the family of threethat brought up our total in careto 90 were to be our last (although

Alex is now an active Home Startvolunteer).

I discovered that After Adoption does‘what it says on the tin’ - providing help in eve-

ry possible way to adoptive families as well as findingpermanent homes for 'hard to place' kids. They sup-port adopted children and birth parents who mustcome to terms with their children being raised bysomeone else.

After Adoption were developing their SafeBaseprogramme to give adoptive families just the helpwe had needed many years ago. SafeBase was inthe development stage - it had to prove its worth

before it could get local authority backing. We gavethem a bit of money to run a few courses. Alex andI dropped in on a couple of sessions. They werebowled over, SafeBase had helped to change theirlives. The combination of home visits, one to oneadvice and four full day group meetings taught themwhat they had long needed to know about Attachmentand how to deal with their challenging children.

HERE’S WHYI’m supporting After Adoption

2

n 1977, when Alex answered an advertasking for foster carers I didn't realise howmuch our lives were going to change. We

were assessed, passed the test, and sixmonths later two brothers aged 4 and 3 cameto live with us.

We thought we knew how to be good parents,after all we were successfully bringing upthree children of our own. We must have beennaïve, for nearly 20 years we treated aprocession of foster children in the same waywe treated Victoria, James and Edward.

We weren't surprised to find several children'challenging'. Some sibling groups argued allday until I was near to screaming point. Onevery disturbed boy used a mallet to smash120 panes of glass in our vegetable garden,another strangled our cat. But good times faroutweighed the bad and the experiencebrought a welcome addition to our lives.

I decided that we would only look afterchildren younger than our youngest child,Edward, so it was some time before we caredfor a teenager. But, in 1982, when we adoptedOliver, that was bound to change.

Ollie was 6 when he arrived, full of nervousenergy and lacking in confidence. He wasgood at running - he set a school record for1500 metres - but often failed to turn up forgames.

Alex and John Timpsonwww.timpson.com

©D

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After a few months I was becoming a bit of a mentor,regularly meeting Lynn and her team to discuss howSafeBase could develop. We had two clear objectives:

During one of our discussions I decided to write abook. I was about to go to Las Vegas - a mini breakbut a long time on the plane. Lynn gave me acollection of text books on Attachment - intellectualwords written by experts. I wanted to explainAttachment in pictures with very few words, so thatnon academics could understand. I showed the finaldraft to Ollie who read it carefully (it only takes tenminutes) when he finished he turned to me andsimply said: "That’s me isn't it?"

After Adoption have already distributed 15,000copies of the book - it seems to help people under-stand Attachment and why it has such an influenceon whether young people grow up with confidence.

Understanding Attachment (the essential bondingin early life) must benefit anyone involved withyoung people. Not just adoptive parents but allparents plus a wide range of professions - teachers,probation officers, doctors, prison officers (40% ofyoung people in prison have been in the care system)social workers, magistrates, judges and indeedcabinet ministers.

At best the SafeBase programme will benefit 120families in the next 12 months. In that time 2,500new foster families will be established. But at a timeof budget cuts SafeBase is struggling to fill the 120places on offer.

It is not just the money that is holding back localauthority support. A few weeks ago Alex tried to helpa friend's daughter who is keen to become a fostercarer.

To get information Alex went to the local socialservices department - it was shut (since Cheshirewas split in two there have been a lot of changes) -she moved on to the Council offices where they werepleasant but no-one could help. No leaflets, no oneto talk to, just a promised phone call that never came.

In a frenzy of risk averse guidelines and cost-cutting,social services are in danger of abandoning the jobthey are there to do.

I have written enough words it is time for action.The next generation depends on today’s parents -there is a job to be done.

I'm lucky, with a profitable business and nearly 900shops we are in a position to help. Remember ourobjectives - to widen knowledge of Attachment andspread the availability of SafeBase. I think we can doboth pretty quickly.

