2020 Annual Report & Accounts

What we do and why

Over the past year millions of children around the world have not only experienced the terrifying social and economic impact of the coronavirus epidemic, but they have also continued to be the innocent victims of ongoing conflict and displacement (eg in the Middle East), and humanitarian disasters both natural (Australia) and man-made (Myanmar, Venezuela). For the rest of their lives these children will have to live with the psychological consequences of their experiences, which will return to haunt them over and over again. For some this will make a normal life impossible, and many will have no access to specialist help. Without this, today's damaged children may become tomorrow's damaged adults, creating fragile families and communities trapped into a cycle of suffering.

Action for Child Trauma (ACT) International provides communities with the tools and training needed to treat children suffering from the symptoms of psychological trauma. We focus on local people and NGO staff, giving them the skills to provide child-led, culturally appropriate but evidence-based treatment, and to train others to do so. Our programmes change children's lives, giving them and their families a fresh start for a brighter future. Over the past eleven years since our foundation as Luna Children’s Charity, we have transformed the lives of thousands of children in 15 countries across the world. Many of them have been refugees fleeing conflict and disaster. Others may have been former child soldiers, victims of genocide, war, abuse, accidents and disasters.

Our projects focus on trauma training and we specialise in teaching ‘Children’s Accelerated Trauma Technique’ (CATT) and Children and War’s ‘Teaching for Recovery Technique’. Most recently we have begun to develop training resources to help people support children with anxiety, including their fears about the coronavirus pandemic. Through our ‘special projects’ we also train and support people working to develop trauma-based services in isolated or challenging places. Most of the people we work with have limited resources and are in communities coping with the consequences of war and violence. Our cascade model, training local people to help children in their communities, means our work is cost effective and sustainable.

We can’t change what has happened to these children, but we can - and do - change what happens next. By healing young minds, we give them another chance at a normal life.

Reference and administration details

Charity name and details

Luna Children’s Charity, working name: Action for Child Trauma International. Registered Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) in England & Wales, Number 1272010

Registered address: 184 Medstead Road, Beech, Alton, Hampshire GU34 4AJ

Website: www.actinternational.org.uk

Facebook: www.facebook.com/ActionChildTraumaInternational

Twitter: https://twitter.com/LunaChildren

Charity trustees

Victoria Burch (Clinical Trustee)
Stella Charman (Chair)
Jenny Dewar
Dr Yara Fardous
Anne Feeney
Brenda Graham (Safeguarding Lead)
Martyn Legg (Treasurer)
Philip Sarell

Officers

Shellee Burroughs - Clinical Operations Manager & trainer
Elias Byaruhanga - Uganda Operations Manager & trainer
Dr Ghalia Al Asha – Middle East Operations Manager & trainer (from February 2020)

Specialist volunteers this year

Lucy Rolington - Facebook Co-ordinator
Fundraisers:
- Penny Jeffcoat
- Anna Jeffcoat
- Rosemarie Ghazaros
- Rosemary Lambert (Marine House at Beer)
Communications and rebranding team:
- Ollie Burch - Lead PR/Communications consultant
- Nicholas May - Creative/design consultant
- Hector Riley - Website development

UK-based trainers active this year

Maria Chambers
Anna Kalin
Lola Perez-Gavino
Susan Colverson

Uganda-based trainers active this year

Candia Umar

Middle-East based trainers active this year

Dr Ghalia Al Asha

Governance and management

2019-20 has been our tenth anniversary year, and it has been both a highly successful and exceptionally frustrating one! It was our first full year with our new identity and branding as Action for Child Trauma International, replacing that of Luna Children’s Charity, so that people can immediately understand and relate to what we do. This new identity was launched formally at a very successful profile-raising event in London in September. Also for the first time, as our accounts show, we have raised over £25,000 in a single year, so we are off the bottom rung of the charitable income ladder and have had to appoint an independent examiner for our accounts. However, despite great efforts to find one or more long-term corporate partners, to ensure we can sustain this higher level of income and corresponding activity, by the end of 2019 we had not been successful in this endeavour. Then in early 2020, the coronavirus pandemic struck and we had to cancel all our travel plans, and accept there were higher and more urgent priorities for people’s time and resources. The final quarter of the year proved exactly the wrong time for us to extend our fundraising activity. But unlike many charities, we carry virtually no overhead costs so if we cannot run courses or conferences, we are not losing money and can emerge again intact when the crisis is over. We have not given up on our aspiration to find a corporate or charity partner to work with us, and will continue into 2020/21 to work on an effective strategy for sustainability and growth that will carry us through the next ten years.

