Governance, Safeguarding & Accountability
Focusing Minds CIC is a Community Interest Company providing mental health, wellbeing, coaching, mentoring and personal development support for children, young people, families and schools across West Yorkshire, including Wakefield, Calderdale and Kirklees. Our governance, safeguarding and accountability arrangements underpin the safe, professional and effective services we provide.
Good Governance at Focusing Minds CIC
We believe strong governance is essential to delivering safe, effective, and meaningful support. Our governance framework is built around the following principles:
Community Benefit: Ensuring our activities create measurable positive outcomes for children, young people, families, schools, and communities.
Safeguarding First: Prioritising the safety, wellbeing, and rights of those we support.
Transparency and Accountability: Being open about our decisions, finances, policies, and impact.
Inclusion and Equity: Promoting equality of opportunity and celebrating diversity, including neurodiversity.
Professional Excellence: Maintaining high standards of practice, continuous learning, and reflective improvement.
Collaboration: Working in partnership with schools, families, professionals, and community organisations to achieve the best outcomes.
Our CIC Status
Focusing Minds CIC was established in August 2025, continuing the already excellent work of Focusing Minds Mental Health, Wellbeing and Education Services. At a time where family budgets are increasingly tight and local services are heavily stretched, we wanted to do more for those in our community and increase the accessibility of our highly impactful children’s mental health, wellbeing and personal development services across Calderdale, Kirklees and Wakefield.
Although we predominantly support children and young people across community and school localities in West Yorkshire, we also offer an increasing range of SEND services for to young people and their families, along with adult mental health services through counselling, hypnotherapy, holistic therapies and treatments. We are dedicated therefore to supporting everyone in local communities who may benefit from support with their mental health, wellbeing or development.
Our intention over time is to be able to help individuals and families, regardless of socio-economic circumstances, access our services much more easily. We aim to minimise the barriers to those who wish to seek support and access mental health and wellbeing services in Calderdale, Kirklees and Wakefield.
As a CIC, we are committed to reinvesting any surplus we may generate back into our organisation to increase the scope of services, offer prolonged services in our communities or to develop new projects and ideas which would further benefit those we work with. Additionally, as we predominantly support children and young people, any remaining surplus will be used to benefit them in local communities by developing opportunities for them to thrive in extra-curricular or positive activities.
Safeguarding
In the UK, safeguarding means protecting peoples’ health, wellbeing and human rights, and enabling them to live free from harm, abuse and neglect.
In our sector, we understand it to mean protecting people, particularly children and young people, from harm. This harm may arise from staff or volunteers of Focusing Minds or be delivered via a child or young person’s disclosure.
Safeguarding applies consistently and without exception across our services and staff. It requires proactively identifying, preventing and guarding against all risks of significant harm, exploitation and abuse and having mature, accountable and transparent systems for response, reporting and learning when risks materialise. Those systems must be survivor-centred and also protect those accused until proven guilty.
We believe everyone has the responsibility to promote the welfare of all young people and to practice in a way that protects them. We give equal priority to keeping all children, young people and other service users safe regardless of age, disability, gender, race, religion, belief or sexual orientation.
As part of our commitment to safeguarding those we work with, we:
- Have a robust safeguarding policy outlining our procedures.
- Maintain a safeguarding log of disclosures and relevant actions taken.
- Ensure that staff and/or associates are recruited utilising safer recruitment guidelines.
- Continue to develop links with other local organisations, ensuring best practice is shared.
You can discover more about our safeguarding practice and commitments by visiting our dedicated safeguarding page or view our policy.
Safeguarding and Wellbeing
The welfare of children and young people is fundamental to our work. We maintain robust safeguarding policies and procedures that reflect current legislation and best practice guidance. All staff and associates are expected to uphold these standards and contribute to a culture where safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility.
We are committed to creating environments where individuals feel safe, respected, valued, and empowered to reach their potential.
Leadership and Strategic Oversight
Focusing Minds CIC is led by its Directors, who are responsible for the organisation’s strategic direction, legal compliance, financial stewardship, and achievement of our social purpose.
The Directors oversee:
- Strategic planning and organisational development
- Financial management and sustainability
- Safeguarding and risk management
- Quality assurance and service evaluation
- Compliance with relevant legislation and regulatory requirements
- Monitoring social impact and community benefit
Regular reviews of policies, procedures, and organisational performance ensure that our services remain safe, effective, and responsive to the needs of our beneficiaries.
Discover more about our director team here.
Quality and Professional Standards
We strive to deliver services that are evidence-informed, person-centred, and outcome-focused. We continually review and evaluate our work through stakeholder feedback, reflective practice, training, and ongoing professional development.
Our approach recognises the unique strengths, experiences, and needs of each individual, particularly those experiencing mental health challenges, barriers to education, or the impacts of neurodiversity.
Financial Responsibility
As a Community Interest Company, we are committed to managing our resources responsibly and transparently. Any surplus generated is reinvested into the organisation to further our social objectives, strengthen our services, and increase our impact within the communities we serve.
Appropriate financial controls, monitoring systems, and reporting processes are in place to ensure accountability and good stewardship of all funds received.
Measuring Our Impact
We are committed to understanding and demonstrating the difference our work makes. Through monitoring, evaluation, and stakeholder feedback, we assess the impact of our services on wellbeing, confidence, resilience, emotional health, engagement, and personal development.
These insights help us improve our services and ensure we continue to meet the needs of the individuals, families, schools, and communities we support.
As both Focusing Minds and our predecessor organisations, we have been able to:
- Support in excess of one hundred young people across community and school support services.
- Improve the mental health, wellbeing and skill development of children and young people.
- Provide services to nine schools around West Yorkshire with high-impact services.
- Helped to reduce potential permanent exclusion cases in a number of schools.
- Increased attendance and engagement amongst in-school cohorts.
For more information regarding the impacts of our services, discover testimonials on our mental wellbeing, counselling and education services pages.
Our Promise
Focusing Minds CIC is committed to delivering services that are safe, ethical, inclusive, and impactful. Through strong governance and a clear social purpose, we aim to empower individuals to thrive, overcome challenges, and achieve positive outcomes in education, wellbeing, and life.
Our Directors
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- Andrew
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- Drew
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- Nick
Andrew is responsible for service provision, organisation finances and general day to day running of Focusing Minds CIC. He combines his director responsibilities with that of delivering services.
Drew is responsible for public relations and ensuring the smooth running of communications. He also has growing responsibility for funding applications and tenders.
Nick is responsible for safeguarding, reviewing our policy and ensuring staff and associates are recruited under safer recruitment guidelines. He also maintains our safeguarding log and is deputy DSL at Focusing Minds CIC.