After a lot of heart searching I have decided tochange our company charity from ChildLine to AfterAdoption. ChildLine is a great charity, indeed I was aChildLine trustee for several years and have pledgedto give ChildLine a further £50,000 for each of thenext three years. But After Adoption needs us evenmore. Our money can help SafeBase help to support1000 families a year and tell millions of people aboutAttachment.

After Adoption has risen to the challenge. I havepledged a minimum of £1million (£200,000 everyyear for 5 years). They in return have promised tooffer SafeBase nationwide by 2015.

As well as having collecting boxes in every shop (put£1 in the box when we do a job for free) we will talkabout SafeBase through news sheets and sell theAttachment Book.

I've also got a challenge for Local Authorities. Nextyear we will use the bulk of our funding to go 50/50with Social Services to pay the cost of the SafeBaseprogramme in their catchment area.

It might seem a long way away from shoe repairingbut as I said at the beginning, when Alex applied tobecome a foster carer I didn't know quite where itwas going to lead.

PLEDGE

“I have pledgeda minimum£1million -

£200k every yearfor 5 years.”

3

My guideexplainsAttachmentin simplewords andpictures.

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“We’ll be doing lots offree jobs for a £1 donation.”

A Timpson Trainee in London

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The pledge of a £1 million pounds support over thenext five years for SafeBase will definitely make surethat children who have had a difficult start in lifebenefit from the security of belonging to a ‘foreverfamily’.

Making placements work is central to adoption.Often people forget that the 2,500 children adoptedfrom care each year are some of society’s mostvulnerable children and they are children who haveoften suffered from inconsistent parenting in theirearly lives, or abuse and neglect. If they remainedin care there would be a 40% chance they wouldface problems in later life such as youth offending,relationship difficulties, and mental health problems.

The majority of adoptive parents face a challengingtime due to children with Attachment problems, andto make placements work we need to give adoptiveparents the skills and knowledge to re-parent thesechildren. SafeBase is a programme that does justthat. It makes families work.

BackgroundSafeBase was developed with the support of JohnTimpson and his family, who through their personalexperience of adoption and fostering clearly under-stood why it was needed - I didn’t have to sell it tothem.

Without proper adoption support 1 in 5 adoptionplacements will fail to last into adulthood. AfterAdoption has a long history of providing support toadoptive families and children’s birth parents whocan no longer parent them. A number of years agowe were getting requests for help from adoptive

parents who were really struggling to know how tomeet their children’s emotional needs or how to dealwith very challenging behavior. It was clear to us thatadoptive parents were simply not equipped with theright tools to make their families a success. Theyneeded help, some were in crisis and disruption ofthe adoptive placement was a real possibility, mean-ing that their children would return to public care. Inresponse we developed the SafeBase programme.

SafeBase SafeBase has three parts; a family assessment sothe adoptive parents, and we, can understand theproblems; a training course - putting parents incontrol and teaching practical skills and educatingthem about attachment, and then ongoing support.

Last week one parent said to me: “SafeBase endedfive years of isolation for us because we did not knowwhere to turn to for help”.

Happy FamiliesThe success of SafeBase programme for families hasbeen overwhelming. We have prevented placementbreakdowns but perhaps more importantly we havehelped to build happy families where children cangrow up and belong.

AmbitionSo, how do we make this available to everyone? Thiswas the question on which we sought John’s advice.He’d become a mentor to our team over a period oftime and had helpfully written a ‘Guide to Attachment’,a 10 minute read to improve people’s understandingabout Attachment, that we have widely distributed.The answer was to have the joint goal to makeSafeBase available to everyone by 2016.

THE BIG PLANAfter Adoption CEO, Lynn Charlton,

explains why Timpson’s supportis crucial to the SafeBase programme.

4

Lynn Charlton, CEO After Adoption

� Family Assessment

� Training Course

� On-going SupportThe success of

SafeBase programmefor families has been

overwhelming.We’ve preventedplacement break-

downs but perhapsmore importantly wehave helped to buildhappy families wherechildren can grow up

and belong.

