12

...from hurting to healing Supporting adult survivors of childhood abuse

ANNUAL REPORT 2016 - 2017

2

Patrons

Mrs Felicity Irwin DL

Prof Michael Jacobs

Dr Valerie Sinason

Service Director

Dr Zoë Pool

Chair of Trustees

Kate Howe

Trustees

Renny Gye

Gail Longhurst

Ellie Maguire

Joelle Malty

Cheryll Rogers

Treasurer

Renny Gye

ThroughourrangeoftherapeuticservicesinDorset,our

missionistorelievethesufferinganddistressofmenand

womenovertheageof16whoaresurvivorsofanyform

ofchildhoodabuse:

(sexual,physical,emotional&neglect).

Dr Moira Walker, co-founder of DAA, receives the Queens’s Award

for DAA in December 2012 from

Mrs Valerie Pitt-Rivers CVO, HM Queen’s Lord Lieutenant of Dorset (2006-14)

The Queen’s Award: MBE for Voluntary Service: Groups

11

“This Safe Place”

by A.D.

Afraid, unsure

of what I face

I am not judged

In this safe place.

Believed, allowed

the time and space

I tell my truth

in this safe place.

From fear to trust

at my own pace

I find myself

in this safe place.

Courageous, free

through patient grace

I now can choose

my own safe place.

from

HURTING

TO

HEALING

THROUGH

PICTURES

&

POETRY

“WoundedChild’sSafePlace”

“Broken” “I:DifferentEyes”

10

This year has continued to be challenging in terms of

raising much needed funds for DAA. The number of

referrals has continued to grow and as a direct result we

need to raise more money to be able to support the

clients who approach us for help and support.

The charity’s average annual running cost is £110,000.

We are part way through a 5-year Big Lottery Reaching

Communities grant which provides around £60,000 per

annum towards these running costs but we need to

fundraise actively to cover the shortfall. This <inancial

period 8 months up to April 30th 2017, through bid

writing and grant applications, we have managed to

raise over £16,000. Another £14,000 has also been

raised from client payments. Since our last annual report

in early 2016 we have continued to receive terri<ic

support from charitable trusts and local organisations

and we would like to express publicly our thanks and

gratitude to the following:

Albert Hunt Charitable Trust

Alice Cooper Dean Charitable Trust

Anton Jurgens Charitable Trust

Autumn Trust

Bisgood Charitable Trust

Bournemouth Rotary Club

Dorset Community Foundation

Ferndown Town Council

Graham Burrough Charitable Trust

Homelands Trust

Lush

Marsh Christian Trust

North Bournemouth Rotary

Poole Lions

Souter Trust

St James Place

The Stock Exchange Veterans

Talbot Village Trust

Valentine Charitable Trust

The fundraising team at DAA are always looking for new

ways to increase income and as a result are collecting

used stamps! This does not raise a signi<icant amount of

money but does allow people to support the organisation

without that support costing them money. The team also

entered the Swanage carnival, organised a charity quiz

night and some even managed to complete various

sponsored runs for DAA, all of which helped us to raise

the money needed to keep the doors at DAA open.

We are also working hard to raise the pro<ile of DAA and

as a result regularly submit press releases locally and are

enhancing the bene<its of social media by actively using

our Facebook page as a means of getting instant messages

and updates publicised. Over this last year the number of

Facebook followers has increased by over 30%.

We still receive a large number of our referrals from

various NHS agencies but again have still been

unsuccessful in getting them to recognise <inancially the

vital service that we provide; we will continue to work

with the local agencies to try and get this changed.

Financially, the next few years are going to be very

challenging as we endeavour to increase our fundraising

activities to ensure we are 100% sustainable once the Big

Lottery funding has ceased. The team aim to be inventive,

hard working and committed to ensure that this happens.

Fundraising Report

Juli Harman

Dr Zoe Pool receiving a cheque from Maximus

Foundation for a grant of £ 2,5000

3

DAAServicesMay2016-April2017

In May 2016, we were energised by the success of

receiving our long-fought-for Lottery grant. We could

bring DAA out of the doldrums of potential closure that

threatened us had we not secured ongoing funding.