Furthermore, we know full well that the pandemic will bring high levels of trauma in its wake and we must find innovative ways to both train and support people all over the world to help the children who have been affected. They will be so needed to treat the high levels of PTSD which will inevitably arise among children and their families who have suffered most. So we have been working on new training materials for use when we can resume our training courses and in particular, we hope soon to be able to pilot a new anxiety protocol, which our partners in Turkey asked us to develop. In many ways this has been the perfect time to update all our written documents and materials and improve our online presence and skills.

We have benefitted this year from a stable group of Trustees and specialist volunteers who understand and believe in what we do, and continue to give freely of their time and expertise. At the very end of the year we sadly said goodbye to Jenny Dewar who had been a Trustee since the earliest days of Luna Children’s Charity, and we thank her especially here for all her wisdom and support for a full ten years! ACT International also wishes to thank all its Trustees, fundraisers, specialist volunteers and trainers who have done so much this year in support of our aim of relieving distress in children who have experienced trauma in their lives. We can’t change what has happened to these children, but we can – and do - change what happens next.

Objectives and activities

ACT International exists to advance the rights, education and health of children and young people affected by conflict and trauma. Formally, its objectives are:

The advancement of education and preservation of good health of children and young people affected by conflict and/or trauma
To advance the education of the public in children and young people’s rights in part, but not exclusively, under the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child

ACT International continues to specialise in the provision of Children’s Accelerated Trauma Technique (CATT) training to professional front-line staff working with children in countries where children suffer the psychological consequences of war, conflict and exploitation. Despite the many challenges that 2019-20 has brought us, we have run two CATT training trips. In addition, this year for the first time we have also offered Children and War’s ‘Teaching for Recovery Technique’ (TRT). In Gaziantep in April we strengthened our partnership with UOSSM (Union of Medical Care and Relief Organisations on behalf of Syrians) by working with its mental health directorate to provide training for child mental health staff in Gaziantep, and to train four new trainers. In Armenia we began an exciting new partnership with Yerevan’s Children Center Foundation, which made it possible for us to train 26 new practitioners working across the country. On the Greek island of Samos in October we trained a group of volunteer teachers working with refugee children to use TRT.

We have also maintained our contacts and support for our friends and colleagues in Uganda, and in particular their work with refugees, despite the cancellation of our conference. We have explored new partnerships with like-minded organisations working elsewhere in the world, which should bear fruit in the future once the pandemic abates. We have learned to use social media and internet-based methods of communication to provide support, training and supervision, and are proud to have appointed Amman-based Dr Ghalia Al Asha to work with Arabic-speaking practitioners across the Middle East. With her help we remotely trained a second CATT practitioner for the Gaza child trauma clinic which you can read about in section 4.5. It is a privilege to be working so closely and effectively with the International Medical Education Trust (IMET2000) and our ‘sister’ charity Firefly International on this exciting and important ongoing project.

The Trustees confirm that they have complied with their duty, under section 4 of the Charities Act 2011 to have regard to the Charity Commission’s guidance and regulations on public benefit and that the public benefit requirement has informed the activities of the Charity in the year to March 31st 2020.

