Bringing Hope, Empowering for Life, Seeing People set Free
Annual Report 2010
The Bridge is part of Oasis Church Trust Birmingham
Registered charity no. 1084191
Offices: Bordeshale House, 14 Edgbaston Road East, Balsall heath, B12 9QQ
Tel 0121 663 0103
Web www.thebridge.uk.net
Contents
Page
Mission & Core Values 3
A Resident’s Story 4
Background Information 5
Staff Team 6
Organisational Structure 7
Overview of 2010
Good Bye Bridge House 8
Bordeshale House 9
Recovery Programme 11
Financial Review 15
Financial Risk Assessment 19
Thanks & Acknowledgements 22
The Bridge Mission Statement
The Bridge’s mission is to give those who are marginalised in our city the confidence and life-skills to become integrated and valued members of the community; to help people gain a sense of self-worth and address the life-controlling issue of drug and alcohol addiction. The Bridge runs supported accommodation for both men and women who want to break free from their addiction and give them hope for the future.
Our Core Values
· To communicate our Christian beliefs in a practical and supportive way
· To do everything with an underlying attitude of professionalism, friendship and genuine concern for the success of each individual
- Helping all who are in need wherever we are able, without prejudice
- Communicating the value that we place on each person
- Standing up for those we serve, challenging what is unjust, and promoting what is just.
- Doing everything to a standard of excellence
No person aspires to be an addict - please read this Resident’s Story:
Life’s journey took me into a dark place fuelled by depression, alcohol abuse and complete selfishness with bad attitude which should have led to complete self-destruction.
The world owed me big time and I wanted pay back and if it didn’t happen what was the point of anything!
If you come from a position of having no experience of people like me you would be forgiven for regarding me as a ‘no hoper’. Nothing is further from the truth.
At The Bridge I was in the hands of dedicated, professional people, having an insight and wisdom to support, nurture and encourage me to turn my life around. The house rules and Twelve Step Programme are, quite simply, a code for living a better, positive life.
For my part all I had to do was completely give myself up to a higher power – and be committed to recovery. Simple words for hard work all round!
At this time of writing I have achieved inner peace and feel freedom I thought would never exist. I don’t see negatives only positives and problems simply challenges which I now know I thrive upon.
Only the Bridge could facilitate this for which I will always be grateful.
In fact I am grateful for each day as it comes and have real joy in my life.
As for the future I just want to Live, Learn, Love, Laugh (and anything else positive, beginning with L).
Background History and Information
The Bridge is an outreach from Oasis Church Trust, Birmingham (Charity no. 1084191) and has been working with the disadvantaged and socially excluded of Birmingham since January 1999. Oasis Church is an evangelical Church and part of the Newfrontiers family of churches.
The Bridge opened its first hostel for single homeless in 2001 and focused on supporting the varied needs of this group until 2008 when we specialised to specifically support those struggling with addictions issues; running a residential recovery programme based on the twelve steps model of addictions recovery.
The recovery programme is designed to help residents face the issues underlying their addictions and teach positive coping strategies, in order to equip residents to deal with difficult issues and emotions without returning to substance misuse. In addition, the support is geared to facilitate and encourage residents to engage again with employment, volunteering or training.
As part of our recovery programme, we also run a therapeutic programme of activities, designed to help residents gain life-skills to equip them with a good foundation for independent living in the community. The therapeutic programme also aims to build up residents’ confidence and self-esteem as well as help with personal development and positive prospects for future employment
To complement the above programmes, we also run a mentoring scheme, through which trained volunteers meet on a one-to-one basis with residents and ex-residents of The Bridge’s supported accommodation; offering support, giving advice, helping to build positive social networks, or simply providing a friendly ear where one is needed.
The Bridge Team
We have a small staff team of nine and a committed group of volunteers who also help with groups or act as mentors for residents.
Organisational Structure
Oasis Church Trust is a charitable trust with a board of trustees overseeing its activities. The governing documents of the trust are the Declaration of Trust (13th September 2000) and the Supplemental Deed (12th December 2000), both of which are on file with the charity commission. Trustees are appointed by the Oasis Church leadership team, led by Adrian Hurst, who also acts as Senior Church Leader and officially oversees The Bridge.
Overview of 2010
Goodbye Bridge House!
Bridge House has served us well and all who knew it will have their own memories.
It has been a place of laughter and happiness - sadness and sorrow but for some we know that this house has meant freedom and hope and that is what we aim to take forward with us into the next stage of 2011.
2010 has been a very significant year for The Bridge – with change more far reaching than we had anticipated at the beginning of the year.
Moseley & District Churches Housing Association (owners of Bridge House) decided that they had no alternative than put Bridge House up for sale – due to current economic constraints. It wasn’t a total surprise to us when in February 2010 we received 12 month notice to vacate the building.
We already knew that our Supporting People funding would be finishing in 2010 - so many changes and challenges – were we going to survive?
The most important message of this annual report is that yes, we have survived and have great excitement and anticipation about the next twelve months.
Bordeshale House
In the early July we unexpectedly heard of a 6-bed property that was becoming available in Balsall Heath and we immediately felt that this was the opportunity to begin creating a model that would be much more “fit for purpose” as well as sustainable for the future (based on the 6-bed house we already had in operation). Initially it was difficult to consider reducing from a 15 bed house to just a 6 bed house – but we could see how this would fit much better with future plans.
