Coinciding with our first virtual Annual General Meeting, we have today published our Impact Report for 2019/20.

The final year of our 2017-20 Strategic Plan, 2019/20 began with the expansion of our mental health support services and ended with a global pandemic temporarily closing our centres.

Chief Executive Dr Jill Tolfrey looks back at the year: “The position we find ourselves in today is therefore markedly different from that which we envisaged at the end of 19/20. Our services and income generation activities have been turned upside down during 2020, requiring us to innovate to continue to support our beneficiaries and campaign to off set the dramatic drop in fundraising income brought about by the cancellation of events.”

During 2019/20, we’ve developed our practitioner-led assessment service, accelerated our digital rehabilitation provision, seen our requests for psychological support and Welfare support increase and expanded our child and family programmes. During this year, our Nursing team also received an ‘outstanding’ rating from the Care Quality Commission, a first for the team and the Charity as a whole.

And who could forget our royal visitor during 2019? HRH The Duke of Cambridge visited Harcombe House in September to officially reopen our Devon centre following an 18-month refurbishment project.

In his last action as our Chair before handing over the reigns to Paul Fuller, Andrew Lynch reflects on the successes of our last Strategic Plan, while looking to the future with the next.

“Back in 2017, at the launch of our 2017-20 Strategic Plan, I asked for the support of the whole fire services community in helping to ensure that we overturned a deficit budget to become a robust charity with a sustainable, long term future by 2020,” says Andrew. “Today, at the conclusion of that plan, I am proud to say that – with your unrelenting support – we have achieved that goal, and so much more.”

Download our Impact Report 2019/20