Achievements and performance

CATT training and ongoing support for practitioners: Uganda

Uganda review visit April-May 2019 and conference planning

Trustee Brenda Graham visited Uganda in Spring 2019 in order to meet Uganda Operations Manager Elias Byaruhanga, review and develop with him plans for our ongoing work there, and strengthen our networks. The trip had six main elements:

Visit to Kisubi University with Sister Florence Achulo and meeting with CATT practitioners trained there
Visit to Bishop Asili Counselling Centre, including an empowerment workshop with the women, and donation of funds raised by Esther Mulders (see 4.6)
Review meeting with Elias Byaruhanga accompanied by Alhagie Camara (see 4.7)
Visit to Butabika Hospital Children’s Ward, and meetings with Rev Dismas and ward volunteer Dismas Lwagula – handover of remaining funds from the ‘Friends’ (see 4.5)
Meeting with Margaret Atimango of Save the Children

A key proposal to emerge from this trip was a 2-day Conference for CATT practitioners planned for May 2020. We were later successful in securing a grant from the East London/Butabika NHS Mental Health Link for £2,500 towards the £6,000 estimated cost of this event and plans were well advanced when the coronavirus lockdown in both Uganda and UK prevented it from taking place. We expect to hold the conference as soon as we can, most likely early 2021, and the bulk of the preparatory work has been done.

Oruchinga and Nakivale refugee camps

Since the training in 2017 and 2018 of 30 CATT practitioners working in the Oruchinga and Nakivale refugee camps in Western Uganda, Elias has been providing regular follow-up supervision and support to those who remain working there. In June and November 2019, then March 2020 immediately prior to Uganda’s lockdown, he visited both camps, where a total of 72 children have received treatment since March 2019. He reported that refugees continue to arrive, especially from DRC. His visits give the CATT practitioners an opportunity to share their experiences, and the challenges they have encountered in the course of work with the refugee children. He also assessed and updated their knowledge about PTSD, interview skills and checked on their use of CRIES-8 as a measurement tool for PTSD symptoms. At each visit he works with them on an action plan to resolve practical and clinical problems. This follow-up work plays a vital role in ensuring that the benefits of CATT interventions are sustained and that children continue to be given skilled help from those we have trained. We are very grateful to Elias for the conscientious and supportive way he manages his visits and interactions and will continue to support him to do this in 2020/21.

Follow up for South Sudanese refugees & development of CATT team

In January 2019, in partnership with CRESS (Christian Relief and Education for South Sudan) we trained 19 new CATT practitioners who were themselves South Sudanese refugees working in the settlements around Arua in Northern Uganda, or staff of the mental health team at Arua Regional Referral Hospital. Supervision was built into this project, conducted by Senior Psychiatric Clinical officer Umar Candia, who is one of our trainers. Supervision visits took place in March 2019 and March 2020. In addition, CRESS brought together the CATT team for a conference in Arua in September 2019 and appointed Lulu Emmanuel as Coordinator of the ongoing CATT Programme. He will organise and co-ordinate training and supervision, liaise with all CATT team members bi-monthly, provide support where necessary and gather bi-monthly case data. 10 counsellors in the team managed to treat 126 young people in Nov-Dec 2019 alone, and a number of cases are being written up for our research programme. UK-based trainer Lola Perez-Gavino also visited Umar in Arua in December 2019. Fiona Sheldon of CRESS is very committed to this project and has obtained funding for the ongoing work of the South Sudanese CATT team, and this is something that we wish to support in 2020/21.

CATT training and ongoing support for practitioners: Middle East

Gaziantep, Turkey April 2019

In April ACT International sent a team of trainers to Gaziantep, Turkey. The team included Dr Ghalia Al Asha from Jordan with Maria Chambers and Toria Burch from the UK. We were especially pleased to be able to return to Gaziantep, the location for our very first Middle East CATT training in 2014. However, we have been prevented from working here since then due to our inability to secure insurance cover, following some ISIS terrorist incidents. However, we had kept in touch with key people who have been using CATT in Turkey, and developed our relationship with a major provider of mental health care to Syrians both inside and outside Syria: the Mental Health and Psycho-Social Support Service of the Union of Medical Care and Relief Organizations (UOSSM). So we knew how CATT was being used, and how valued our initial training had been. We had also been made aware of the enthusiasm for some therapists to become trainers themselves.

