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Hosted by Ben Thompson, the Oxford Business Podcast is a monthly podcast featuring conversations with experts in a range of fields including marketing, finance and sales.
Ben Thompson - 0:07
Hello you're listening to the Oxford Business Podcast of the Oxford Business Community Network. We're at the wonderful podcast studio of Story Ninety-Four here in Oxford. The only in Oxfordshire, if you've not seen it please please please get in touch with them and come and have a look. It's a great space. Today I'm so delighted to be joined by Sabiene North of Be Free Young carers. Sabiene is somebody that I've got to know over the last few months and so inspiring in terms of what she does but also the charity. So welcome Sabiene!
Sabiene North - 0:38
Thank you, thanks for having me.
Ben Thompson - 0:40
No thanks so much for joining us. So let's jump straight in to those listening who don't know you tell them all about you and indeed the charity.
Sabiene North - 0:47
Okay so Sabiene from Be Free Young Carers. I am the CEO at Be Free and I took over the CEO role back in February last year. Before that I was the fundraiser and the sole fundraiser at Be Free, which is a really hard job because I started just after lockdown. So I opened my laptop up and I hadn't met any of my team for over a year. So yeah that was quite insightful there. Before that I left a career in wealth management. I was in wealth management and private banking for 22 years and I needed a change. I'd been doing that role in finance for such a long time so I looked around at the third sector after doing some fundraising for another charity I thought yeah I can do this so yeah and the rest is history.
Ben Thompson - 1:35
Oh amazing what a story. So let's go in reverse order if that's okay. So what does your current role entail and I think for those who know I think it's always quite fascinating as I think we can presume what happened behind closed doors with a charity. But what do you really do day to day? What does your role look like? All the many hats you wear.
Sabiene North - 1:55
So we are a small charity. We've got eight members of staff and we're expanding, we're in the process of expanding at the moment. But my role as CEO, and I'm sure my colleagues in small charities at CEO will agree with me, it's hugely varied. I can go from hoovering the office because we don't have a cleaner, to meeting members of the Royal family and everything else in between. A typical day is, I'm trying to get into really good habits of answering emails at the beginning and end of day and not really being distracted by anything in between, but it can be liaising with the County Council on their young carers strategy, it can be attending any activities that we put on for our young carers, it can be doing things like this. There's a huge amount of my time that is taken up with the operational side of things. We don't have an HR department, we don't have a legal team, we don't have anything like that so the CEO normally has to do absolutely everything. So it's a really varied job but yeah really fulfilling.
Ben Thompson - 2:53
No I can imagine and one thing that I realised that my fault that we didn't really build on and too much at the start is the amazing work that you do at Be Free Young Carers. Can you just give a snapshot of some of the work that you do and really I guess kind of the challenges that you're helping across Oxfordshire?
Sabiene North - 3:12
Yeah we're in the unique position we are the only charity that specifically supports young carers in Oxfordshire. We do that by offering a range of services. So we offer respite activities in the school holidays to our young carers. We offer one-to-one emotional support which our youth workers go out to school to deliver to the young carers. We also offer counselling. So we know that mental health is an all-time low at the moment so it's something we've developed with one of our in-house counsellors. We also offer mindfulness movement which is where we go to primary schools and we teach them well-being techniques. It's a very preventative measure to make sure young carers mental health are kept in check. We also offer a befriending service which is where we train up volunteers to become befrienders and then they are matched with a young carer and they give them a respite every week so it may be just taking them down the park to kick a football for around for an hour and we do that and we also have our 13 plus group which is, we found teenagers that were quite disengaged with the charity so we handed everything over to them and said what do you want us to do and they put together a program they meet every month and we do some respite with them we do some workshops and that's really big success in its growing. I suppose for me the charity is really unique because we're independent so we do not receive any funding from the council or any statutory services there and we're filling in the gap so fundraising is really really important and when you give to a charity our size you know that your money goes a lot further and we make sure we work you know make sure it works really hard for our young carers. But our age range goes from age 8 up to age 17 and we have two provisions, one for the primary school children and one for secondary school children. So we run them all. We've got four youth workers that deliver the services, befriend a coordinator and in our office we've got a social media manager who works remotely, we've got fundraiser that works remotely and we've got another fundraiser that works in-house. So it's quite a small team.
