Safe and Sound Derby helps to protect young people from sexual exploitation. Set up in 2002, the charity provides support on a one-to-one or small group basis to young people who have been sexually exploited or are at risk. To raise awareness of the issue, an education package is delivered to young people in schools and community settings. Parents and carers are also offered support.
And for parents like one mother whose 15-year-old daughter was groomed and sexually exploited, the charity has been a lifeline. Both were assigned support workers at Safe and Sound Derby: “Without Safe and Sound I dread to think where I’d be at this moment in time,” she says. “Safe and Sound supports you through the legal process and the horrible details you’re going to find out. It’s good to be able to talk really openly and know no one will be thinking I must be an awful parent or my daughter must be really horrible.”
When the charity approached Pilotlight it was keen to expand to other towns and had also just set up a social enterprise – Safe and Sound Enterprises – to develop training and awareness-raising nationwide to generate an income for Safe and Sound Derby.
Chief executive Nathalie Walters says: “Our business plan needed refreshing and we needed some clarity about our aims and objectives.”
The Pilotlighters questioned whether the charity had the capacity to expand and also why it had set up Safe and Sound Enterprises as a subsidiary company. That questioning led to a rethink and now the charity is looking to expand into the more immediate vicinity of Derbyshire.
“This is the aim for the future, which is much more feasible than setting up in a new city,” says Nathalie. “Meanwhile, at the moment we provide support to young people and their families and now we are going to look at what other services we can develop for them in the future, for example, we are piloting a befriending and mentoring service.”
The charity has a new business plan “that is much clearer about where we are going and what we want to do”, she says.
“We have honed in on our achievements which wouldn’t have happened without the Pilotlighters’ input. We were looking at the wrong things before and I feel much more comfortable about where we are going now. Applying for funding requires a clear business plan so I’m hoping that ours will now generate new income.”
The charity graduated from the Pilotlight process in September 2012. As a result, it has given Safe and Sound several key growth areas including:
- piloting therapeutic services for young people who are struggling to exit from child sexual exploitation;
- piloting support services for young people aged 18+ who require additional support to exit Safe and Sound Derby’s services;
- expansion of its awareness-raising and preventive services into Derbyshire;
“It has clarified where we are going over the next three years,” says Nathalie. “It gave me confidence in my leadership abilities and it gives you a space to bounce around ideas in a confidential environment.”
The Pilotlighters providing that confidential environment were from the Apax Foundation, O2 and Lazard, along with an individual member. Richard Wilson, a partner with the Apax Foundation, felt there were two main issues that Safe and Sound Derby needed to tackle: to set out exactly what the service offered and the geographic scope it should have; and, the governance challenges that had resulted from the establishment of the Safe and Sound Enterprises subsidiary.
“Some governance issues had arisen between the Safe and Sound Derby team and the subsidiary, which was a trading arm. The decision was taken to bring the subsidiary back into the charity. I believe that Safe and Sound Derby now has a stable platform and an agreed direction.
“Any business person should consider being a Pilotlighter. Because it’s a well-managed process you can add value without causing disruption to your day job and you can walk away after a successful project with some personal satisfaction that you have added something.”