Annual Report 2010–2011

Making mental health accessible to deprived young people

C/O The Winchester Project21 Winchester RoadLondonNW3 3NR

MAC-UK Ltd is a registered charity (no 1126144) and company limited by guarantee registered in England (no 6693712). MAC-UK Ltd's registered office is at North House, 198 High Street, Tonbridge, Kent, TN9 1BE.

Contents

Chairperson’s report 01

Chief Executive’s report 02

Music and Change 03

New MAC-UK groups 04

Mini MAC 05

Research and evaluation 06

Finances 07

In the media and news 08

The plan from here 09

01

I took up the role of Chair in April 2011 and found myself in an exciting and dynamic organisation at a stage of great prosperity and growth. This has been a very successful year for MAC-UK, and one which has built on the firm foundations that have been established over the past three years. We continue to deliver services that make mental health accessible to deprived young people and the work is flourishing since a considerable growth in our staff team in October 2010. This allows Charlie Alcock, our Chief Executive, to focus more on the organisation’s development, although she will always keep a day a week of direct work with young people.

Our success was recognised by the Charity Times Awards where we won the Charity of the Year Award for charities with an income of less than £1million and Charlie won the Rising Star award. MAC-UK’s success is due in great part to our young people and staff. I would like to acknowledge and pay tribute to their energy and dedication. I have been particularly struck by their willingness to go that extra mile to ensure that nothing but the best will do. The work can be exhausting at times but there is a remarkable sense of collective purpose and determination.

Our work would not be possible without the incredible support we receive from our funders and the other organisations with whom we work so closely. Their support for and belief in our mission has enabled us to take our approach to pastures new and to make considerable progress in our model development. We look forward to working with them during the coming years and to shaping up an approach which has potential to impact young person mental health service delivery at a national level.

Finally, I would like to thank my fellow trustees – whose time, skills and contributions have been core to the ongoing development of the charity. In particular I would like to extend my special thanks to Peter Fuggle who acted as Interim Chair prior to my appointment and whose knowledge, guidance and care have been invaluable.

The coming year promises to be both rewarding and challenging; we are looking forward to embracing both the ups and downs and to taking MAC-UK forward.

Heather Barker, Chairperson.

Chairperson’s Report

02

MAC-UK has now completed its third year and we have moved from being a staff team of 2.5 to one of 16. We also now employ over 20 young people as part-time workers. We have a new Chair in Heather Barker and a new Treasurer in Rob Murphy. We have moved offices in our building twice due to bursting at the seams. We have won two Charity Times Awards and we were runner-up for the Guardian Public Service Award. In short, it’s an exciting period of development leading to an emerging recognition at a national level.

It’s also been a period of great unrest with close colleagues being made redundant, public services getting cut and the riots sweeping our streets in August 2011. The criminal activity which was the riots was totally unacceptable and justice had to be the immediate response. There is, however, a deeper question which looks beneath the riots to what caused them to happen in the first place. Our mission at MAC-UK is to bring the perspective of mental health to the table and to recognise that many young people who offend have unmet mental health needs. We are working from the ground-up to develop an approach which is cost effective and easily replicable. Most importantly of all, it is a model which can be adapted to the specific needs of each community.

What’s most exciting of all is the stories of development and progress which surround the young people with whom we work. This year has seen some of our young men and women teaching on clinical psychology doctoral courses for the first time and presenting their journeys at the Department of Health Conference in February 2011. Young people have also been on Radio1 Xtra and BBC Radio London, having their voices and ideas heard. One young man told me that he had stopped smoking skunk thanks to the support he had received from a Mini MAC tutor. Another told me that if wasn’t for MAC-UK, he would be dead.

We are incredibly grateful to all of you who are supporting our work financially, partnering with us, and volunteering on our projects. You are absolutely crucial to MAC-UK’s ability to impact the lives of young people in the way it does.

Here’s to 2012 and all that it has to bring. If it’s half as exciting as this year then we will be writing a lot of history.

Charlie Alcock, CEO MAC-UK.

