About us
Our vision is Equality, Wellbeing and Belonging for all. We are rooted in the women's health movement of the 1960s and this makes us the oldest community health project in Scotland.
In March 2021 we launched our Community Wellbeing Programme in response to the compounding effects of the global pandemic on local people already affected by health inequalities. Now these people and their families are severely affected by the cost of living crisis. The New Economics Foundation’s Five Ways to Wellbeing, underpins and drives our work, helping identify ways we can rebuild individual and community capacity. The Five Ways are key actions to improve wellbeing: connect with people, be active, take notice, keep learning and give back.
We operate with a small team of nine workers and around 30 volunteers using a matrix style of working based in a purpose built community space.
We really enjoy partnership working and many of our projects are collaborations. This ensures we continue to learn and develop to the benefit local people and their families. This way of working can empower people to take control of their own health and avoids doing things to people, not with them.
Our work streams are focused on supporting the groups of people who can be particularly vulnerable or might be labelled "hard to reach". We support women and their families through our Women Supporting Women programme, encourage improved mental health by getting outside more often with others in our Taking Steps to Better Health project, our Together We are Stronger supports local men living alone, often with long term conditions, our Living in Harmony theme supports a vibrant Chat Cafe and Language Exchange for local women, particularly migrant experienced women and our community link workers are based in local medical centres supporting medical professionals with developing social prescribing. Food plays a key role in all our groups, events and partnerships as it is the gateway to wellbeing, connections and contributions.
We spend a lot of time outside in the local area's Wild Places and Open Spaces as being outdoors more often is good for both mental and physical health and people say they find it easier to join in for the first time when meeting outdoors.