“I’m going to havemy head shaved.”

A Timpson Branch Colleague in Devon

©Af

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5

THE NATIONAL PICTURE

StrategyTo overcome the obstacles to families getting the helpthey need John pledged his support to raise £1millionand we agreed to:

Phase OneSafeBase will be available to all families who adoptthrough After Adoption’s Families that Last serviceand we will encourage other agencies to do the same.We will be widely distributing the Guide to Attachmentso that more people learn about it and we will developpartnerships with pilot local authorities with agree-ment to make SafeBase available in their areas.

Phase TwoIn phase two we will be developing more partnerships,benefiting more children. We expect to be deliveringover 200 programmes per year with a sustainableservice to take us beyond 2016.

Effecting ChangeTogether we will be measuring the success of place-ments and we want to know if more people want toadopt as a result of this available support. Localauthorities spend £1.5billion on children's services -every time they find a family for a child in care theysave between £30,000 and £50,000 a year. Thepartnership funding provided by Timpson meansthat local authorities are getting great value formoney. Together we are effecting change - makingadoption work for children.

After Adoption wishes to thank John and his familyfor their significant support – this is a fantasticexample of how to make a real difference to people’slives.

1 in 5adoptive placementsfail without support.

children who stay in care have a40% chance of having problems

in adulthood.

25%of children who need adoptive

families won’t find a familyunless adoption support

like SafeBase isavailable.

“SafeBase will beavailable

to all familieswho adopt through

After Adoption’s‘Families that Last’

service and wewill encourage other

agencies to dothe same.”

©After Adoption

Every year one in five adoptions fails, often because ofAttachment difficulties between the parents and child.Combined with falling adoption rates in the UK (only2,300 children were adopted last year) an increasingnumber of children are growing up in the care of localauthorities (up 6% in a year).

Many of these children are society’s most vulnerable,who may have suffered from abuse or neglect, andthese experiences can impact on the success ofadoption placements. The facts and costs associatedwith children in care are sobering – children who stayin care have a 40% chance of having problems suchas mental health issues in adulthood; 26% of childrenwho grow up in care are not in education, employmentor training at 19 – compared to just 6% of the rest of thepopulation; and local authorities spend over £1.5billionon maintaining children in care.

However, for every child that is successfully placed in aloving home, the local authority saves £30,000 - £50,000a year in care costs until the child is 18, while the long-term cost savings can be significantly more in terms ofhealth care, benefits and social support.

Charities like After Adoption seek to recruit adoptivefamilies for children with very complex backgrounds. Itis very important that adoptive parents are adequatelyprepared for this and that they receive the support theyneed to make their families work. After Adoption’sSafeBase programme is already making a positivedifference in regions including Greater Manchester,Lancashire, Merseyside and Wales, with over 120 familiesand more than 200 children helped to build long lastingattachments. This will grow significantly by 2016.

“We’re running loadsof fundays in-store.”

A Timpson Branch Manager in Yorkshire

MAKING ADifference

6

Some of the individuals andfamilies who have benefited

from the After AdoptionSafeBase programme sharetheir stories and reveal whata difference it has made to

their lives...

Our Story

Our little girl was nearly three when shecame to live with us. Having raised our birthson, aged eleven, we already had parentingexperience and had also looked afterchildren with complex needs. Although werecognised that our daughter had had a verydifficult start in life, we thought that wecould turn it around quite quickly.

However, it proved to be a difficult journey.We kept thinking there was something wrong,all of our normal parenting techniques andinstincts weren’t able to manage our daugh-ter’s difficult behaviour and we began to feelvery isolated. When we shared our concernswith a social worker, she told us about Safe-Base.

The programme marked a turning point inthat it created an environment in which wecould share our concerns with others,bringing us the support and understandingthat we needed to continue on our journey.We gained specialist knowledge about ourdaughter’s attachment difficulties, allowingus to understand the origins of our child’sbehaviour and enabling us to separate thebehaviour from the child.

