Chairman' s Report click here

LCC Chairman’s Report 2021/22 and up to AGM

Last year’s Chairmans report found us, emerging from the worst of Covid, solvent with a reserve of 50% of projected expenditure, and seeking premises for resumption of F2F once Covid relinquished its grip. Our hopes of free accommodation in Solent university were dashed by a change of university personnel, and in April we judged that in view of this we needed to risk spending out on commercial premises. Suitable rooms were found, starting in May (at less expenditure than we had historically paid for our old premises), and I was confident that we would rapidly fill these rooms with a throughput that was equal to our historical pre-Covid numbers.

I was wrong. Covid played a part by coming back in the summer and significantly increasing our cancellation rate. The change back from online to F2F was more complex, and less popular with counsellors than envisaged. The country’s financial situation took a turn for the worse and the number of clients unable to pay for their sessions reached a record high. Our business model required an average donation of £15 and a high throughput, and by July neither goal was being reached, and our reserves were taking a bashing such that they were in danger of running out by the end of the financial year. An extraordinary Trustees Meeting was called in July 2022 and with great misgivings, the trustees voted to continue to support those clients who were already being seen but stop taking any further clients who could not pay at least £15 a session until such time as grants could be obtained to underwrite these economically challenged clients. Further trustee time was found to support the supervisors in boosting client throughput. I am happy to report that average donation from clients is back to sustainable levels, and throughput is improving, although this has some way to go before we can be satisfied.

One issue has been that we have not been able to afford to staff a reception desk and we have been lucky in that we share the building with other counselors and supervisors who have contributed with the mutual support of our trainee counsellors. My thanks to Jo Heap, Liz Rose, and Imelda Byrne for helping in this way. Another of our counsellors who lives nearby has installed a key safe in her house to enable access to the building - our thanks to her for supporting us in this simple, but incredibly important way. Well done, Sue.

All was not gloom and doom. Melani Morgan OBE, our trustee in charge of training, completed a Training Needs Analysis and set about organising a training program to address the needs that had been identified. The resulting program is excellent by any standards, let alone that of such a small unfunded organisation and is a testament to her knowledge, drive and enthusiasm. A separate report describes this program in detail.

At a planning meeting earlier in February this year we identified another problem i.e., that clients with ever increasing severity of psychopathology were being referred to our organization, and this was difficult to address as our counsellors often left the organisation at the very time when they had achieved the level of experience suitable to deal with these problems. We came up with a plan to offer paid employment to our qualified alumni to help keep them with us longer as well as giving them a protected start into the world of paid employment. This was obviously a big change - both financially and managerially for our small organisation, so we planned a gradual adoption of this model over a 3-year period, starting with 2 paid counsellors and eventually after 3 years employing 8. A 3-year grant was obtained to cover this transition. Six months into this project we are looking to take on our third and fourth counsellor, the first pair are working well and some of the grant is helping to defray our accommodation costs.

In the summer we were approached by a group of GP practices to provide counselling for their patients. This was a different group to the previous year and negotiations were much more positive. We employed 3 external experienced counsellors and 2 of our alumni and this project went live on November 1^st, 2022. It is a learning process for both sides of the contract, but we are working well together, and this project should also provide significant sums which we will use to underwrite our core work.

The charity has always had 3 streams of income:

1.   Client donations per appointment. We make sure this contributes the majority of our income rather than rely on grants which can be withdrawn at short notice, and this increases our sustainability.

2.   Fund raising. This year has seen a large increase in this activity making a real difference to our bottom line. Well done Emily Clark, Emily Kelly, and Ed Kennedy, you have shown the rest of us how to do it - now it’s our turn!

3.   Grants -In order to retain independent viability, we apply for these for specific projects rather than being central to our financial planning. One such project was to restart our support for financially disadvantaged clients, and I am pleased to report we have obtained a lottery grant for this which will underpin this and allow us to begin once more to take on a limited number of these clients after a hiatus of 3 months - a relatively short time compared with current waiting times for statutory mental health services.

To these core income streams we can now add some help with accommodation by sharing costs with the paid counsellor project and hopefully a significant income from our commercial venture providing counselling for GP’s.

We welcome as new trustees Liam Croucher and Chris Orton. Liam is an enthusiastic knowledgeable counsellor with his own private practice who has thrown himself in to addressing some of the organizational issues we face as well as being a useful advocate for our volunteer counsellors. Chris has a lifetime’s experience in the healthcare business and is helping us keep track of the financial aspects of our increasingly complex organisation. Welcome both. The rest of the Trustees continue to work like beavers behind the scenes in what has been an eventful and busy year. My thanks to them.

Last, but not least, Imelda Byrne has provided much of the energy, knowledge, enthusiasm and sheer hard work which has taken us from the small volunteer organisation she joined to the much more complex, fit for purpose, expanding organisation that we are now. She has decided to step sideways and will manage the GP counsellor project. We are hugely grateful for her efforts on behalf of LCC and very relieved that she will still be part of the team. Welcome too to Emma Mackay who will join Liz in the coordinator team - you join us at an exciting time.

The Trustees confirm that they have followed the Charity Commission’s general guidance on public benefits and that they have conducted the affairs of Life Changes in accordance with its aim to benefit the public as before. One thing shines clear - there will never be a time when services such as Life Changes Counselling are more needed. Keep it up!

Financial update Nov 2023

Over the last year LCC has operated with a minimum fee of £15 per appointment. For those folk who cannot afford even this low fee we applied for and received a £10000 grant from the National Lottery. This pot of money is coming to an end. Additionally, the cost of running the organisation has increased so from now on we are forced to increase our minimum charge to £20 an appointment. Grant applications are pending to underwrite those who cannot afford this, but when our previous lottery grant runs out and until another is obtained to replace it, we will have to temporarily stop taking clients who are unable to afford the £20 per session.

The trustees are not happy with this situation - but it is their duty to keep the organisation financially viable and continue to provide a service. To put this in perspective, private counselling costs upwards of £50 an appointment and an article in the Health Service Journal some years ago showed large organisations supplying NHS counselling cost their treatment at £100 plus.