02

Chief Executive’s Report

Now in its third year, MAC-UK’s Music and Change project has proven effective in supporting severely deprived young people aged 14-30 years who are involved in highly antisocial behaviour and/or gang related activity. It received funding from Comic Relief, Tudor Trust and the Paul Hamlyn Foundation in August 2010 to extend its reach to make a difference to more young people’s lives. It sought to establish further projects, gathering evidence of their success and providing ongoing consultancy in the approach to ultimately influence UK-wide mental health delivery and policy.

Through the Music and Change project, MAC-UK has created the beginnings of a new, evidence-based approach solution to working with young people who offend. The approach brings together mental health and justice and was a featured case study in the Home Office Ending Gangs and Serious Youth violence report (2011).

STREET THERAPY

MAC-UK’s innovative ‘street therapy’ approach is central to the Music and Change project. It involves taking psychological support and therapy ‘wherever’ to do ‘whatever’ with ‘whoever’. Young people self refer, telling us where they would like to meet, for how long and how often. Street therapy is available to any of the MAC project’s 30+ participants and young people can be seen as frequently or infrequently as their needs dictate. A typical use of ‘street therapy’ during a time of crisis is two or three times a week for up to 4 hours a day.

Street therapy is carried out by MAC-UK’s clinical psychologists, assistant psychologist, outreach worker and graduate interns, providing informal access to mental health professionals on a young person determined needs led basis.

GROUP ACTIVITIES WITH YOUNG PEOPLE

The groups provide an opportunity for young people to learn and develop life skills in practice and a safe space to develop working relationships for street therapy. The groups change on an almost weekly basis and that’s OK as young people get bored. Their needs and interests one week are often different the next week.

As a mental health professional I am acutely aware that we need innovation and imagination to tackle mental health issues, and MAC-UK provides inspiration to us all.

Associate Clinical Director, Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust”

”

03

50% of young people pursued training, education and employment external to MAC-UK, going up to 81% if Youth Motivator employment roles at MAC-UK are included.

03

Groups which have become a more permanent feature this year :

MAC-MAT: Reaching: 100+ young people and professionals

MAC-MAT stands for MAC-Mental Health Awareness Training. It makes mental health accessible to young people by raising awareness and understanding of the issues young people face in everyday life. It was created by four young people from Music and Change and teaches professionals and other young people about mental health. Some of the people we have taught this year include: peer mentors from the Hear 4 Youth website, young people from New Horizons in Camden, and many professionals through workshops on university teaching courses and at conferences.

Hear4Youth: Reaching: 250+ young people

The Hear4Youth Website project began in November 2010 when a group of young men working with MAC-UK wanted to take some of what they had gained from Music and Change to other young people. They decided to design a peer-to-peer mentoring scheme. The aim is that it will have authentic visual and content appeal to other young people and will capture youth culture, making it accessible to young people who might not otherwise seek help.The Hear4Youth leaders are young males aged 17-21 years from a range of socio-cultural backgrounds. For the majority of the group, Hear4Youth is the only positive activity in their day to day lives. The website is due to launch in January 2012 – so watch this space!

The ‘Pimped’ Recording Van: Reaching up to 30 of the most challenging young people in the borough

Working in partnership with charity XLP, young people from the MAC project have had access to a fully functioning recording studio van one afternoon a week. It comes down to a local estate and regularly attracts up to 20 young people who can record their tunes, play X-Box and meet with staff. The music and conversations that have come from the van have been astonishing – young people know they can come here on a Tuesday afternoon and access support and two have arrived telling us that they are sleeping rough.

The stories of changed lives through Music and Change are many. A young man who was the victim of gang violence, was too scared and anxious to leave his flat. He spoke to MAC workers through his letterbox for a number of months and gradually began to come along to MAC activities led by his peers. He had never before sought help and did not trust professionals. He is now living in a supportive hostel and bridging out of MAC. He has just applied to college.

Music and Change works very intensively with up to 30 young people for up to two years. These young people lead a range of activities through which they develop leadership and employment skills in practice and develop trusting relationships with the MAC staff team. They also engage on a 1:1 basis through ‘street therapy’. They choose what to attend and when but generally meet with MAC staff at least once a week and in some cases daily.

”The reason why I like Music and Change is its new approach in the way it helps young people, by helping them to help themselves. It also gives me a great sense of helping my community and has made me very proud to be a part of it.