This time we were able to train four new trainers who work in Reyhanli, on the Syrian border in the far south west of Turkey, and Istanbul as well as Gaziantep. We also successfully trained another 16 practitioners. 2 were Egyptians, but the majority were Syrian refugees. Most were psychologists working in the Gaziantep area, or on the border with Syria in Kilis, with others based in Reyhanli and Istanbul. Many of them were friends, and delighted to be reunited for our training. For the first time the training took place primarily in Arabic with some English, as thanks to our training in Amman last year, we now have trainers who are fluent in both languages.

Since this training we have provided support and supervision to the new CATT practitioners via a Whatsapp group, our ‘closed’ Facebook page. They will also benefit from our recent appointment of Dr Ghalia Al Asha as our Arabic-speaking co-ordinator for our growing group of CATT trainers and practitioners across the Middle East as a whole.

Development of an anxiety protocol

At the request of our UOSSM partner, Clinical Trustee Toria Burch has spent time this year in developing an anxiety protocol that can be used in addition to or in place of CATT with children who suffer from deep ongoing anxiety as a result of their experiences. This will be translated into Arabic and offered to mental health staff and our CATT trained practitioners for use in the Middle East, and elsewhere. We expect the protocol to be piloted and ready for use in 2020/21.

Supervision and support for Arabic-speaking CATT practitioners

At the beginning of 2020 we appointed Dr Ghalia Al Asha as ACT International’s Operations Manager for the Middle East. Her role is to assure the quality of our work in the Arabicspeaking countries of the region, ensure compliance with the terms of our CATT training licence and facilitate ongoing training activity. She will maintain contact with and support supervision for all practitioners trained to use CATT and those trained as trainers. She will encourage them to provide data and case studies (with parental permission) for research purposes, and to use the closed Facebook page for support and updating. Dr Ghalia is a highly experienced child psychologist based in Amman, Jordan, and we are delighted to welcome her to our international team!

CATT training: Armenia

In April 2019 a fact-finding trip was undertaken by Rosemarie Ghazaros accompanied by her son Hugo Pedder, previously an intern of ACT International. This trip included a workshop on the psycho-social wellbeing of vulnerable children in Armenia hosted by Aleppo NGO, which has resettled many Syrian refugee families of Armenian descent. As a result of the workshop, direct contact was made with the Children’s Center Foundation in Yerevan, which subsequently requested CATT training for its staff and those of linked agencies. Rosemarie Ghazaros then set up a fund raising campaign and quickly raised £6,910, so it was possible to proceed with the trip in November. In addition to delivering the training course, the ACT International training team were invited to present at a 2-day conference on ‘Social work and the current agenda of dignified social protection in Armenia’ held at Yerevan State University on 4th and 5th November.

The Children’s Center invited a mix of its own staff and those of other agencies working across the country, including two State-employed social workers. A total of 29 people attended all or part of the course. They included 13 social workers, 7 social pedagogues, 6 psychologists and 3 in managerial roles. 3 of them were unable to attend consistently enough to receive a CATT practitioner certificate, so the final number of trainees who ‘passed’ was therefore 26. This was a very successful, cost-effective and well-taught training course which has established an excellent relationship with a well-run, progressive and highly professional children’s service in Armenia. Thanks to the generosity of the Foundation in providing two excellent interpreters, plus the course facilities and catering, the final cost to ACT International was just over £4,000 (£162 per certificate awarded). So funds (£2,856) remain in the bank for a second CATT course plus training of trainers in 20/21.

ACT International is very grateful to Maria Chambers, Anna Kalin and Rosemarie Ghazaros who worked so hard to make this course happen, and to Mira Antonyan (Director), Manane Petrosyan and all our friends at the Children’s Center Foundation for their enthusiasm and wonderful hospitality.

