The Challenge Team UK

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Challenge Team UK

Challenge Team UK

Formation	Early Spring of 2004
Founder	Sue Relf
Type	Non-profit organization
Legal status	a Charitable Trust (No.1058747)
Location	Communitywise Ocklynge Rd, BN21 1PY Eastbourne, United Kingdom
Services	Sex and Relationships Education
Staff	Young volunteers from 18-24
Website	Https://challengeteamuk.com/

Origin

In 2000, Challenge Teams from Canada visited schools in the United Kingdom. They had short tours which lasted for 2 years. Canadian teams were warmly welcomed by the local staffs and students.

Concept

The main concept of the Challenge Team started in the early 1990s. Some Canadian students decided to challenge the mainstream culture and they toured in different local schools with fascinating success. Increasing volunteers and schools who interested joined the team.

The organiser of Challenge Team UK is Sue Relf, an experienced project manager and development worker who has been involved in youth-related community work for many years and runs local community centre. Sue's husband used to be a member of the senior management team of a local comprehensive school. In February 2004, Challenge Team UK held its first national tour with the assistance from British team volunteer presenters and lasted four weeks.

Areas of operation

From 2004 to right now, Challenge Team UK had trained 86 British presenters in total and toured throughout England and Wales. They already had presentations for more than 157,760 British teenagers. The team was made up of young activists from 18 to 28 years old.

Advocacy

Challenge Team UK is insistent on the advocacy of healthy sexuality and spreading this advocacy by holding tours in middle and high schools.

Further information: Sex Education

Charity

Challenge Team UK is a Charitable Trust (No.1058747). The other name of the team as a charity based is the Quicken Trust, which is an old name.

When Challenge Team UK was first registered, the names of trustees are declared and the trustees of Challenge Team UK are Matthew Brinkley, Dr John Chaplin MB BS DTMH, Christine Fidler BA, Glyn Oliver, Ieva Blaikie LLB and Thompson BM BS. They are responsible for supervising the whole work, management and administration of the Challenge Team UK as a charity on behalf of its beneficiaries. These five trustees should be listed out in the team governing documents. Dr John Chaplin is a pioneer in AIDS prevention programmes, and he is also a trustee of the Merrifield Trust (No. 286010).

This table shows the recording of the submitting accounts for a non-ministerial government department called Charity Commission for England and Wales, including Annual Returns as well as Annual Updates of the Challenge Team UK for last five years.The team trains and recruits the young activists, which is a non-profit organisation.

Financial Summary of the Charity Challenge Team UK for the Last Five Years

Financial year end (FYE)	Income (£)	Spending (£)	Accounts received （£)	Annual Return/Annual Update received
31 Mar 2018	7,088	17,075	Not Required	27 Sep 2018**
31 Mar 2017	17,494	22,130	Not Required	28 Oct 2017
31 Mar 2016	16,691	15,423	Not Required	01 Sep 2017
31 Mar 2015	19,181	22,725	Not Required	26 Aug 2015
31 Mar 2014	19,181	22,725	Not Required	23 Jul 2014

** Annual Update for 31 Mar 2018, which is received by 27 Sep 2018. Annual Update refers to the Annual Return that is below £10,000 threshold for the specific financial year, which is similar to the Annual Return.

Donation

The public donors could support the Challenge Team UK through The Big Give, which is a non-profit, charitable website enables the public donors to find and support the charity projects in the field that they are interested.

The team published totally two projects on the profile of the Big Give.

• Project 'Support the work of Challenge Team UK', came up with the total budget of £50,000 of the project cost.

Amount	Heading	Description	Duration
£25,000	Office support staff	Part-time administrator	5 years
£25,000	Office and tour costs	Office and tour costs	5 years

For the project 'Support the work of Challenge Team UK', the Challenge Team UK would tell 200,000 teenagers why they should consider saving sex for marriage. So far the team had already spoken to nearly 140,000 teenagers and the team aimed to achieve the goal by the end of 2021.

• Project 'Help us reach 200,000 Teenagers', came up \with the total budget of £45,000 of the project cost.

Amount	Heading	Description	Duration
£30,000	Staff costs	10 hours per week	5 years
£15,000	Promotion costs	Including exhibitions and road shows	5 years

For the project 'Help us reach 200,000 Teenagers', the Challenge Team UK need motivated, talented, passionate staff to engage and help the team with the team marketing, promotion as well as the recruitment. The team also need to be able to pay the staff.

Campaigns

Previous Campaigns

In 2005, the team visited the UK and toured different cities, Since then, the team kept visiting various areas each year during the schools terms.

In April 2018, the joined a ‘save-sex-for-marriage’ roadshow in Malta, which was promoted by a pro-life group called Life Network.Challenge Team UK gave presentation on a roadshow ‘save-sex-for-marriage’ in British schools.