Obi, Youth Consultant for MAC-UK’s Music and Change project 04

Mini MAC is the sister project of Music and Change and takes youth-led mental health promotion into schools and youth clubs through DJ-ing and MC-ing. It was developed by young people from the MAC project and is therefore a trailblazing demonstration of progression from crime to positive activity.

Mini MAC now has three peer music tutors who have ‘graduated’ from the Music and Change project and teach in schools every day of the week, engaging 100+ young people. It also welcomed its first Project Manager in April 2011 and a second Outreach Worker in August 2011.

This year has seen Mini MAC working in Eversholt Pupil Referral Unit, Camden; Whitefield School, Barnet and South Camden Community School.

Mini MAC also took its services to Loud Tate in early October 2011, teaching young people from the general public how to MC. The day culminated in a staggering performance in the main Tate Britain entrance hall and was attended by a diverse audience from all over London and beyond.

TRAINING AND CONSULTANCY

Sharing our learning and knowledge with others provides another opportunity to take mental health out of clinics and into communities.

Doctoral Teaching and Conferences: Reaching: 1000+ people

With the aim of changing wider practice, MAC-UK has taught on the UCL, UEL, Oxford, Salomons, Plymouth and Exeter clinical psychology doctoral programmes with more bookings for next year. This teaching was co-led with young people, providing a direct opportunity for young people to have their ‘voices’ heard and to influence practice. MAC staff and young people have also presented at over 10 conferences, including the Department of Health Conference, June 2011 and the Cambridgeshire Child & Adolescent Substance Use Service (CASUS) Conference, February 2011.

Young Person Hostels Project: Reaching: 20+ young people and 50+ hostel staff

Thanks to forward-thinking commissioners in Camden, MAC-UK has been working in young people’s hostels across the borough from February 2011. These hostels provide supported accommodation for vulnerable young people who have become homeless. This has been an incredible opportunity to have an impact on a large number of staff and young people’s lives. MAC-UK is providing borough-wide training to over 50 hostel staff to improve awareness of deprived young people’s mental health needs. Within one hostel, MAC-UK staff have also facilitated a youth-led activity to empower young people, build trusting relationships and provide opportunities for street therapy. The hostels work will continue until December 2012.

REACHING OVER 150 + YOUNG PEOPLE

05

”

”Before MAC-UK I was constantly on the street doing stupid things. When I got involved with MAC-UK I learned a lot about mental health issues and it helped me to pass some of the knowledge I learned onto the young people I teach in schools through the Mini MAC project.

Ratchet from the Mini MAC team

”RESEARCH AND EVALUATIONAs a new and pioneering organisation, reliable and thorough research and evaluation of our work is crucial.

Music and Change is now being independently evaluated by the Mental Health Foundation for two years. The evaluation involves collecting a range of data to understand what difference MAC-UK is making to young people’s well-being, mental health, social integration and offending. Data in the form of participation observation, informal interviews with young people and frequency and severity of offending from the Police National Database is being collated.

Evaluating community projects is always challenging but even more so with young people who are very concerned about professionals knowing too much about them. Trusted staff relationships with young people are therefore incredibly important to the research process as we try and research ‘with’ young people, rather than ‘on’ young people. Young people employed as ‘youth research consultants’ have helped the evaluation team choose questionnaires and explain to their peers about the purpose of completing them. Outcomes in terms of work experience, employment, and other services young people had been bridged, have revealed some really encouraging statistics a year in.

From the Mental Health Foundation’s interim report:

• 21 of 25 young people have completed some form of work experience since becoming involved with the organisation. • 11 out of 25 had completed their CVs, having never previously written a CV or wanted to seek employment. • 9 out of 25 had applied for jobs external to MAC-UK.

An extract from the interim report also gives a perspective from a young person:

The young person mentions that he has had mental health problems, and said it took a long time for him to understand what it meant to have mental health problems. That he used to think that it was his personal fault but is beginning to realise that these problems developed because of circumstances. He says that young people don’t know what they want to be and because of this they have difficulties in school and in jobs. He told me that young people feel like the world is not interested in them, and believes young people come to MAC-UK because of all the different activities they offer. He was interested in drama initially, and MAC-UK had a theatre group on offer. At first, he was embarrassed to share feelings but then slowly, by coming more and more to the theatre group felt comfortable to talk about them.

