APPENDIX 33
Memorandum by Simon Albury, Board Member,
Nafsiyat Inter-Cultural Therapy Centre (MH 84)
On behalf of the Nafsiyat board I would like to say
it is a great pleasure to welcome you here today. Your request
to visit us was well timed. Last year the organisation went through
a management crisis. A new board took over in late December and
it has taken over four months to restructure the organisation,
introduce effective financial controls, and develop a viable business
plan for maintaining the service on a reduced revenue—£165,280
for the current year.
I know your time is scarce—so I just want
to give you a couple of headline thoughts—which might be
helpful before you hear the detail from the people at the sharp
end.
Nafsiyat provides various forms of psychotherapy
tailored to the needs of ethnic and cultural minorities and refugees—and
it also provides training in intercultural therapy.
The good news is that Nafsiyat undoubtedly saves
the state a lot of money—and you will be in a better position
than we are—to calculate how much. It saves the state money
by enabling people to stay in work who might otherwise be unable
to work—by enabling people to remain in the community who
might otherwise have to be hospitalised—by enabling families
to stay together—who might otherwise split up and be unable
to help care for each other or for their children—and, arguably,
it saves the state money by providing a talking treatment that
may be less costly than drug treatment.
Nafsiyat could do much more. When you have heard
the detail of Nafsiyat's work we hope you will conclude that it
is something that should be sustained, encouraged and made more
widely available.
Now the bad news—which illustrates a wider
problem. Nafsiyat may not survive for more than another two years.
The condition of these premises speaks for itself. The lease runs
out in two years. If we cannot find affordable premises the organisation
is likely to disintegrate—and the truth is we are unlikely
to find affordable premises—for reasons that I shall come
on to in a moment.
But first, you might find it useful to know
that—in 1996 Nafsiyat had found a suitable building for
its work and applied to the National Lottery Charities Board for
£700,000 from the Health, Disability and Care Fund. The building
would have given Nafsiyat a firm foundation and would have enabled
many more people to be seen—in part by expanding the space
available for voluntary work by qualified psychotherapists. We
didn't get the lottery funding—a decision, communicated
without explanation, and one which sapped staff morale. We later
heard we'd made a first class application—the only problem
had been that we'd asked for too much money. Those who sign Early
Day Motions protesting about the lottery funds pouring into the
millenium dome should know their actions do provide some small
comfort to staff here who know what might have been if Nafsiyat
had received its Lottery grant.
Now—why are we unlikely to find premises?
Well—when you have a problem you often think you are alone—Nafsiyat
is not alone in the difficulties it faces—as we discovered
earlier this year—when we read these two important sentences
in a document from the Ethnic Minority Foundation:
"Whilst the ethnic minority communities
make up 6 per cent of the population, they receive only two per
cent of voluntary sector funding from all sources. As a result,
those ethnic minority voluntary sector organisations that provide
support for ethnic minority communities are at risk of disintegration
through lack of funding, professional support, training and resources."
That precisely describes the situation in which
Nafsiyat finds itself. Nafsiyat is at risk of disintegration because
we don't have the resources we need—to get the resources
we need—whether in terms of increasing funding or finding
premises. With £160,000 a year—Nafsiyat is severely
over stretched—and—over dependent on a level of resource
commitment from staff, members of the board and friends which
cannot be sustained indefinitely.
Sharon Moorehouse, the Acting Service Director,
is currently unpaid. Some of the therapists are underpaid in relation
to their qualifications and experience. The truth is—that
this area of the voluntary sector is underpaid, under funded and
over reliant on volunteer work. Nafsiyat provides a first class
service but to paraphrase the Ethnic Minority Foundation—groups
serving ethnic minorities are funded as if they were second-class
services for second-class citizens.
We are all professionals in this room—we
know what needs to be done—but we don't have the resources
to do it. I was Director of Public Affairs for a major media company.
I know that as a parliamentary committee—you should have
been sent biographies of the people you're meeting and some background
notes in advance. Now—we didn't have much notice and the
school half term intervened—but if we'd had some basic secretarial
support and a photo-copier that worked—we could have provided
you with some useful advance information. In practice you haven't
received any—because we haven't got the means to do it—and
you may perceive us as less professional as a result.
Our business plan has to put clients first—they
get a proper professional service—they are not short-changed.
But for organisations like Nafsiyat with a low revenue base—the
resource costs of meeting the compliance requirements and the
information requests of funding organisations are disproportionately
high—as are the costs of legal advice. This means that funders
may confuse the results of underfunding with unprofessionalism.
As you can see Nafsiyat is caught in a vicious circle that may
prove to be inescapable.
I think—all this needed to be said—but
it means your visit has started from the lowest point. From now
on I hope you will experience an upward curve as you learn about
all the positive work that is being carried out here—despite
all the difficulties. We hope you will value the approach which
Nafsiyat has pioneered over the last 17 years and that after reflection
you will be able to recommend ways in which this kind of work
should be sustained, developed and made more widely available
to the potential clients across the country.
7 June 2000
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