Ben Thompson - 5:23
No absolutely. No thank you so much much for that insight. One of the conversations we've had in the past I was really surprised that there are so many young carers across Oxfordshire and and the challenges they might be facing can you talk to me a little bit about what it means to be a young carer?
Sabiene North - 5:41
Yeah absolutely. A young carer is a child aged or in particular a child aged over five that has a responsibility for caring either for a parent or sibling. Our young carers we only can take them on at eight because of funding we haven't got a provision for the younger ones. I'll give you some examples. We have a young carer that's come to us and she was responsible for her mum. Her mum has severe mental health concerns and when her mum takes her medication she's fine and the young carer who's 11, she's responsible for taking for giving her mum the medication and like I say when when she takes it is absolutely fine. She's got a younger sibling who is under the age of three that she also their supports and what happened was that the young carer forgot to give her mum the medication. That child was then faced with her mum going downhill and it resulted in a suicide attempt and the young carer was there holding her mum, dialing an ambulance, and then we're now dealing with the guilt that she feels from her mum nearly passing away because as she sees it her actions or inaction to give her the medication. So it's a huge responsibility and these young carers are having to do an amazing job but they're still having to go to school. A lot of them aren't the best dressed because they do the ironing, the cooking, the cleaning, so there's a huge bullying factor involved in the schools and they're doing such an amazing job and it's hidden. It's hidden from society and I think it is very much that we don't want to admit that we're letting children look after their parents or other children and it's really shameful really but they do an amazing job and that's where we come into it and our job in the office, we hear stories like this all the time I could you know I could sit here for hours telling you examples of children doing a phenomenal job and things that they shouldn't be doing like bathing their parents you know and things like that it just makes what we do so much more important so when we've got obviously Easter holidays at the moment, we've got a trip to Harry Potter World today for our young carers and it's something that they wouldn't necessarily have access to. So our motto in the office is where we can, we will and we try and give them every opportunity that they wouldn't necessarily get without us being there. So that's why it's really important to do what we do.
Ben Thompson - 8:09
Absolutely inspiring as you're talking there. Yeah, just one of the things you touched on a couple of moments ago was around that there's no provision from the government or the council and off the back of that there's no funding for what you're doing, you need to fundraise for that. I think it'd be really interesting for those listening just to understand I guess the dynamics behind the finances of a small local charity doing such good work and really kind of, I guess the business side of things and the pressures connected to it in terms of what is the process, I guess maybe looking at your first role with with the charity and your role now in terms of the pressure around you and how does that look like and what are the implications of really generous people be equally what are the implications of COVID?