The next year will bring further information as the Mental Health Foundation analyses the offending data. We are also on course for two journal articles being peer reviewed for an academic audience. These articles will form the beginnings of a sound academic evidence base for our MAC-UK approach.

Mini MAC is being externally evaluated by QA Research, commissioned by Youth Music. The report will be published in late 2012.

06

”

FINANCES1st October 2009 – 30th September 2011

The MAC-UK annual accounts have been prepared in accordance with the Charity Commission’s ‘Statement of Recommended Practice’. The accounts were examined by Lindeyer Francis Ferguson Chartered Accountants. The full accounts can be obtained from MAC-UK or from the Charity Commission.

98%

2% 3%3%

94% 98%

1% 1%

Year end, September 2009Cost of providing services

£55,000

Year end, September 2010Cost of providing services

£104,000

Year end, September 2011Cost of providing services

£261,000

£0

£50

£100

£150

£200

£250

£300

Year ending September 2009

Year ending September 2010

Year ending September 2011

MAC-UK incoming resources ( £'000s)

07

Grants, donationsfundraising

Investment and other income

Charitable activities

Charitable activities

Fund generation

Governance

IN THE MEDIA Awards

• MAC-UK won the Charity Times Charity of the Year Award 2011 (under £1 million income)

• MAC-UK's CEO and Founder, Dr Charlie Alcock, won the Charity Times Rising Star Award 2011

• MAC-UK was a runner up at The Guardian Public Service Awards 2011 in the Children and Young People Category

• MAC-UK was a finalist in the Children & Young People Now Awards 2011

• MAC-UK was shortlisted for the Centre for Social Justice Prize 2010

• A young person working with MAC-UK won the Attlee Youth Leadership Award 2010

• MAC-UK's CEO and Founder, Dr Charlie Alcock, won the Future 100 Award for Social Entrepreneurs in 2010

• MAC-UK's CEO and Founder, Dr Charlie Alcock, was a finalist at the Beacon Young Philanthropist Award 2010

08

NEWSLETTER

The MAC-UK newsletter is printed bi-annually and 1500 copies are distributed at various events. The e-newsletter is emailed out to approximately 330 supporters.

SOCIAL MEDIA

MAC-UK has an increasing presence on Facebook and Twitter, providing exposure to new audiences and using the power of cyberspace to promote our mission and to gather support.

IN THE NEWSDuring the last 12 months, MAC-UK has been mentioned in the following broadcast, online and print media both regionally and nationally:

• BBC Radio 1 Xtra • BBC Radio London • Sky News • Red magazine online • Fabulous magazine • Charity Times • Children & Young People Now • Hampstead & Highgate Express

• Eastern Eye • Psych Talk • Community Care

09

PARTNERS

The Anna Freud CentreEversholt Pupil Referral UnitKilburn Safer Neighbourhoods TeamLeap Mental Health FoundationPlaying OnRight HearRoundhouse CamdenSouth Camden Community SchoolSouthside PartnershipWhitefield SchoolThe WinchXLP

FUNDERS AND SUPPORTERS

Camden and Islington NHS Foundation TrustComic ReliefEMIForward FoundationHome OfficeLondon Borough of CamdenMetropolitan PoliceThe Paul Hamlyn Foundation Social Justice ProgrammeQedisRadiovilleStar LizardTudor TrustYouth Music

WITH THANKS

MAC-UK wishes to thank all who have made and continue to make a contribution to our work, whether young people, groups or larger organisations, from inside and outside the charity. Without your commitment, generosity and energy we would not be where we are today. Thank you for joining us on our journey and long may it continue.

THE PLAN FROM HERE The aim of MAC-UK is not to be here in 10 years time. It seeks to develop and share its learning with others and to have lasting impact on the way in which mental health support is delivered to deprived young people.

MAC-UK Ltd is a registered charity (no 1126144) and company limited by guarantee registered in England (no 6693712). MAC-UK Ltd's registered office is at North House, 198 High Street, Tonbridge, Kent, TN9 1BE.

Typeset and designed by Alexa Richardson Typesetting Services, London.