As we end the year we have moved and settled into this new property, and have much to celebrate.
Firstly we have to acknowledge the amazing group of men who moved with us into Bordeshale House. This service user group is often described as “chaotic” but we must say a massive “thank you” to them and the way they all pulled together with staff to make the move as successful as it was and to keep the recovery programme running almost uninterrupted – no mean feat.
Secondly. we were unexpectedly invited to bid for a capital grant in August through Birmingham DAAT and were subsequently awarded this for development of our two new houses (Bordeshale House and the women’s house “Timbers” - 2011). This has been amazing and is making all the difference to what we can achieve.
Finally for all the other funding that is being made available and addressed more fully in the financial report below.
Funding for this continued work remains a challenge and as a consequence we have had to make further significant adjustments to life in these uncertain economic times.
One of our support workers accepted TUPE as a result of the changes in commissioning of SP funding. This opportunity was given to all of our support team including the service manager and we are all grateful to those who have taken the “risk” of remaining with us because of their real desire to see the work of The Bridge continue.
It has proved to be a risk that we haven’t altogether avoided and in the autumn of this year the decision to make two core roles redundant was unavoidable. The positions of Development Officer and General Manager have been discontinued: the work that these roles undertook being absorbed by the remainder of the management team supplemented with a part-time position of fund raiser and, to follow in the New Year, by a part-time administrator. To further reduce overheads we did not replace the position of Community and Outreach Manager when this post became vacant.
In 2011 the overall leadership of the team will be taken by Vince Ricketts, formerly Housing Manager. Vince comes from a strong position of experience in Housing Management and team leadership and we are confident that this is a sound move.
Whilst these moves have consolidated our position and reduced costs we continue to look to the future and we have already begun negotiating with the Jericho Foundation (with whom we already work) to provide housing management for a further 6 bed house that will be dedicated to the needs of women.
The work to renovate the women’s house is well underway and hopefully will be open by early Spring 2011. We already have a growing list of partner agencies wanting to work with us in this new venture. The waiting list and application process will open early in the New Year.
Recovery programme - Referrals and applications
In 2010, we received a total of 125 referrals. Within this group there is a spread of ages, ethnic background and gender, although we have found the majority of referrals have been for men (79%), for those in the age range of 18-30 (40%), and for those who would describe their ethnic origin as White British (80%), see chart below.
We have found that a large proportion of those referred to us for support with their addictions are being referred from within the criminal justice system; by prisons, CARAT teams, the probation service or Drug Intervention Programme teams working with ex-offenders.
Over the course of the year we were able to support a total of 37 people in their addictions recovery over our two houses, representing 29% of all referrals.
Outcomes of service engagement
With the ending of Supporting People funding we have been in a year of transition in many ways and one aspect of this is to decide how we should provide evidence of outcomes. We do not intend to deliver an inferior service and therefore want to continue to demonstrate the value, relevance and importance of the service we offer.
The next three graphs show the overall outcome for all clients who accessed our service. Some of these clients, with the best intentions, do not make a success of recovery – whether that is because of lack of engagement or an unrealistic evaluation on their part of the demands and responsibility that will be required to complete the process. We have therefore also shown in the second graph the specific outcomes once the initial three months of the programme have passed and the client has settled into the recovery process. This demonstrates in a much more realistic way what can be achieved by those who are seriously committed to recovery.
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The third graph shows the significantly different position for those who maintain recovery and are able and willing to move into the 2nd stage house – thus demonstrating the immense value of sustained support throughout the full recovery programme
Financial Review
Despite the necessary use of reserves during a time of economic challenge we remain in a positive credit position. We have further reduced our staffing costs by £56,727 per annum. At the end of 2010 our reserves stood at 35.7% of our annual running costs. As a not-for-profit organisation we look to retain the correct level of reserves whilst investing as much as possible in our future.
It is without doubt that 2010 has been our most financially challenging year so far and it is no comfort to realise that many other service providers have not been able to sustain operations in 2010. We feel a real responsibility to continue to do everything we can to ensure that this vital service can continue. We have made significant changes to staff structure and to reduce overall central costs and believe that we have done as much as is possible without compromising the service we provide.
Supporting People income ceased from April 2010 and since then we have been working hard to get alternative sources of funding in place. We have had limited success at this stage but changes such as this never happen overnight and we are pleased to be able to report that as the year comes to a close we are seeing breakthrough signs of change.
We have now covered all the capital costs both of the move and refurbishment of Bordeshale House (relocated to September 2010) and also for the ongoing work at Timbers (to be opened early Spring 2011). In addition to this we have received a large proportion of running costs for 2011 and are continuing discussions with various agencies for more sustainable ongoing funding.
In addition to the larger grants that would be ideal for sustainable funding we have determined to implement a much wider approach to funding and we believe that the appointment of a dedicated Fund Raiser rather than the more comprehensive role of development worker will actually serve our purposes better at this time. This role has only been in operation since November 2010 but we already have many more imaginative initiatives for 2011 and a much wider brief for fund raising has been given than has been necessary before.