TRT training on Samos, Greece

In October, ACT international sent a small team (Susan Colverson with Trustee Toria Burch) to the Greek island of Samos, to train long-term volunteers in the use of Children and War’s Teaching for Recovery Technique (TRT). Relationships there had been forged during previous independent trips made by Susan Colverson, a CATT-trained health visitor. The number of refugees on Samos in October was close to 6,000 people, many of whom are families with young children, and this number continues to grow. Psychological support for refugee children here is only available to a tiny number of children and only after a long wait. The training was hosted by the ‘Still I Rise’ School for children aged 12-17 years old. However, three nights before it was due to start, there was a major fire in part of the refugee camp and over 500 refugees had to be evacuated, a further frightening and traumatic event for refugee children to cope with. Although at one point it seemed as if the training could not take place at the school, a total of 11 trainees completed the two-day weekend training, despite being very tired having had little sleep due to the fire earlier in the week. The trainees gave very positive feedback about the training and Toria Burch was able to provide much-needed additional psychological support to some of them.

It is hoped that following this visit, TRT will be taught as a regular part of the education and support offered by NGOs to refugee children and young people on the island. This will aid these children who suffered so much to process their traumatic experiences and also give them some ‘tools’ to cope with future challenges they will face in the future. Funding for the trip, which cost under £1,000 or £90 per certificate awarded, was provided by the United Church, Winchester. ACT International is exceptionally grateful to Susan Colverson and the United Church, for their magnificent support which made TRT training on the island of Samos possible. This was the first TRT training ACT International has undertaken, with the support of Children and War, and we hope to do more trips of this kind in the future.

Special Project: Child Trauma Clinic for Gaza

With the support of our partners IMET2000 and Firefly International, we began a child trauma service for Gaza in July 2019 which has now been running for a full eleven months. Psychosocial counsellor Mohammad El Sharef was trained to use CATT in UK in November 2018, and subsequently we remotely trained his colleague, psychologist Haitham Shamiyah who had been unable to leave Gaza. The two of them together provide CATT treatment to children and trauma awareness raising sessions for their wider families and communities. They have been supported fortnightly via skype by joint Project Managers Tamara Curtis and Coco Burch, and supervised clinically from Jordan by Dr Ghalia Al Asha (see section 4.2.3). In between calls, the CATT Gaza WhatsApp group has been used for communication and answering questions. Mohammad takes the lead on the project from the Gaza side, while Haitham, who still has a job for UNRWA, works approximately one and a half days per week. Both Mohammad and Haitham took a two-week break during November, as the security situation in Gaza sadly worsened and it was unsafe to continue working. But by the end of the first six months, a total of 50 cases had been referred and assessed for possible CATT treatment. 32 were assessed as suitable for CATT treatment, with the remaining 18 being referred to other services (such as a speech therapist and amputee support services) or supported through more general advice and support for caregivers. There is a steady intake of over five new cases referred and treated each month, and at the end of March a total of 44 children had been treated at an average cost of $295 per child. Since January 2019 longer-term follow up of cases has begun, and the post-treatment scores remain encouragingly high. Unfortunately, the recent lockdown in Gaza has limited activity but the three partner organisations have agreed to extend funding for the service until the end of June 2021, so that the outcome data can be properly evaluated and a long-term ‘home’ for the service be secured. 14 We remain immensely proud of this service which could not have been established without the support of IMET 2000 and Firefly International, but also relies on the skill, dedication and commitment of Mohammed, Haitham, Tamara and Coco.