Sabiene North - 9:00
Yeah. So, like I said, I started in lockdown and then since we've had the pandemic, we've then had the cost of living crisis. So it's been one thing after another what we've proved as a charity we can survive. Like you say, we don't have any funding coming in, which most charities do. Most charities have contracts with the council where they're picking up the statutory services. If you dial through as a young carer to the council who are meant to support young carers, you get through to someone that isn't able to provide you a provision because there isn't anything there. I'm doing really important work with the county council at the moment and helping them as they are preparing their unpaid carers strategy. Sadly, the young carers are only a small bit at the bottom of that. There is a really good advocate on the council that is trying to push for young carers, but not having a contract or anything like that in place really does put pressure on us. So it's 100% fundraising. So like any business, you should know what your income is going to be for the next year, next two years. We don't. We can only depend on funders giving us that and supporters giving us donations. So it is a really, really hard task not knowing what's coming in from one month to the next. But because of what we do and the impact that we make, we always manage to secure funding. It doesn't make it easier. Competition’s increased. The complexity of funding and applications is just ridiculous. You get some funders and I'm going to give a big shout out to the National Lottery, who really understand the work you do and they understand the pressures of fundraising and making the application process so simple and for example, cost of living crisis was having an impact on my staff personally and I was able to ring up because we had a grant with them and say, is there anything you can do and they immediately gave us a 10% increase. We have other funders and I'm not going to name them that ask for infinite details for such small amounts of money and sometimes you've got to weigh up is it worth the time, the staff time, the amount that they're asking in order to get the small amount that they're offering. So that's quite difficult and you're trying to keep a balance the whole time. I'll just give you an example. One question I had as a fundraiser was on an application. If you were an animal as a charity, what animal would you be? I mean that's got nothing to do with our services, it's got nothing to do with our impact or anything like that and it is almost becoming a bit like a Hunger Games out there and one thing I don't necessarily want us to be part of is where we are competing for entertainment purposes against other charities, which that's becoming quite a popular fundraising tool for funders at the moment, which I totally disagree with because we do important work. There's hundreds of charities that do equally important work out there but where some funders try and put on… make you compete against each other in an open forum by doing presentations and it's and voting live so you think oh gosh it's just really uncomfortable and awkward I don't think that's like they should be encouraged.
Ben Thompson - 12:11
No, no, completely agree completely agree the thing I'm keen to build a little bit more on around this this topic is really around this cost of living crisis because I think that it It was widely reported throughout COVID. I think the amazing work that Marcus Rashford did is a great example. Somebody with a great platform to do real good. I think it was really to the general public. I think it was made really clear how many people do really struggle and how many children really struggle. What are you seeing from the cost of living crisis? I know that you touched on a couple of moments ago in terms of your staff, which we're certainly seeing with my recruitment hat on. But what are you seeing in terms of the young carers and then in terms of your staff in the middle, which you've touched on a little bit, but then I guess the other tier in terms of businesses who may previously been able to support maybe not doing so being able to do as much.
Sabiene North - 13:06
Part of my role, I'm also on the Oxfordshire Children's and Safeguarding board as a member there. So I go to all their meetings. So I'm more than aware of what our young carers are facing with the cost of living crisis, but also what children in Oxfordshire and it is toe-curling what children are having to go through. What we've seen personally is we've seen comments from young carers taking lunch boxes to school because they don't automatically get the free school meals but they also don't have food at home so they're taking empty lunch boxes to school, we've seen that. We've seen people not coming to our trips because it's over a lunchtime and they haven't got a packed lunch or anything like that to bring. So thankfully we've secured money from Oxfordshire Community Foundation so at every interaction with young carers we provide them with a meal. You know our youth workers are really good at getting food down our young carers, so as long as we know, because they happen in the school holidays when the school provision isn't there, it means that we know that they're being fed and at least they're getting you know one meal a day from from us. Is it something we should do? Absolutely not. It should be you know a statutory thing that children shouldn't be going hungry but the situation is hugely worse. The pandemic has had such a huge impact on children's mental health. We've seen it with the waiting lists for CAHMS, everything like that. All the services are so stretched. Then with the cost of living crisis, us as a charity, we've seen we have to hire halls for our activities and things like that. We're paying the council £75 for an hour's hall hire and it's absolutely crazy. We've seen huge increase in costs like every business has, but this is also impacting young carers. So what we try to do, whether it's the pandemic, cost of living crisis, we always try and provide something to soften that blow for them really. So at Christmas we did hampers, we did hot water bottles, fluffy socks. We did things that we think are practical things that our young carers could use if they haven't got the heating on. I mean, bear in mind our young carers are looking after parents or siblings that could have medical conditions that need the heating on, that need electricity to be running for their monitors and those type of provisions. So it's hitting the families drastically. When we realised that some of our young carers weren't coming because they can't provide transport, you know, they didn't have the food and they didn't, you know, there was cost of living crisis was to blame for a lot of that. We were able to step in and support them there. But yeah, it's really difficult.
