2025 Shortlist | For Baby’s Sake Trust
For Baby’s Sake Trust
Shortlist – People in Governance
About the Charity
The For Baby’s Sake Trust is an award-winning charity delivering a pioneering, trauma-informed approach to breaking the cycle of domestic abuse. Its flagship programme, For Baby’s Sake, supports both parents in families where domestic abuse is present, helping them to build safer, healthier futures for their children and themselves. As well as offering direct therapeutic support, the charity drives systemic change by influencing policy, building the evidence base, and championing trauma-informed, whole-family approaches across sectors.
With innovative new programmes like For Our Future for care-experienced young people, the Trust is expanding its reach while remaining rooted in lived experience and evidence-based practice.
Charity number: 1126459 | ForBabysSake.org.uk
England – South East | 26-100 paid staff
What the Board Achieved
Effective governance has been central to the Trust’s evolution from founder-led charity to a maturing organisation with national reach. When founder Stelio Stefanou stepped down as chair in 2022, the board carefully managed the transition, appointing a new chair and a new CEO with strong experience in strategic leadership and fundraising. This shift was guided by a clear vision of sustainability, enabling the charity to grow its team, launch a fourth practice site, and refine its long-term goals through a Vision Traction Organiser.
The board actively harnesses the skills and lived experience of its members to guide decision-making. Trustees have used their expertise in defining the charity’s approach towards safeguarding, risk, technology, and policy, while shaping the development of new systems and strategies. A trauma-informed, values-led culture supports openness and shared learning, with several trustees contributing insights from personal experience. The recent launch of a Parent Advisory Group has further embedded co-production at board level.
Structures have been developed to support deep collaboration. The board meets quarterly with engagement from a wide range of staff, while all-team away days and cross-cutting working groups bring trustees, employees, and parent advisors together. These initiatives ensure the charity’s governance model is inclusive, informed, and responsive—enabling thoughtful risk management and confident strategic direction, even in sensitive situations such as working with the media to share the Trust’s work with a wider audience.
What Inspired the Judges
Judges were inspired by the Trust’s commitment to innovative, inclusive and trauma informed governance. Their decision to include service users on the board ensures lived experience directly shapes decision-making while their strategic use of board members’ skills on specific projects further strengthens their governance model. Their proactive approach to safeguarding, including commissioning an external safeguarding unit demonstrates a deep commitment to best practice and continuous improvement.
The organisation’s ability to navigate leadership transitions smoothly stood out, with the founder stepping back in a way that maintained momentum and upheld strong governance. Their co-production ethos is evident in their work with parent advisory groups, their collaborative approach to developing a theory of change alongside staff, and their thoughtful consideration of EDI targets at board level.
The Trust stood out for its combination of strategic rigour and emotional intelligence—demonstrating that strong governance can be both structured and empathetic. Its values-led leadership, attention to equity, and ability to make courageous decisions in pursuit of long-term impact make this a powerful example of people-centred governance in action.
