The Branch, Chipping Norton

Story of Self

I studied history and had an early passion for art, which led to six years working at Christie’s and then as an art dealer. After marrying and having four children, I found my deepest calling, as a full time mother, for over 13 years.

I’ve always been an activist, drawn to building community. When my surgeon husband and I became Christians, church became central to our lives, opening doors to deeper engagement with the community. We lived on a housing estate in High Wycombe with high levels of need. There, I saw vibrant Caribbean and Asian communities who were supporting each other in community, while single white working-class mothers, often care-leavers, who had been moved around, were isolated and unsupported. The children’s centre would refer families in need of extra support to our groups which we shaped around need, at the local Church. 

When my husband was called to Chipping Norton, I was reluctant at first, thinking it would be too middle-class and there would be fewer opportunities to use my skills. But as my children attended the local primary school, I began noticing and mapping the hidden needs in the community. These needs, although recorded in government statistics, are masked by the perception of the Chipping Norton as being the playground of the rich and famous. We started with practical support—helping families access doctors, housing, or basic necessities. I used my education and privilege to advocate for others, securing philanthropic funding to establish a nurture room in the school, and working with the children who were finding it challenging to engage in the classroom due to the trauma they experienced at home.

Initially, our workforce came from the local church community; I’d stand up in church and share stories of local needs—a family needing help decorating or with groceries—and people would step up to help. Over time, more people became aware that Chipping Norton, despite its wealth, had significant but often invisible poverty. When the children’s centre closed, we rallied to create an Under-5s network to address needs across Chipping Norton and surrounding villages. 

We eventually out-grew our space and needed a welcoming, accessible space where anyone could walk in for help. With the high street banks closing, the opportunity came up to buy the NatWest branch in the High Street. We were fortunate with soft loans and philanthropic support. The most extraordinary being an anonymous donation of £515,000 from a Christian who loved the vision. I still don’t know who they were!

In 2020, it became clear that our work had outgrown the church’s capacity. To ensure safeguarding and long-term sustainability, we established a charitable incorporated organisation (CIO) with a board of trustees. I transitioned from a volunteer, to a trustee, to an unpaid CEO, and now, 5 years in, am moving to ensure the charity is sustainable for the long term, and am taking a paid role. 

Story of Us

Access to food has always been a gateway for building trust. Our holiday clubs fed entire families, creating community through shared meals. 

When COVID hit, we immediately saw families struggling with food insecurity. On the eve of lock down my children dragged down a freezer to church (allowed to remain open) and graffittied “if you have a spare meal, place it in here and we will ensure we get it to a family in need”. We distributed meals but also knew that the families we work with would not have the resources for “school at home”, so each week we produced a pack with craft and fun resources for the whole family (with glue sticks, pens etc). We made these community projects, one example was a bird-spotting guide, written by elderly residents, which was paired with a bird-feeder making kit for families. They encouraged families to go outside, and later we tackled mental health for teenagers, packs for mums and dads on Mother’s and Father’s day etc. Each week there would be a queue as we released them.

At our peak, we distributed 1,000 meals and 250 craft bags weekly (46,000 meals and 5,500 craft bags in total). Our meals were cooked by a professional chef who ran a local restaurant. There was funding around then from short term grants and also from generous donations. One old lady from our congregation would press £20 into my hand each week to feed someone who had less than she did. 

Our volunteers (150 in total), who would deliver the meals, often uncovered deeper needs from families —no working cookers, the children’s mattresses in the garden or children without shoes. We found ways to meet these needs one at a time. 

At The Branch we always want to empower, so when families started to tell us on social media that their children were starting to try new food, and were enjoying the sausage casserole, we then enabled the families to cook these meals for themselves including recipe cards, with an ingredients bag,with the food we delivered. Cookery lessons emerged from this, with children often engaging more readily than parents, we took this as the starting point with our chef to evolve our "Branch Out and Cook" program. We run cooking groups for families and for young people with low attendance at schools or in alternative education programmes. It has been a great success, and 90% of those attending have 100% attendance in our cookery programmes, when their school attendance is typically below 60%. 

