Meeting Centres Scotland secure new funding to maintain and expand services
Meeting Centres Scotland has secured £250,000 in funding from the Scottish Government’s Dementia Resilient Communities Fund to maintain and expand their work.
Meeting Centres are community-based, relationship-led social clubs that combine shared activities and peer connection with practical support, information and signposting. They are shaped by their members, with people living with dementia and care partners involved in decisions about what each centre does.
The new funding will be used to:
- Provide development support to the existing national network of around 35 Meeting Centres, helping them to strengthen their governance, improve quality and sustain delivery.
- Support the investment made into ten new centres to ensure they can move from start-ups to established centres.
- Enable Meeting Centres to expand into remote rural and island communities, areas of deprivation, and communities where ethnic minority people living with dementia and their families face additional barriers to culturally appropriate support.
Graham Galloway, CEO of Meeting Centres Scotland, says:
“This funding means we can keep doing the practical, unglamorous work that holds the network together, helping centres stay open, improve over time, and reach communities that don’t yet have anything like this. We know what Meeting Centres do for people. Our members and care partners consistently tell us that this is where they feel connected, understood, and less alone. The job now is to make sure that support is available in the places where it’s needed most, and that it’s done well.”
Find out more about Meeting Centres Scotland here: https://www.meetingcentres.scot