Ben Thompson - 15:42
No, absolutely and just coming onto, I guess, the next stage of that is really around what you're seeing in the local economy in terms of businesses and that support and how external factors are potentially impacting you. I think you so rightly said that there's lots of charities who are doing great, great causes But when something happens in Turkey, are you seeing that as having an impact on you on a local level?
Sabiene North - 16:11
Yeah, there's always going to be something that will distract those people making donations to donate elsewhere. Whether it is the Ukraine appeal or whether it is larger charities which have got huge marketing budgets that they can raise their profile much more than we can. There's always going to be something there. I've always been, whether it's been in business or with the charity, I've always tried to support local businesses and we have the same for our charity. If you support a local charity, your money is going to go into the community around you and it's going to have a huge impact. Like I said before, it's going to go further. It's going to make that lasting impact on the communities that your business is in. We've seen an upsurge in corporate partners, not necessarily wanting to raise funds. they will raise funds with us but offering us their services which has become in really handy like legal advice and such. So it's always really good to get corporate partners on board because our name against a large corporate partner does really raise our profile and brings in more corporate partners and more people that are interested in our charity.
Ben Thompson - 17:20
Absolutely. Absolutely. One of the things that always comes across when I'm talking to you Sabiene is that you get business and that you get the community and you really like to collaborate. So I think what would be very interesting for those listening is to talk a little bit about what collaborations look like. So if a business owner is listening now or if a corporate is listening now and thinking, do you know what, this has really resonated with me, how could they work with you and what kind of things have you done previously?
Sabiene North - 17:47
Oh, we've done so much. Networking has really, really paid off for us. So we like to work with people that we know and that have supported us. I get quite a lot of unsolicited emails saying we want to do video for you, we can do this, this and that. We will always go with someone that we know and that's someone that supported us. So for example, we used Fortitude for our impact videos where they came out and they did a family fun day video for us and that was really great. There's someone else that I met at a networking event and one of the tools we have to raise our profile is our accounts and accounts on black on white paper, don't look that fancy. But she's working on a document to bring our accounts to life, to market them so that funders can see them and hopefully invest more money with us. We're looking at an animation. So with young carers, they don't want to be put in a video and they don't want to sit there and explain what they do and tell their story because one, their friends will see there's increased bullying there and two, they don't see it as any different to what they should be doing, which is really sad because what they do is amazing. So because of that, we're looking to put an animation together to do a day in the life of young carers to try and get that message across. I'm trying to think what other businesses we've used. There's quite a lot that we have utilised out there as well. So it's not just about fundraising. I mean, if we can get a team together to run the Oxford half, that's fantastic. But we are also looking to give back to the local businesses around us.
Ben Thompson - 19:19
Absolutely. I'm going to give a stat that is completely made up, but it was a really good stat. I saw something the other day around every pound you spend locally, how many more times it's spent in the local community than if you were to go and give a pound to Sky, for example. Not that there's anything wrong with Sky, just to be clear. So I think the bit I'm quite keen to move on to now with my recruitment hat on is the transition that you've made. So you had a really successful career within the financial sector and as you touched on at the start you made the decision to enter the world of charity. Can you just talk me through I guess two parts to a question. Firstly I guess your thought process and deciding that you wanted to make the change and then I guess secondly I think it'd be really really useful for somebody listening at home that might be considering doing the same themselves, really kind of the process and the good, the bad and the ugly if that's okay.
