Peer Support Projects:
The core function of Ceartas is to provide Independent Advocacy support to adults in East Dunbartonshire who fall within our target groups.
For some of our target audience, however, we feel that it is not good enough to sit back and wait for them to contact us: we would rather have regular contact with them so that they remember that Advocacy is available to them, and so that we can start early interventions when action is required. This is particularly relevant for people living with dementia.
Peer support is a model where mutual support is offered by people with the same lived experience; where one person with a diagnosis can share experiences with other people with a diagnosis, and where one carer can share experiences with other carers. Professionals can organise and facilitate the setting, but the actual support is delivered by peers.
This is the model that Ceartas uses in our De Cafés and other peer support groups that we facilitate, and it sits very comfortably alongside the models of Collective Advocacy and Routes Into Independent Advocacy that Ceartas promotes.

With the addition of some generous support from the Life Changes Trust, Ceartas is now able to facilitate four De Cafés across East Dunbartonshire, as well as other short-term projects. For more information about De Cafés, see the De Café page .
As well as these Café’s we also facilitate a number of other Peer Support projects: ABI Café, A Bite & A Blether, Songs From Here, Walking Football and Walk ‘n’ Roll.