£50,000 start-up funding for dementia meeting centres announced

Age Scotland and About Dementia have launched a new round of funding worth £50,000 for organisations across Scotland looking to develop Meeting Centres for people affected by dementia.

A Meeting Centre is a local resource operating out of ordinary community buildings, offering ongoing warm and friendly expert support to people and families affected by dementia. At their heart is a social club where people meet to have fun, talk to others and get help that focuses on individual needs.

The charity’s ‘Meeting Centres Seedcorn Fund’ is offering five awards of £10,000 for community groups and organisations who would like to open a local Meeting Centre. Applicants to this fund must be able to show a commitment to developing this in their local community within one year.

About Dementia and Age Scotland are offering this funding as part of a wider £1 million investment by the Scottish Government to support the growth of Dementia Friendly Communities and Meeting Centres across Scotland.

The fund criteria and application process have been co-produced by the About Dementia team and a panel of people living with dementia and unpaid carers. These individuals have played a critical role in developing the fund and will be continually involved in the ongoing assessment and decision-making process.

Graham Galloway, CEO of Kirrie Connections and facilitator of the Scottish Meeting Centres Network, said:

"It's fantastic to see the launch of this new round of funding to support the growth of Meeting Centres across Scotland. The communities that already have Meeting Centres in place see every day the impact they have on the lives of families affected by dementia.  This seed fund will allow five new organisations to take the first step in developing their own centres to offer that same support to their local communities."

Kainde Manji, Head of Dementia at Age Scotland, said:

“This fund recognises the critically important role that Meeting Centres can play in providing support to people living with dementia in the period following a diagnosis. Meeting Centres are backed by a robust international evidence base and are already demonstrating their impact across Scotland. We hope this funding will enable a further five new Meeting Centres to open providing much needed hyper localised community-based support to people living with dementia and unpaid carers.”

Applications will close at 12:00pm on Friday 2nd December 2022. For more information on the fund, requirements and how to apply, please visit age.scot/meetingcentresfund

Applicants should demonstrate that their proposed activities will:

Be committed to working towards the ‘thirds’ model with a governance structure including a third people living with dementia, a third family carers, and a third professionals and community members.
Be committed to participating in and contributing to communities of learning and practice, e.g., the Meeting Centres Network in Scotland and UK.
Be committed to following the steps to set up a Meeting Centre by the University of Worcester.
Complete the funded work within a 12-month timescale from February 2023 with the award being fully spent by 28 February 2024.
Submit six-monthly finance and progress reports to About Dementia
Follow communications guidance from Age Scotland / About Dementia around branded materials and promotion.

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Notes to editors

About Dementia are working in partnership with the Scottish Government to deliver £1 million funding to support Dementia Friendly Communities and Meeting Centres across Scotland between 2022 and 2023. The Meeting Centres strand of funding has been set up to facilitate the development of a national network of Meeting Centres across Scotland. The aims of this network are to:

encourage the meaningful involvement of people living with dementia and family members
organise in person meetings of the network, in order to share learning and best practice
develop a community of learning and practice to build capacity of Meeting Centre managers and prospective managers
provide small grants funding and the provision of developmental support to new Meeting Centres in other parts of Scotland (the "Meeting Centres Seedcorn Fund")
disseminate valuation evidence and learning through international knowledge exchange.

More information on Meeting Centres can be found here and the University of Worcester’s steps to setting up a Meeting Centre can be found here.