Sabiene North - 20:18
Yeah. So I can remember exactly where I made the decision. I was sat in my office and I'd done some fundraising for different charity. My mum's got Huntington's disease and I did fundraising for that charity where I think I ran five marathons in 12 months and raised a lot of money for them and it was something I did outside of work and it really meant that I could make an impact and it sounds corny, I just wanted to do something where I could make an impact for those that wouldn't necessarily be able to themselves. So I sat down and I had a look and I went to Google and Googled local charities. I love animals, I've got a house full of animals, working for an animal charity wouldn't do it for me. I knew I'd had to work with children because they're the most vulnerable members of our society there and obviously don't have a voice for themselves so I knew that was an area and I came across Be Free. I picked up the phone and I pitched myself over the phone of what I could do and yeah the rest is history. I mean some people think that working for charity is a bit of an easy life, they're a bit more relaxed but it's absolutely, I've never worked so hard in my life before. We, you know, in our office everyone has objectives to meet our organisational objectives and vision for the charity and it filters all the way down through. It's very much run like a business, everyone knows what they should be doing and, you know, is accountable for their work. It is one of the most hardest jobs I've ever had but it's one of the most fulfilling and that's why I do it and it does sound very corny but it is really, it's been life changing.
Ben Thompson - 22:03
Yeah, absolutely. And I appreciate this as a podcast. So you can't see Sabiene’s big smile as she was talking there. But certainly, yeah, it's it's really clear that you love what you do and you're really passionate. I think something that was said to me only a couple of days ago with the charity, the muntins and recruitment for they said the difference between the corporate world and the charity world is if you don't hit your target in the corporate world, you get told off. If you don't hit your target in the charity world that's having a really tangible impact on somebody's life, which I think was a really nice way to sum up and yes, it certainly resonated. So we're coming towards the end of the podcast and I think the thing that I would really like to touch on just before we finish is really your advice because I think that you're a real sponge of knowledge and advice and I think the bit that I would really like to build on as a closing note is really speaking about charity broadly and I think that so many people that I see through networking and so many people that I know want to do good and often it is the first advert that comes on television, they give £2 a month to Oxfam or whatever. So I guess if somebody is listening now and wants to do some work with a charity, what should they be considering and what should be the first thing they should do? Big question.
Sabiene North - 23:24
So you have to find something you're passionate about. Absolutely. You have to have an interest. So for Huntington's Disease Association it was the personal collection with my mum and having that experience with my mum and how that's impacted my family made me run those marathons. I, you know, I couldn't have done that without having that motivation there. The same with Be Free. Every member of our staff, whether they're frontline or whether they're back office, will spend at least one day with a young carer and seeing the impact of our trips to make sure that they realise what the impact of their work is. I guess my advice would be if you really do want to get involved, try volunteering and it's not necessarily volunteering as in going to the charity's HQ and you know fiddling around the gardens there or anything like that. It's actually businesses and employees have got a lot of talent that they could give to charity and utilise that. I mean we at Be Free are always utilising people's skills to our advantage there. So it would be to try volunteering. I, outside of my work, I volunteer, just become a trustee of another charity. So I'm looking, I'm fundraising trustee there so it's all new to me there, but I'm volunteering my time there. I volunteer at a local running club, I'm a run leader there. It's just to get involved with the community and yeah, to give it a go and then from that interaction you can then maybe go on to fundraising, can you know just see how you can help but always ask them what they need don't go along assuming you think right I'm gonna be doing this this and this it's always what the charity needs be free with our corporates we're very adamant that we don't have a fence to paint we don't have a garden to tend that we if you're gonna volunteer with us this is what we need so yeah get involved yeah.
Ben Thompson - 25:11
Perfect and what a way to end the show so Sabiene thank you so much for your time and for being so honest and authentic with how you shared such a great cause you represent. So thank you for that. You have been listening to the Oxford Business Podcast of the Oxford Business Community Network. I really enjoyed the last half an hour. So thank you again Sabiene. Thank you as always to Story Ninety-Four for hosting us and for creating this wonderful podcast at their podcast studio here in Oxford. I have said it before, but you should definitely go and visit. It is a really, really cool place. Thank you very much!