Annual Report - 2008
TRUSTEES’ ANNUAL REPORT 2008
From: 1st January 2008 to 31st December 2008
The Lantern Project Supporting victims of childhood sexual abuse, domestic violence, racial abuse and bullying Registered Charity No. 1097265
8 Atherton Street, Wallasey, Wirral. CH45 2NY
Phone: 0151 638 7015
Email: lanternproject@yahoo.co.uk
Web: www.lanternproject.org.uk
TRUSTEES OFFICE DATES ACTED
Mr Peter Green Chair Full year
Mrs Barbara Wilmer Vice-Chair Full year
MR Graham Wilmer MO/Secretary Full year
Mr David Williams Treasurer Full year
Mrs Bhupinder Virdee-Lace 11/07/08 - 31/12/08
Mr Keith Le-Poidevan 11/07/08 - 31/12/08
Mr Mathew Byrne 11/07/08 - 31/12/08
The Lantern Project’s Governing Document is a Constitution
The Lantern Project is a Charitable Unincorporated Association
The Lantern Project’s Trustees are elected at AGM
Summary of the objects of the Lantern Project
The Charity's objects ("the objects") are to provide for the relief of sickness and distress arising there from and to advance the education amongst men, women and young people in Merseyside and neighbouring regions, in particular, but not exclusively, those who have suffered from sexual abuse, domestic abuse, racial abuse or bullying in childhood and/or adolescence or as adults, by any means which are charitable within the law as the Trustees determine.
Summary of the main activities
The Lantern Project is a registered charity, based in Wallasey, Merseyside.
Graham Wilmer, an adult survivor of childhood sexual abuse, founded the organisation originally under the name ‘Victims No Longer’ in October 2000. In April 2003, with the support of fellow survivor, David Williams, the organisation was registered by the Charity Commission for England and Wales, and changed its name to the Lantern Project on 5 December 2003. The Lantern Project currently has 7 trustees and more than 800 members. The Lantern Project is also a member of the Survivors Trust.
WHAT WE DO: The organisation was set up to provide care, support and information for victims of childhood sexual abuse, domestic violence, racial abuse and bullying, in Wirral, Merseyside and the surrounding regions, to help improve their lives and the lives of their families. Through personal understanding, counselling and practical support, we are able to help victims learn how to come to terms with what happened to them, and how to deal with the consequences and impact of the abuse they suffered. Our key objective is to help them embark on the journey from being a victim to becoming a survivor.
HOW WE WORK: We provide peer support counselling and practical help at our premises in Wirral and through out-reach work, and contact support by phone and e-mail. We also produce survival guides and we operate an interactive web site (www.lanternproject.org.uk), which is accessed on average 70,000 times every month. The web site contains over 10,000 pieces of information, helpful to survivors and professionals, plus a forum and message service that enables survivors to support each other.
WHO WE HELP: Since the Lantern Project was established, we have provided on-going counselling and support to victims of abuse, both male and female, who have made contact with us, either through the our web site, or as referrals from local NHS GP practices, Social Services in Wirral and Merseyside, the Prison Service the Probation Service, Drug and Alcohol services and homeless shelters. We also deliver training and presentations on abuse related issues to local Social Services, GP practices and other agencies.
REGULATION AND REPORTING: We are members of the BACP and the Survivors Trust. Our accounts are prepared by Wirral based Chartered Accountants, The Priory Partnership, and we are regulated by the Charity Commision for England and Wales.
Statutory declaration: In carrying out these activities, the Lantern Project Trustees have had regard to the guidance issued by the Charity Commission on public benefit and believe that they have therefore complied with their duty in section 4 of the Charities Act 2006.
Summary of the main achievements of the Lantern Project during 2008.
2008 REVIEW
At the beginning of 2008, the number of referrals to the project had reached saturation point, given the small size of our counselling facility in Wallasey and the time demands being placed on our two founding volunteers, Graham and David, and our other volunteers.
In March, Wirral PCT invited us to apply to their 3rd Sector Health Innovations Fund, part of the Strategic Objectives in NHS Wirral’s Strategic Commissioning Plan 2008-2013. In May, we were informed that we had been successful with our application, which provided us with the funding we needed to bring additional counselling capacity to the project and to offer our service further into the local community.
To help us extend the service, we wrote and produced a new survival guide for victims of childhood sexual abuse, entitled ‘Picking Up The Pieces’, which was aimed at professionals and victims alike, covering all aspects of the long-term impact of child abuse, what works in terms of therapeutic support and recovery, and how the law, both civil and criminal, worked in relation to victims of child abuse, which incorporated the important changes made in January 2008 by the Law Lords to the Limitations Act, which had previously made it virtually impossible for victims of child abuse to bring a claim for damages for what they had suffered.
The guide was published in September, part funded by Wirral PCT, and presented to all local GPs and support agencies across Wirral over a two-month period. In October, we opened a new counselling facility in Atherton Street, Wirral, opposite New Brighton metro station, which gave us the additional space we needed to provide counselling and support for the increasing number of people accessing our service.