Even so, throughout 2016, we faced many challenges. Our

premises, IT server, policies, database, website, database

and evaluation systems all needed overhauling and

updating to support the excellent therapeutic services for

which we are recognized. We also did not have adequate

administrative capability on staff to implement necessary

changes. Our decision to restructure staf<ing to comprise

three part-time staff members now ensures our project

delivery is more fully supported with necessary

therapeutic and administrative expertise.

In June 2017, we successfully completed year one of our

partial Lottery grant. We are indebted to the dedication of

twenty trained volunteer counsellors and two group

facilitators. Thanks to our volunteers, throughout 2016

we helped 141 adult survivors of all forms of childhood

abuse to improve their psychological well-being, develop

self-con<idence and increase skills for managing living.

We have introduced Skype counselling for clients who are

unable to attend our premises. Uptake for Skype has been

slow as face to face counselling is preferable for the

majority. We continue to promote Skype counselling as a

viable alternative to face to face work.

Currently, we have a small waiting list for our one-to-one

counselling services and are recruiting additional

volunteer counsellors who will be offered the Trauma &

Abuse training course in November if successful at

interview. We also need additional volunteer supervisors

and are planning a training course in the Supervision of

Abuse & Trauma Counsellors.

LotteryMonitoring2016-17

Although we did not reach all our projected targets, our

lottery grant of<icer approved our year one reporting as

‘successful’. As a response to her feedback that

acknowledged ‘Whatmakesasmallchangeforoneperson

canbeahugechangeorevenseriesofchangesforsomeone

with more complex needs’, we are developing our

monitoring procedures to more accurately record

changes clients make during and after their participation

in our services, and the impact that DAA is having in their

lives. This will include the impact of small changes in their

experience of well being, relationships and involvement

in community and work and/or voluntary work.

NHS Cuts to Mental Health Services: Impact on DAA

Referrals

Continuing cuts to NHS services are generating an

increase in referrals of clients with chronic complex

dif<iculties. A surprisingly large number of our clients

have been diagnosed with depression, anxiety, complex

post traumatic stress disorder, personality and mood

disorders, including borderline, emotionally unstable

and bi-polar. Some of our clients have struggled for

decades to get help to overcome their symptoms and

distress.

Our counselling services continue to provide much

needed, safe, reparative, boundaried therapeutic

relationships. We extend contracts for those clients

who need more than a year in order to signi<icantly

decrease their emotional and psychological distress, and

to increase their self-con<idence and well being.

PilotServiceforAdditionalClientSupport

For some clients, talking in counselling reactivates

<lashbacks, nightmares and destructive, symptomatic

patterns of coping. Advances in neuroscience

demonstrate how traumatic, adverse childhood

experiences can generate ‘time-frozen’ symptoms that

remain trapped in body and mind. We recognize that

some survivors need to learn how to feel safe in their

body and mind, sometimes for the <irst time in their

lives. Many do not know what it means to prioritise self-

care, to feel safe or to relax. They need help to learn the

basics of self-care in order to recover and heal. We have

recognized that survivors may need focused support to

manage these dif<iculties, in addition to counselling.

Going forward, we are planning additional therapeutic

and supportive trauma recovery focused interventions

that will be offered before and/or alongside weekly

counselling. These will include recovery skills to help

clients overcome destructive <lashbacks and phobias,

trauma and abuse sensitive mindfulness, trauma

sensitive body exercises.

We also now offer one-to-one client support in addition

to counselling to assist clients address housing, debt

and bene<its issues that they struggle with and feel

overwhelmed by. We continue to support clients who

have reported their childhood abusers to the police.

Recently, two of these cases led to successful

prosecutions.