Special project: The Friends of Butabika Children’s Ward

Special project: Bishop Asili Community Development Foundation

The Friends’ Project continues, funding the activity of Dismas Lwagula (known as DJ) on the children’s ward, who provides much-needed additional stimulation and input to the children cared for there. In 2019-20 we sent £800 for this purpose. In addition to regular reports from Rev Dismas of St Luke’s Chapel, which is formally our ‘partner’ for this work, the ward was visited this year by Brenda Graham and Alhagie Camara in May (see section 4.1.1), Joe The Bishop Asili Counselling Center has now been restructured as a community-based organisation known as the Bishop Asili Community Development Foundation. Sister Florence Achulo continues to lead the work of the Foundation, and over the past year has been trying to raise funds to develop its work on behalf of women and children, and in particular to support orphans and trafficked children. Trustee Brenda Graham visited in April 2019 and took £200 raised by Esther Mulders (who had spent two months there in 2018) which she specified should be spent on projects to enable the women supported by the Foundation to generate an income for their families. The women bought goats and pigs. Brenda also Since then, Sister Florence and the Foundation has faced an exceptionally challenging time, dealing with the impact of locusts, floods, the coronavirus, and most recently the kidnapping of local children. We are sorry that we have been unable to do more to support her since April, or to visit again as we had planned in May 2020. However, she and the Foundation has continued with the work of providing counselling and education for the poorest and most disadvantaged families in the area around Lira, and has held further child protection workshops and proactively engaged with local authorities to combat the growing threat of child trafficking. We will consider what we can do further in 2020-21.

Special project: The Gambia

Last year we had been contacted by Alhagie Camara, a school counsellor and psychotherapist in Southampton, who had plans to return to his native Gambia to help with reconstruction of the country under its new President. His aim is to develop mental health services there which focus on helping the people recover from the trauma of the past 25 year of brutal dictatorship. He joined Brenda Graham in Uganda in May 2019 to research how mental health services are delivered in preparation for his return the Gambia. He made the most of his time there, spending a day at Butabika Hospital talking with key staff and understanding how mental health services can be delivered in an African setting. We continue to work with Alhagie, who has now set up a Gambian-registered NGO called WAYAS and prior to the pandemic had made excellent progress in securing agreements with various Ministries in the Gambia. We are currently planning a CATT training project with him and WAYAS, to take place in 2021.

Fundraising

2019-20 has been an unprecedented year in terms of fundraising, with over £35k in donations and giftaid received. This year we launched a special initiative to grow the charity in our 10th birthday year, by enhancing the profile of our new name and website, and obtaining corporate sponsorship with the help of the consultancy ‘Remarkable Partnerships’. Thanks to the generosity and commitment of two individuals, we raised £7,000 in dedicated funds for this initiative. Although this has not yet borne real fruit, we regard this work as an investment for the future. We are pleased to have retained the support of some key regular donors, and delighted to be given a third year of support from the United Church Winchester. Rosemarie Ghazaros’ fundraising campaign for Armenia quickly raised all the funds we needed for this trip, and thanks to Pippa Gray we have been able to continue to support the Butabika Hospital’s Children’s Ward. Whether you have been mentioned by name in this report or not, we are enormously grateful to all of you, who have continued to support us and enabled us to exceed last year’s expenditure on training and special projects overseas, in addition to spending more on essential charity development activity.

Donations from corporate sponsors, charitable and grant-giving foundations

£5,000 from Joan Ainslie Trust
£1,000 from Chartwell Industries Ltd/Cripps Foundation
£2,1100 from Marine House at Beer Art Gallery
£1,500 Norton Way Mazda

Young people, Schools, Colleges & Universities

£120 raised by Smith Family tombola at Beech Village Christmas Fair
£533 raised by Kaiya Raby from Edinburgh University's Race2Paris event

Churches, clubs and societies

£5,000 from United Church Winchester for Middle East training
£1,280 from concert at St Mary's Church Burpham, West Sussex

'Crowdfunding' campaigns via Virgin Moneygiving

£6,910 for CATT training in Armenia (Rosemarie Ghazaros)
£250 for the Gambia (Alhagie Camara)

Individual donors

£890 including giftaid from Pippa Gray for Friends of Butabika Children's ward
£1,250 from three invitees to the September profile-raising event
£10,130 from miscellaneous donations made by individuals, some who prefer to remain anonymous

Funding sources (%) year ended March 2020
Funding source	amount	%
Charitable Trusts/Foundations	6,000	17%
Corporate donors	3,610	10%
Schools, youth groups, colleges & universities	653	2%
Churches, clubs & societies	6,280	18%
Crowdfunding campaigns	8,050	22%
Individual donations	9,880	28%
Earning from activities/interest	1,309	4%
TOTAL	35,782	100%

Website and social media

With the help of Ollie Burch and Hector Riley, we have continued to develop our new website and ensure it is up to date with our activities and social media posts. Lucy Rolington helps us keep our public Facebook page alive and relevant, and Shellee Burroughs is in charge of the closed group for our trained practitioners only. This now has over 50 members, and is becoming a key vehicle with which we connect and update all who have been trained. We continue to encourage more to join as it may be even more important in 2020/21 if we are unable to travel to meet and train people due to ongoing coronavirus restrictions across the world.