Our strategic planning priorities are flexible and always responding to what we know about our community. With the help of our networks we identified three major barriers to thriving: debt, mental health, and domestic abuse. We addressed debt by setting up a debt centre. When we recognised we could train Catherine for £1600 to deliver the "Freedom" program tackling domestic abuse, we took this step and have now delivered over 5 courses, with 12 women on each course. Alongside this we offered practical solutions to the barriers to participation that some families experienced like transport and childcare. Creative arts and gardening are an important part of our trauma informed approach. 

We see first hand where statutory services are not working. Wherever possible we get different services talking to each other. Our building includes spaces where statutory services like the police, schools, LCSS, and voluntary sector services like Citizens Advice, Mind and Oxpip can deliver their services in the heart of the town, and importantly meet and cross refer. 

Rural poverty is a significant challenge (61% of West Oxfordshire is rural). Bus fares for a whole family are expensive, rural transport infrequent or non-existent. So many or our families are cut off from essential services. In response to the lack of local mental health services, we brought together mental health providers to dream dreams, and see how they can use our space to enable families to get the help they need. The result has been partnering with NHS, Mind, ConnectionsSupport & local GPs to provide a Keystone Hub (delivering mental health services in the community) in the heart of the town, rather than people having to make a prohibitive 30 mile round trip on public transport.

An example of how, as a small, independent charity, we are able to pivot: When the war in Ukraine broke out we were able to meet new needs. We supported Ukrainian families with WhatsApp groups, English language lessons, creating a social space for them to meet and cook together, and to date we have helped over 15 people into employment and housing. 

Our building reflects our mission to meet long-term needs and collaborate with partners. It is designed for and with the community, this is all the journey of trust that we have been on and we therefore want to think longer term and how the building might continue to serve the community for 100 years. We are developing our blueprint for sustainability and are always reviewing our funding model whilst staying agile enough to flex to meet changing needs. 

Engagement with local businesses has been vital for our growth and to our survival. Businesses sponsor courses and events, and corporate volunteers connect directly with families, seeing the impact first-hand which in turn encourages them to support what we are doing. This sponsorship has also allowed us to reclaim VAT on business activities they sponsor - and that in turn enables us to focus funds on our work. 

We have never gone for a public sector service agreement, as we feel this could impact our ability to respond to needs as they arise, and the funding is often short term. Funding from trusts has reduced hugely over the last couple of years, as competition for funds has grown; some grants require us to fill in too many forms, are not clear about their criteria from the outset, and often mean we would need to collect impact data which those we work with might find intrusive data. We have to weigh all this before we apply for grants, as it is very time consuming.

We keep raising resources and support by telling the stories and being passionate about our commitment to social justice. 

Story of Now: Calls to action

Longer term funding to allow for strategic planning

We remain cautious about relying on government funding due to its short-term nature, which limits flexibility. Grants often require spending within six months and a lot of form filling. We need grants which allow us to make a three year plan to guarantee meaningful impact (for example OCFs Step Change grant). Building more trust between funders and the community is critical to sustaining our work.

Health Visitors

Health visitors are vital to early intervention and identifying needs and services need to be expanded- or rebuilt. Health Visitor services have been severely stretched and reshaped by the impact of COVID, with reduced home visits and increased catchments. When they used to visit every mother with young children at home, they were able to identify needs and refer them for support. We are concerned that we now get fewer referrals at that vital early stage. 

Collaboration and knowing who is doing what

We need to focus on collaborative relationships, inviting partners to dream with us, finding new ways to remove barriers to social justice. We often step in to bridge serious gaps in vital services, create spaces for other agencies to deliver their services , to help a voice be heard (advocacy), or act when referrals are too slow to meet needs. We have seen the huge impact when statutory and voluntary services communicate and collaborate and a core goal is to enable more of this

Human Scale Design – blueprints for improving wider systems

We aim to create human-scale solutions that serve as blueprints for wider systems. Our health, education, and care systems are fractured, but by showing what’s possible on a small scale, we hope to inspire broader change. Building hope and transforming lives.

‍