Trustees

Trustees sought to oversee a charity which provides affordable counselling in SW London.

The Fountain Therapy Trust – www.thefountaintherapytrust.com

Summary

We are seeking at least two new Trustees to oversee our charity. We offer professional, confidential and affordable counselling to individuals in and around SW London. Our team come from local churches and operate within a Christian ethos.

Description 

The Fountain Therapy Trust is a Charity dedicated to offering professional, confidential and affordable counselling to individuals in and around SW London We are passionate about the value of therapy and believe it should be available to anyone at a rate they can afford. We are conscious that many who would benefit from counselling do not access it because of the limited availability of public services and the high cost of private services.

Established in 2018 we now provide about one thousand counselling sessions per year through a fantastic team of trained and trainee counsellors. We are financially solvent with a turnover of about £20k pa, which is almost all derived from our sliding scale fees. We can offer relatively long-term counselling, typically up to 40 weekly sessions and most of our counsellors work within an integrative / relational framework. We do offer on-line counselling, but most of our work is face-to-face, and this is our preferred way of working.

Our team are Christians from the local area and we operate within a Christian ethos. However, we are delighted to offer our service to anyone regardless of whether they have a faith or no faith at all, and we fully respect each individual's personal beliefs.

We want to increase the strength of our Board - currently we are overseen by only three Trustees, due to recent departures, but want to increase this to our target of 5-6 trustees. As well as providing support to the team in delivering high quality and accessible counselling services and ensuring the Charity meets its financial responsibilities, we are looking for someone to contribute to strategic oversight and effective governance.

We are seeking someone who:

1. Is passionate about the value and importance of emotional and mental health and wellbeing
2. Has experience or insight in areas such as charity governance, strategic planning, finance
3. Is a committed Christian of any denomination
4. Is willing to dedicate time, wisdom and prayer (approx. 4 meetings a year, plus occasional input)

What impact will you have? 

Our new Trustees will bring complementary skills to our Board. Specifically, we are looking for people with insight into charity governance and development, strategic vision and financial oversight.

Our new Trustees will ensure that our charity is well-governed, that quality is maintained and that those who work in the charity are well-supported. They will ensure that we keep client well-being at the heart of all we do.

They will look at new opportunities for development of the Trust, particularly at how we move on from reliance on a small management team who work voluntarily to a more resilient management model. They will ensure that new opportunities are strategically reviewed and considered.

They will ensure that we remain financially viable and have a sound operating model.

What skills, experience and qualities should you have?

Our new Trustees will bring complementary skills to our Board. Specifically, we are looking for people with skills in one or several of three areas:

1. charity governance and leadership,
2. strategic planning, to take the Trust forward into a new era
3. finance, to ensure our financial management and forward planning is optimised to achieve the objectives of the charity

Our new Trustees will share our values, especially our belief in the value of high-quality counselling with good clinical governance for client benefit. Our Christian ethos underlies who we are and we expect our new Trustees to share that ethos and see good counselling as a way to live out our christian values in our community.

Lived experience of or clinical practice in the field of mental health would be welcomed to enable greater insight into our counselling work.

We are keen to maintain a diverse board that reflects our very diverse local community.