Quality Assurance & Research

This has been an exciting year. Our updated closed Facebook group for CATT therapists, described in the previous section, is developing into a good forum for debate between members about difficult cases and issues relating to the use of CATT with children living in the challenging environments within which many of our members work. We plan to continue to develop the Facebook group which also provides a platform for sharing relevant news from the therapy world, and clinical updates.

In Summer 2019, Arabic versions of data-collection forms for audit and a case series research paper were sent to our principal co-trainers in the Middle East. Case collection started well in Southern Turkey, but escalation of the fighting in Northern Syria means that mental health professionals working in the border areas have been very stretched by the needs of a very traumatised population, and needless to say, research has been put on hold. Collecting research data in war-effected communities is always challenging: this is one of the reasons why so little has been published about the effectiveness of CATT, despite so much enthusiasm for the programme, and positive audit and anecdotal evidence. We are keeping in touch with our colleagues in Gaziantep; our thoughts are with them through this challenging time and we hope to be able to work with them again soon.

We are delighted that cases are being written up very rapidly by Mohammad El Sharef and Haitham Shamiyah from the Child Trauma Clinic in Gaza, supported by Dr Ghalia Al Asha and Tamara Curtis (Project Manager) and we expect to have enough cases for a paper based on 18 their excellent work by the end of Summer 2020. The collection of follow-up data for the cases is already indicating strongly that CATT is effective in the longer term, and is flagging up the few children who need more help; for example with management of anxiety or building self-esteem when they have finished treatment for their psychological trauma.

The CATT practitioners in Uganda who trained with support from CRESS UK to help young refugees from South Sudan have also started to write case studies. Case collection is being coordinated from the CRESS Clinic in Northern Uganda with great enthusiasm by Lulu Emmanuel.

We are immensely grateful to our colleagues and trainees for participating in these research and audit projects. It is time-consuming to write up cases, but so important. We anticipate that the data will provide us with more valuable information about the effectiveness of CATT especially in the longer term, show us where the programme and our training may need updating or changing, and allow us to publish several papers demonstrating the benefits and effectiveness of the programme in conflict-affected areas.

Safeguarding

This year our activity on Safeguarding has been at three levels – strategic, training delivery, and direct action under our Safeguarding policy.

We have a duty under our Safeguarding Adults policy towards our beneficiaries – CATT trainees – many of whom are refugees who have experienced trauma. In April 2019, during CATT training in Turkey, Trustee Toria Burch had to take firm action to protect trainees from persistent harassment by a fellow professional who was not on the course. There has been subsequent discussion and effective follow up with the partner organisation – in line with the Partnership Agreement we make at the outset.

In April 2019 Elias Byaruhanga, ACTI Operations manager in Uganda, followed up on safeguarding training previously delivered to the staff of the Equatorial College - a large residential school. The training and this follow-up resulted in the recruitment of a school counsellor; a school child protection policy to be implemented by a staff committee; and suggestion boxes for staff and students to raise concerns. The school has committed to observe the rights of children, and to cease beating and use better forms of discipline. Regular refresher training will follow in 2020-21.

ACTI may have the opportunity to contribute to a global initiative, led by five charities, to combat violence against children. Save the Children is leading strategic groundwork in Uganda – one of the chosen pilot countries. In April 2019 trustee Brenda Graham met Margaret Atimango in Kampala to explore how ACTI knowledge of child trauma could contribute to enabling the participation of children and young people in the project. Save the Children intends to focus on violence against children in schools – this is an identifiable area for work, with a known high incidence of violence and abuse, and has the potential for a project to make an impact. Brenda told Margaret about the experience of Elias Byaruhanga in working on safeguarding in schools. We appreciated the chance to meet while Brenda was in Uganda, however the global initiative is still at a strategic level and there is no further action for ACTI at this time.