Presentations

Challenge Team UK spreading their advocacy by holding presentation from a perspective of health and based on common sense, without any reference on religion.

Each presentation keeps between 55 to 75 minutes according to schools official timetables, is designed to educate, inspire and motivate teenagers to practise a new lifestyle of saving sex for marriage.bThe presenters are used to be British school students and they have their free rights on choosing to save sex for the marriage or not. Therefore, the team members are the youth themselves and they can appreciate the difficulties that all colleagues are dealing with.

Presentation explains why the youth must respect for  themselves and the importance of marriage in a sensitive way. The presenters who grew up in the families involves separation or fragments explain the importance of complete family and marriage in a emotional way.

How to present

Each presentation will be prepared and presented by one single team, which includes two young men and two young women who owns the same choice of saving their sex for the marriage and have the courage to speak out. Team members conveys positive message of sex instead of scaring teenagers away from sex.

The presentation is understandable and full of humour, which contains little theatres, personal experiences, communications and short speeches.

Presentations are displayed and exhibited with age-appropriate material. The video-clips and slides are sent to the school before the tour in order to confirm those materials is satisfactory to school.

Presentation Statistics

The statistics that the Challenge Team UK uses in the presentation are the latest data, which are checked by a British leading authority of sexology, Dr Trevor Stammers. Offical website of the Challenge Team UK includes comprehensive resources.

One of the previous presentation, the team mentioned that the UK had the highest rate of early pregnancy and adoration over Western Europe.

Future plan

The next tour they have planned would be hold from February 2020 to March 2020.

Responses to Government Guidelines

The Team follows Ofsted recommendations and complies British Government guidelines for Sex and Relationships Education (SRE) in Schools. Challenge Team gives reforms to Government Briefing Paper No 06103 Sex and Relationships Education in Schools published by House of Commons Library, based on sexual relationships, abortion and  same-sex marriage.

1. The paper (page 7) mentions that the school key task is to reduce the incidence of mistimed, unplanned or unwanted pregnancies through relevant information and adequate counselling on contraceptive and deferred activities. For the abortion, the idea that the team wants to convey is to delay sexual activity so that diminish the occurrence of unwanted pregnancies. The team does not give any advices of birth control method. Challenge Team UK would like to concern more on the relationships, feelings and values of the participants, rather than physical side of the reproduction.
2. The team concentrates on the nature of marriage and its importance towards the household life and child raising, without insulting children from unmarried families, which is based on the guidance issued by the Secretary of State for Education and section 403 of the Education Act 1996.
3. For what the Ofsted report on Personal, Social, Health and Economic (PSHE) education and the teaching of SRE 2013 (page 12) mentions, for over a third of schools, sex and relationships education requires to be improved. Most of schools have too much emphasis that places on 'the mechanics' of reproduction, whereas too little on relationships, sexuality and the influences of pornography on their understanding of healthy sexual relationships. The Challenge Team UK responds that what the team presents does not place on the 'mechanics' of sex, but more focus on healthier relationships, sex, the harmful effects of pornography, dealing with emotions and staying safe.
4. The paper (page 9) mentions that BBS offers a range of useful resources to help schools improve their sex education curriculum and organisations seeking to raise the level of sex education. Since 2005, the team has kept visiting schools to improve the standard of SRE education. During that time, the team had presentations to approximately 135,000 youth in schools across the UK.

Reforms to Academies and Free Schools

The Model Funding Agreement for Free schools provides an example of describing the arrangements made by academies and free schools with respect to the SRE, which states that ensure that students are protected from inappropriate teaching materials and are informed of the nature of marriage and its importance to family life and child rearing, regard to any guidance issued by the Secretary of State, further to section 403 of the Education Act 1966. The Challenge Team UK responded that the presentation would focus on the nature of marriage and its importance to family life, as well as on bringing up children without humiliating the children of unmarried parents.

Reforms to same-sex marriage

The teaching about marriage is conducted in a sensitive, reasonable, respectful and balanced manner. The materials of the Challenge Team UK do not contain any of religious references. The views on same-sex marriage are not expressed. However, views are determined by the school side. The presentation could be applied for every student and could be hold for both faith and non-faith schools. It is because the idea of Challenge Team UK completely adopts Christian teaching.

Feedback

The positive responses received by the Challenge Team UK from the previous schools that presented before were mainly due to the sincerity of the team members. Those voluntary presenters are genuine toward each presentation as well as sharing strong beliefs in the value of a lifestyle of saving sex in common. Most of members give up their jobs or study temporarily, so that they could join the team tour and present as volunteers, with no financial compensation for their own time.

Criticism

In 2017, a number of parents made complaints at the education ministry in response. These parents were extremely enraged about the invitations from the schools that the Challenge Team UK received, which are sent by the staffs of the school without the agreements of the students and their parents.

The Challenge Team UK

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