PsychotherapyandCreativeTherapiesGroups

In 2016, as we did not meet our projected numbers for

participants in groups, we have recruited additional

group facilitators for 2017. We are enrolling women for

a year-long psychotherapy group and a creative

therapies group. We have widened our circulation and

promotion of our group offerings and are pleased with

the response so far. We are exploring with our clients

what additional or alternative services they might <ind

bene<icial. We are open to facilitating a men’s

therapeutic group, but recently there has been little

interest expressed by male survivors for this service.

Service Director’s Report

Dr Zoë Pool

4

Service Director’s Report

Dr Zoë Pool

ReachingPotentialBene*iciaries

Below are some of the ways we endeavour to ensure

everyone who could bene<it from our project knows

about it and is able to get involved:

♦ Provision of evening and day time sessions to

accommodate diverse availability.

♦ Sliding fee scale to include bene<iciaries on low

income.

♦ Adaptation of lea<lets & service information to

accommodate clients with special needs.

♦ Our premises have no disabled access but, should

the need arise, we would make arrangements to

rent a room off site to meet the needs of disabled

clients.

♦ Circulation of information about DAA services to

referring agencies, doctors’ surgeries, community

mental health teams and others via email and

lea<lets.

♦ Availability of lea<lets for clients to circulate to

friends, family and others.

♦ Growing list of contacts who want to hear about

our services, events and training.

♦ Maintained website that seeks to optimize search

engine returns.

♦ Inclusion in other organisations’ referral

databases – e.g. National Association for People

Abused in Childhood (NAPAC).

♦ Presenting/Speaking at local conferences and

networking events.

♦ Liaison with Samaritans.

♦ We respond to opportunities to participate in

interviews with press in order to raise public

awareness of the needs of survivors and DAA

services.

♦ We continue to seek more effective ways of

reaching ethnic minority communities in the area

who otherwise might not take the initiative to

contact DAA.

♦ Some clients feel unready or unable to participate

in our services after their <irst contact with DAA.

We ensure that clients know they are welcome to

return in the future when they feel ready.

♦ Parents/carers of young children are sometimes

unable to access our services due to lack of

reliable child care. We continue to raise awareness

with relevant agencies about the need for child

care support for parents when needed, so they can

attend DAA services consistently.

DAAEducationProgramme

A vital part of DAA’s work is the training we offer on a

range of topics related to supporting survivors of

childhood abuse. This training increases practitioners'

and others’ understanding and skills. In 2016-17, we

have provided:

♦ Two ten hour Abuse & Trauma Counselling Skills

courses for seven prospective volunteer

counsellors .

♦ Training placements to six Bournemouth

University Social Work students.

♦ A one day seminar on Compassion

FocusedTherapy with Adult Survivorsof

Childhood Abuse, facilitated by Dr Angela

Kennedy (25 participants).

♦ I (Zoe) facilitated two seminars at Poole Hospital

for NHS staff, psychotherapists, consultant

psychiatrists and psychologists, social workers &

police.

♦ I presented a 90 minute seminar at the European

Society of Trauma & Dissociation’s <irst UK two day

Conference in Norwich Facing the challenge –

improving services for people with trauma-

relateddissociation.

The DAA Book - Counselling Adult Survivors of

ChildhoodAbuse:FromHurtingtoHealing

This book is published by Open University Press, and

will soon be available to buy. It was to be authored by

the late Dr Moira Walker, co-founder of DAA. With co-

editor, Professor Michael Jacobs, Dr Zoe Pool redesigned

the book proposal as a book of eight chapters. The book

focuses on the history and life of Dorset Action on Abuse

and the developments that shaped ‘from Hurting to

healing’.It includes chapters written by DAA volunteers,

incorporating interviews with DAA bene<iciaries. It

focuses on the development and work of Dorset Action

on Abuse since its inception to the present day. We hope

this book will be a <itting tribute and memorial to Moira.

In closing, I would like to thank the Lottery Big Give

‘Reaching Communities’ fund, and all our other funders

and supporters, who help us to maintain and develop

our services. It is thanks to the generosity of our funders,

and the dedicated commitment of our volunteers,

trustees, support staff, patrons and the community that

we are able to continue our work to support survivors of

all forms of childhood abuse.