We stopped blaming ourselves and no longerfelt as isolated. Life is continuing to improvefor our family. We use what we learned onthe SafeBase programme and our daughter’sbehaviour, both at school and at home, hasgreatly improved.

SafeBase has been extremely positive forour family. Without it, we don’t know wherewe would be now.

The Campbell Family

My StorySheilaMy name is Sheila Quinn and I am very proud and excited to beThe National Coordinator for After Adoption’s SafeBase Team.On a professional and also a personal level, being an adoptivemother of a sibling group of three girls, I cannot speak highlyenough about the SafeBase programme and the positive resultsand impact it achieves for adoptive families. Research showsthat children have poorer life chances if they grow up in care,adoption gives a child the opportunity to grow up with a foreverfamily. Some adoptive placements do however break down.Families have testified that using the strategies and techniqueslearnt on the SafeBase programme, has enhanced their familylife, reducing the risk of placement breakdown.

My StoryAdamWe have two adopted children who share thesame birth mother. Our son Harry was 18 monthsold when we were able to adopt him. His half sisterarrived about a year later aged 12 months. Harrywas always a lively little boy, forever fidgeting andbarely able to keep still. He enjoyed his time in theinfant’s school, but when he was about 7 years oldand moved up into the juniors we noticed a changein his behaviour. Harry struggled with the moreformal classroom environment and playgroundpeer pressures. He was okay in class but wouldoften let his frustrations rip at home. Whilst hewasn’t behaving terribly, we and friends noticed hisbehaviour was at more extreme end of the spectrum.

We made contact with After Adoption who at thattime was piloting the SafeBase project. My wife andI took part in two 2 day sessions. We’d always shiedaway from support group stuff but part of the valueof the course was seeing where we as a family sat onthe spectrum with other families with similar issues.

That was really valuable. We learned about very earlychildhood experiences, even in the womb, and wentthrough some of the theory of brain development. Weexplored theraplay – play sessions where we couldmodel some of the soothing behaviours to help settleHarry down and even learned how to have a conversa-tion with him in a way that would help him feel lesspressured.

SafeBase also assisted us in helping the schoolunderstand why some adopted children havebehavioural problems and we were able to figureout how we could all work together – parent, childand school. The whole SafeBase programme was sovaluable. We realised we weren’t alone and that itwasn’t our fault, or Harry’s. It was an incrediblypositive experience and a great course that wouldbenefit any parent.

Adam had such a positive experience with AfterAdoption he wanted to give something back sohe became a Trustee of the charity and alsoacts as a SafeBase Ambassador, championingthe programme to others.

Some names have been changed in thisfeature for the purpose of confidentiality.

“We’re doing a teamcar boot sale this year.”

A Max Spielmann Branch in Lancashire

Some names have been changed in thisfeature for the purpose of confidentiality.

7

WORKINGIn Partnership

Sefton BoroughCouncil Adoption

Service has, forsome years now, acknowledged the importanceof working in partnership with organisations likeAfter Adoption. This partnership has provedinvaluable in improving the life chances ofchildren separated from their birth families, toassist birth families to come to terms with theloss of their children, and to enable adoptiveparents to understand and meet the needs oftheir adopted child. This has been achieved forbirth families and adopted adults, and theprovision of counselling for birth families andrelated support groups.

In Sefton’s usual forward thinking on provisionof services a further exciting opportunity hasarisen to expand the partnership with AfterAdoption by providing the course SafeBaseto all Sefton adoptive parents.

SafeBase’ was developed by After Adoptioncirca 2004 and has received critical acclaimand produced positive outcomes.

It assists adoptive parents to understand andprogress the formation of attachments viaindividual assessment and group participation.

‘SafeBase’ addresses the fundamental baseto the security of placement and therefore theneeds of children separated from their birthfamilies in terms of lifelong emotional security.

This is an exciting new venture and a furtheropportunity for Sefton to ensure it continues tooffer a quality service to adopted children andadoptive families.

The SafeBase programme draws critical acclaimfrom leading figures in children’s care services.

