I’m so very pleased to be writing for this first newsletter from the Kelly Foundation (something I have wanted to do for a long time) to let our supporters and colleagues know more about what we are doing and how their extremely kind donations are being used. I plan for this to be a quarterly publication, but of course if your inbox is already jammed full of this kind of communication please do unsubscribe at the bottom and I’ll make sure my team take you off the distribution list.
If you’ll forgive me, perhaps I could once again just describe why we set the charity up and how we are different from other volunteer charities and different, to a large extent, from the statutory sector. We provide a completely free, self-referral support service for clients, and also accept referrals from community health nurses and other professionals. We offer face-to-face counselling and support over the normal working day five days per week. We also undertake what we describe as a holistic service, which we believe is unique in the Swindon landscape. The charity does not only support individuals with poor mental health, depression and anxiety in one-to-one sessions. Uniquely, we go further in seeking to uncover the causes of the stresses which contribute to the client’s poor health and then together try to make things better. We become actively involved in seeking to support clients unravel these causes. Illness can arise from severe and prolonged debt, financial pressure, marital or relationship breakdown, loss of job, substance or alcohol abuse, traumatic events or quite often, previous life experiences. We routinely become involved with the local housing department and associations to try and mitigate housing issues. Our involvement can also mean hiring in specific skills and techniques not in the charity, helping clients find the right benefits, joint visits t universal credit, or to GPs, and liaison with drug and alcohol specialists. We help some clients back into mainstream work with supported employment and even speak up for clients in court where they cannot afford solicitors or get legal aid. Whatever it takes, the Kelly Foundation will do its best.
I’m proud to say we have made satisfactory progress over the past 12 months, meeting most of the objectives we set ourselves. I have submitted the second trustee annual report of the charity which took us up to year ending 31st March 2024.
1) We created Kells Kitchen … A café and resource designed to be a safe space for individuals recovering from poor mental health enabling them to regain their self confidence and self-esteem. We have roughly 40 Covers and the food is attractively priced to cater for the disadvantaged community in which we located. We operate kids eat free and kids eat for a £ and in the winter anybody turning up without enough money for a hot meal is provided with one free of charge. The café is not just staffed with clients in recovery. We also have in our volunteer team, individuals, sometimes with learning difficulties and those who are neuro diverse. It already has an excellent local reputation as a well-loved addition to the facilities at the Pinetree Centre
2) We have expanded the support we offer for those in distress by identifying additional counsellors and therapists who are prepared to work either at heavily discounted rates and in one case, a volunteer. As a result we can point to many successful outcomes and others making huge progress.
3) We have become embedded in the Swindon mental health landscape with membership of bodies such as Swindon Care Forum, Swindon Well-being Steering Group, Voluntary Action Swindon and we are beginning to work with the statutory services in GP surgeries, in AWP, and with ‘Talking Therapies’
4) We have been successful in attracting personal donations, with the accounts identifying £50,000 on this line. This derives from various sponsored activities from supporters, individuals making regular donations and donations from the Trustees. Of special note was the sad passing of Gemma Brown who knew us well but was not quite our client. Before she could be seen, she sadly ended her life, one of the last things she did was transfer the money from her bank account to us. She was very popular and her passing had a profound effect on her colleagues at work, on her family and those others who knew her. As a result of that, with collections and sponsorship in her name and her own donation, I assess that close to up to £8000 was received by the charity.
5) We are pleased to receive income from Wiltshire Community Fund of £5000 (which is now confirmed as an annual award for the next 3 years) and from the National Lottery Small Community Awards Scheme of £10,000
6) We finalised the plan for increasing the office space, and we are now downstairs at Pinetrees, next to the entrance, and with three independent consulting rooms
7) We have been active with Swindon drug and alcohol services on behalf of clients and also with the Borough Council housing department, where we can point to a small number of successful outcomes. Another particularly memorable achievement, was the successful housing of a 21 year old client who had been the subject of domestic abuse and had been living in hotel accommodation for 11 months! She was awarded one of the few new builds that Swindon Borough Council managed to create from a very limited social housing budget
8) We funded the training of a mental health trainer in the sum of £3000 who is in the process of organising and seeking to populate mental health first aid training courses under the auspices of Mental Health England
9) The David Foundation provided a small grant to support ongoing revenue costs of the charity.
10) The events and concerts that were staged during the year raised income of nearly £24000 with expenses circa £9000 and the charity plans the upcoming 12 months to contain a new programme of events which would raise at least this sum, hopefully more (see events following).
We couldn't do any of this without you, our donors, supporters, colleagues and especially our volunteers, who work ceaselessly to make charities the success it is today. Sincerely thank you to all of you.
Finally, I'd like to make special mention of our Student Counselling Programme. Here we have identified and work with six highly competent individuals, who are completely aligned to the charity's objectives, and both well liked and well-respected, by the clients they are supporting. We also want to develop cooperation with like-minded local charities, as we feel that collaboration may be the key to identifying and winning long-term funding, which is essential if we are to get to scale and develop the expand the work we are doing with those in despair.
I hope you are pleased to receive this newsletter and I do hope to meet you personally at one of our events, the details of which you can find by scrolling down.
John Stooke
Chair