DAA Creative Therapy

9

8

Accounts

Renny Gye

BALANCE SHEET

Unrestricted funds

Restricted income funds

Total this year

Total last year

£ £ £ £

Fixed assets F01 F02 F04 F05

Tangible assets - 2,961 2,961 3,503

Total fixed assets - 2,961 2,961 3,503

Current assets

Debtors 1,488 - 1,488 5,929

Cash at bank and in hand 119,888 - 119,888 128,305

Total current assets 121,376 - 121,376 134,234

Creditors: amounts falling due within one year 35 - 35 -

Net current assets 121,341 - 121,341 134,234

Total assets less current liabilities 121,341 2,961 124,302 137,737

Total net assets 121,341 2,961 124,302 137,737

Funds of the Charity

at 30/04/2017

Unrestricted funds 124,302 124,302

Total funds 124,302 - 124,302

5

Chair’s Report

Kate Howe

Dorset Action on Abuse has seen many changes over

the last year and is now on the cusp of an even bigger

one.

This Autumn we will change our organisational status

from an unincorporated charity to a Charitable

Incorporated Organisation. This will make the

organisation and trustees more <inancially secure. In

addition we have taken the opportunity to review the

name of Dorset Action on Abuse. For a number of years

we have thought that the name does not really describe

the work we do and so on November 1st we are

launching the new charity of Hurting to Healing. (which

can be abbreviated to H2H). We think this more

accurately re<lects our philosophy of recovery and

healing. We will have a new website and are working

towards having a more outward facing presence over

the next year. However it is most important to

emphasise that the core work of offering counselling

and support to adults who are surviving childhood

abuse remains the same.

In November 2016, following speci<ic funding from the

Lottery we asked Bournemouth CVS to undertake an

Organisational Strengths review, and I am pleased to

report that the conclusion was generally positive. We

found the process to be incredibly useful and the

trustees have acted on many of the recommendations.

It was in response to this review that we have become

incorporated.

We are now over a year into our 5 year Lottery funding

and are increasingly aware that we must focus on how

we will continue after this <inishes. One of the trustees’

priorities over the next year will be to develop a

sustainability strategy and consider how we can

generate funds. We have had a successful year of

raising additional money from trusts and donations,

and we have to consolidate this.

Trustees has met regularly over the year and taken

very seriously our duties to manage the resources

responsibly and work to achieve the best services. It is

a challenging role and one that demands commitment..

This last year has seen a big changeover of trustees and

I would like to take the opportunity to thank those who

have stepped down and to welcome our newcomers.

Liz Spreadbury and Rosa Hubbard-Ford were both very

longstanding and committed supporters of DAA,

becoming trustees at the very beginning, and giving

loyal service for a great many years. They continue to be

supporters and we are very grateful for their

tremendous contribution.

Denise Penny has recently resigned as our <inance

of<icer and treasurer. Denise has been a stalwart

volunteer overseeing our <inances since before the <irst

Lottery funding. Her skills and hard work have kept our

<inances in impeccable order and we will miss her wise

<inancial wisdom. We are very grateful for the years of

service and for her immense contribution to DAA.

We have gained 3 new trustees over the year: Joelle

Malty – an experienced counsellor at DAA, Cheryll

Rogers – who was a counsellor at DAA and is now

taking on the role of Client Support Of<icer, Renny Gye –

someone who is new to the area and is very

experienced in the charity sector. She has taken on the

role of treasurer at very short notice.

They bring a wide range of skills and experience to our

trustees, which we will need as we go forward in 2018.

The charity sector has seen an unprecedented level of

cuts and increased scrutiny in recent years, and so I am

very thankful that our trustee group has had a wealth of

skills and experience to steer the organisation through

its next stage of development.

DAA is recognised as being one of the few expert

organisations in the <ield of supporting adult survivors

of abuse and as we become Hurting to Healing I think

we will need to be in the forefront of highlighting this

important area of work. The majority of specialised

service provision for adult survivors is through the

charity sector and the NHS offers very little to alleviate

their on-going distress. Whilst we acknowledge the

<inancial constraints, we will continue to argue that

mental health services in general and counselling for

survivors in particular deserve to have priority.