“This is an exciting new venture...for Sefton to offer a quality service

to adopted children and adoptive families”

Colin Pettigrew, Sefton Borough Council’sDirector of Young People and Families, applauds the SafeBase partnership.

We are now about to run our second SafeBasecourse since we took on the licence to run theAfter Adoption programme in Scotland last year.I’m struck already by what an overwhelminglypositive experience it has been for the familiesinvolved and the remarkable progress they havemade with their adopted children.

Witnessing how adoptive families have respondedso positively to the programme and how well theyhave managed to improve their everyday interac-tions with their children has been a very powerfulexperience for me and for the staff running thecourses.

I have been closely involved with one particularfamily who told me how participating in theSafeBase programme really opened their eyesand gave them a whole new perspective onunderstanding their child’s challenging behaviour.

One counsellor for a CAMHS (Child and Adoles-cent Mental Health Services) team based in EastCentral Scotland, has also commented enthusias-tically about SafeBase and its positive effect onone child and his family; ‘It sounds as if theSafeBase Course has been very useful not only interms of thinking about your child but gaininginsight into yourselves and your parenting styles.It sounds as if you have made some significantchanges in how you manage things with yourchild’.

We can spend as much time as we like ‘talking’about why traumatised children behave the waythey do but unless we furnish parents with good,practical, easy to apply ideas on how to engage,play and connect emotionally with their childrenthen their negative behaviour patterns areunlikely to be resolved. The SafeBase programmedoes just that. It has helped the families wesupport make huge progress.

“I’m already struck by what anoverwhelmingly positive experienceit has been for the families involved.”

Steven SmallDirector, St. Andrew’s

Children’s Society

©ia

inm

oore

“I’ll be doing asponsored triathlon.”

A Timpson Locksmith in Manchester

Their StoryHow SafeBase Helps

“We’ve hadgreat support fromother adopters and

no longerfeel Isolated.”“We’ve

learnt to focus

and not over

react.”

“SafeBasesaved ouradoption.”

“NowI realise I amnot on my own!A problem shared isa problem

halved.”“The

programmesaved ourmarriage.”

“We’vebeen remindedof the good things...The reasons foradopting andwhy we did it.”

“It hasgiven me

understanding....

I try to appreciate

what my child

is goingthrough.”

“We learnedto keep doingthe stuffthat works.”

These are just some of the comments from adoptiveparents who took part in the SafeBase support groupin Chorley, Lancashire in September 2010. Thanksto the support of Timpson very many more adoptedchildren and their families will receive the help andunderstanding they need to become a happy andsuccessful family unit. For more information on thework of After Adoption or to make a donation pleasevisit www.afteradoption.org.uk or call 0161 839 4932.

“Thetheraplay really

helped,

especially the

touch & control

elements.”

HOW WE PLANTO RAISE £1M £1m

“I know from our experience of supportingChildLine in the past that most money put intoour collecting tins on the counter comes fromcustomers appreciating the great customer servicethey have received in our shops. Our people are happy todo a little job for free in return for a small donation of £1into the After Adoption tin. We hope to raise £1m thisway. Feel free to ask our people to do a small job foryou - like a quick glue or stitch in return for that £1!”

A GUIDE TOATTACHMENT!

IN-STOREGRAPHICS

When it comes to ourpeople’s passion for raising

money for our favourite causes...the sky’s the limit - literally!

Emma and Michelle actually threwthemselves out of an airplane!

Paul cycled from the East to the Westcoast of Scotland - and we have

plenty of colleagues happyto monkey around on

fundraising fundays tohelp us get to

£1m forAfter Adoption.

IN 900

SHOPS!Paul raised £2k

Emma & Michelleraised £2k too!

“My 35 years experience as a fostercarer and adoptive parent has given me aninsight into the often challenging behaviourof some children who have gone through thecare system. I’ve written a little book, which Ihope will help explain why some children and youngpeople behave in the way they do. It’s available in all our shops. ”