In January 2020 trustee Brenda Graham attended the Safeguarding Children for Charities Conference in London. The key messages from this for ACTI are on safer recruitment of trustees and volunteers. We must ensure that our recruitment processes will deter, reject or identify people who might abuse children. Evidence was cited that charities are an ‘easy target’ or a stepping stone to gain access to children. We have updated our application process to include a question for the candidate and their references about any known safeguarding concerns or investigation.

In the next quarter we will be reviewing ACTI Safeguarding Children and Adults policies. In March 2020 the Trustees agreed to apply for membership of Keeping Children Safe – a UKgovernment sponsored organisation which helps humanitarian charities working overseas to put robust safeguarding procedures in place. We used KCS published guidance to develop ACTI policy in 2018. The KCS application process, including external scrutiny of our Safeguarding Children policy, is underway. The benefits for ACTI will be: access to expert consultation and support; a webinar for the Trustees; materials in other languages including Arabic; and a ‘seal of approval’ for our approach to safeguarding which will raise our profile and reputation with partners, funders and donors.

Charity development and corporate partnership project

This year we worked hard to raise our profile and get ACT International into a position to attract corporate sponsorship, at least, until the coronavirus pandemic somewhat changed the picture in the final quarter of the year. In September we held a very successful profileraising and networking event at the Coin Street Community Centre near Waterloo in London, as a result of which we gained some new supporters and sponsors (most notably Marine House at Beer). We also made some very valuable new contacts leading to possible future training partnerships (notably Children Change Colombia). Although our work with Jonathan Andrews of Remarkable Partnerships did not produce any formal corporate partnership(s) with private company or companies, we consider the work we have done this year as a good investment for the future, even though this may be starting to look very different for the charitable world.

Financial Review

This year we have greatly increased our level of income, thanks to the investment we have made in promotional/marketing. It should be noted that the large percentage of our expenditure shown in the pie chart as ‘fundraising support and marketing’ came primarily from a restricted donation given for this specific purpose, not from our regular fundraising sources. Our project support costs have remained the same as last year, at 11%. We ended the year having made a surplus of income over expenditure of over £9,000, and with net assets of £22,500. We have therefore been well able to weather the coronavirus storm and have resources to invest in innovation and the necessary developments to our training programme in 2020/21. The pie chart below shows how our funds were spent during the year.

Armenia CATT training 16%
Middle East - Gaza Child Trauma Clinic 14%
Uganda Follow-up & Operations Manager 11%
Middle East CATT training (Turkey) 9%
Samos TRT 4%
Friends of Butabika Children's Ward 3%
Bishop Asili Foundation Special project 1%
The Gambia special project 15%
Fundraising support and marketing 30%

Thank you to everyone!

Statements of Financial Activities - year ended 31st March 2020

Income and Expenditure Statement for the year ended 31st March 2020

		£	£
		2020	2019
Incoming resources
Voluntary donations -	Unrestricted funds	22,515	6,628
	Restricted funds	13,208	14,754
Total donations		35,782	21,382
Other incoming resources		59	22
Total incoming resources		35,782	21,404
Resources expended
Programme activities:	Unrestricted funds	3,915	5,011
Programme activities:	Restricted funds	11,454	7,795
Project support & development		2,940	3,476
Fundraising support & marketing		7,963	-
Total cost of charitable activities		26,272	16,282
Net surplus/(deficit) for the year		9,510	5,122

Balance Sheet as at 31st March 2021

	£	£
	2020	2019
Fixed assets	-	-
Current assets
Prepayments	3,035	-
Cash at bank and in hand	19,215	12,740
Current liabilities	0	0
Net current assets	22,250	12,740
Net Assets	22,250	12,740
Funds
Restricted funds	9,911	8,157
Unrestricted reserves	12,339	4,583
Total funds	22,250	12,740