In conclusion I want to say an enormous and heart-felt

thank you to the many people who give their time and

skills to DAA. The counsellors are of course at the core

of the DAA and without them we would not be able to

offer the excellent service to our clients. We also have a

number of other volunteers who are equally important

in providing support. Lastly, I want to take the

opportunity to thank the staff for their hard work. We

have had changes here as well, although - thankfully –

Dr Zoe Pool is still in post as our Service Director. Her

leadership continues to ensure that DAA is a valued and

respected provider of such an important service. I am

happy to welcome Jackie Lillywhite as the Service

Coordinator and Bozena Voitukovic as the

administrator. They have not been in post for that long

– but have already made a signi<icant contribution.

DAA has had a successful, if uncertain, year and is now

poised to move into a new phase, with some <inancial

security and an enormous wealth of experience. We are

looking forward to developing our work and continuing

to offer a service valued by both clients and

professionals.

6

As the newly-appointed Treasurer and on behalf of all

the Trustees, I would like to express our huge gratitude

to our former Treasurers, Phil Blenkarm and Denise

Perry, and to record our thanks to Denise for many

years of service to DAA maintaining our <inancial

records as book-keeper. Denise has now retired and

Phil stood down as Treasurer but has agreed to keep a

link with DAA by acting as our Independent Examiner of

the accounts. I would also like to thank all those who

have worked voluntarily as counsellors, fundraisers and

helpers; their service to DAA is invaluable. The ‘Friends

of DAA’ have continued to be an important source of

income and we are all very grateful for their interest

and support. We are also extremely grateful to all the

charitable trusts, organisations and individuals who

have chosen to support DAA. In addition, we remain

grateful for the continuing support of the Big Lottery,

our major funder.

The abbreviated accounts shown on the following pages

cover the eight-month period up to April 30th 2017.

(Our full, detailed accounts are available on the Charity

Commission website and on request.) We have changed

our <inancial year in order to <it with the reporting

requirements of our Big Lottery grant.

The Income and Expenditure Account shows that our

overall expenditure for the period was £80,644, almost

half of which was funded by our Big Lottery grant.

However, there was a shortfall in income, compared to

expenditure, of £13,435 which was funded from reserves.

We were able to raise almost 70% of what was needed in

addition to the Big Lottery grant to fund our work and we

are currently building our capacity to raise income. By

2021, when our grant ends, we will need to have built up

our reserves and to be raising considerably more income

from charitable sources both local and national.

In this coming year, our organisation is changing its name

to Hurting to Healing and will be hoping to make more

and more connections with the local community. We will

be working hard to control costs and to raise funds so

that we can at least break even. We need to build up our

individual supporter base, <ind new organisations which

would like to fundraise for us and continue to seek

<inancial support from charitable trusts, companies and

other organisations. Our work is a vital lifeline for those

who seek our assistance and we continue to regard those

who give assistance to us as a vital lifeline to us. Thank

you for being our partners in this work.

Treasurer’s Report

Renny Gye

DAA counselling rooms

7

Accounts

Renny Gye

ACCOUNTS Unrestricted

funds

Restricted income funds

Total this period

Total last period

£ £ £ £

Incoming resources

Donations and legacies 19,531

19,531

41,334

Charitable activities 6,094 -

6,094 -

Other trading activities - - -

1,793

Investments 14 -

14

25

Grants 38,396

38,396

71,737

Other 3,174 -

3,174

2,780

Total 28,813 38,396

67,209

117,669

Resources expended

Expenditure on:

Charitable Activities 42,248 38,396

80,644

76,551

Other expenditure 0 0

Total resources expended 42,248 38,396

80,644

76,551

Net income/(expenditure) 13,435 - 13,435

41,118

Reconciliation of funds:

Total funds brought forward 137,737 -

137,737

96,619

Total funds carried forward 124,302 -

124,302

137,737