Also in September, the outreach support project we had been developing at the request of the Prison Service, went live, involving Graham and David, having undergone security checks and prison awareness and safety training, visiting HMP Buckley Hall in Rochdale every three weeks for a full day, during which they counsel up to 10 prisons on each visit, all of whom being victims of child abuse, mostly in care homes when they were children. The project is the only one of its kind in the UK, and is proving to be a significant value to the management and staff of the prison and, particularly, to the prisoners themselves, most of who have been never been able to access this type of therapeutic peer support before.
UTD - OUR THERAPEUTIC MODEL
Working with victims of childhood sexual abuse is challenging, and can sometimes be frustrating due to the paucity of provision within the NHS of suitably qualified therapists who fully understand the lifelong impact of childhood psychosexual trauma.
Victims are often reluctant to disclose what has happened to them for fear of not being believed, or being ridiculed as a consequence, which is why it is estimated by police that only 5% of victims make a complaint, yet the scale of abuse is huge; current government statistics, based on accepted prevalence rates for sexual abuse, tell us there are at least 5.1 million women and 2.5 million men who are adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse in the UK – more than 7.6 million survivors in all.
Based on our own personal experiences of abuse, and the testimonies of the hundreds of victims we have helped since the project began, we have developed a recovery framework for working with victims, based on an interactive therapeutic approach, which gradually enables victims to disclose the trauma they have suffered without re-traumatising them in the process. This model, which we call unstructured therapeutic disclosure (UTD), is proving highly effective with victims of all ages (the age range of the victims we have worked with is from 16 to 70), allowing them to come to terms with their past and develop more effective coping strategies to help them build a sustainable recovery.
TESTIMONIALS
“To say that we have been impressed by the Lantern Project would be an understatement. Their knowledge, sensitivity, awareness of the prison setting, and commitment to the work has been exceptional. They have also been prepared to offer advice to staff and share their knowledge. Without exception, all prisoners who have been seen, have derived benefit from being able to tell their story in a safe environment to people who truly understand. The Project has also provided books for prisoners in order to reinforce the fact that they are not alone. We are currently looking at the possibility of producing a DVD on the work of the Lantern Project within the prison which will be shown to staff as part of their training programme”
Rev. Gill Berry
Co-Ordinating Chaplain
HMP Buckley Hall.
“I am writing to express our appreciation and gratitude in relation to your involvement with offenders who have been abused. Your input has been invaluable to our supervision of them, and in addressing the motivation and issues behind their offending. In the case of one individual, due to the progress that he has made, and the obvious changes in his thinking and coping skills, we have made application for his order to be revoked on the grounds of his good progress. This is a really positive outcome.”
Fiona McCelland
Merseyside Probation Trust
National Probation Service.
“The Lantern Project is currently helping more than 150 people across Wirral, who have suffered some kind of abuse. As GPs, we are now able to refer patients to their small team of peer support counsellors, all of whom have also experienced child abuse in their own lives. The scheme is working well.”
Dr David Price
Grove Medical Centre
Wallasey, Wirral.
“I am impressed with the work being undertaken by the Lantern Project. Their experience is helping many other people across Wirral and beyond. We are pleased to support this worthwhile project, to assist Graham and his team in providing something so valuable to the Wirral Community.”
Kathy Doran
Chief Executive
Wirral Primary Care Trust.
“Graham and David from the Lantern Project have contributed to our training for direct therapeutic work with sexually abused children, delivered to foster carers, social workers and mental health staff. The feedback from staff on their contribution has been excellent, and has been singled out by staff as invaluable.”
Kathy Peters
CAMHS/Children In Need Team
Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS.
“Thank you for the copy of your latest book – Picking Up The Pieces – which I have passed onto to our Child Protection Team, so they know this excellent resource is now available.”
Rt Rev James Jones
Bishop of Liverpool.
FINANCIAL REVIEW
Statement of the Lantern Project’s policy on reserves.
All funds donated to the Lantern Project by individuals, or awarded by funding bodies, both restricted and unrestricted, are used for the purposes outlined in the summary of our main activities. We therefore do not accrue reserves for the purpose of generating additional income through investment, endowment or interest bearing savings, however, the trustees ensure that there are always sufficient funds available to cover direct overhead costs.
Funds in deficit. The general unrestricted fund was in deficit at 31st December 2008 by £6,454. This was financed by a loan from G Wilmer.
Who funds us: Since April 2003, we have received grant funding from Neighbourhood Renewal Community Chest, Awards For All, Merseyside Expanding Horizons, Community Champions, The Gannett Foundation, The Estate of the late Countess of Sefton, Wirral Social Services, The Salesians of Don Bosco, Wirral NHS Primary Care Trust, Wirral CVS and private donations.
DECLARATION
The trustees declare that they have approved the trustees’ report above.
Signed on behalf of the Lantern Project’s trustees
Graham Wilmer
Name: Graham Wilmer
Position: Managing Officer/Secretary.
Date: 13/10/09
Annual Report & Accounts - copy and paste the following link into your web browser to see the full accounts published with the Charity Commission:
http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/registeredcharities/ScannedAccounts/Ends65/0001097265_ac_20081231_e_c.pdf
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