Co-producing a Quality Standards Framework for Meeting Centres: ensuring consistency while protecting what makes each centre unique
Parallel 5
18 November, 2026 2:10 – 3:20 pmMini Presentations: Group 2
Andy Wynd
Facilitator
Meeting Centres Scotland
Summary
Background
Meeting Centres Scotland (MCS) supports a national network of community-based social clubs for people living with mild to moderate dementia and their families, grounded in the Adjusting to Change Model. As the network has grown to approximately 47 centres across 17 local authority areas, the need for a shared understanding of quality has become pressing. Centres are locally led and community rooted, meaning any quality framework must balance accountability and consistency with the flexibility that makes each centre distinctive. With support from IMPACT (Improving Adult Care Together), MCS undertook a Facilitator project to co-produce a Quality Standards Framework with the people who attend, support and deliver Meeting Centres.
Aims
To develop a co-produced framework of quality standards and indicators that reflects what matters most to people living with dementia, family members, staff and volunteers, while remaining practical and measurable across a diverse network.
Methods
An evidence review examined methodological approaches to co-producing quality standards in the dementia care and support context, identifying limited but consistent evidence that involving people with lived experience produces more meaningful and relevant standards. Building on these findings, a co-production survey gathered the perspectives of people attending Meeting Centres, family members, staff and volunteers on what quality means in practice. Responses highlighted that quality is experienced through welcome, relationships, choice, kindness and belonging rather than through activities alone. These findings are now informing the development of draft standards and indicators through further co-production activity.
Emerging findings
Early co-production work suggests that the qualities people value most in Meeting Centres are relational and atmospheric rather than procedural. The framework is being developed in person-first language, written from the perspective of someone attending a Meeting Centre or caring for someone who does.
Implications
The project offers a replicable model for how community-led dementia support networks can develop quality assurance processes that are grounded in lived experience and compatible with funder expectations, without eroding the local character that makes centres effective.