Our Work
Meeting people where they are.
Four programmes. Every language. Every family.
The core of our work is straightforward: we take health information that exists — good NHS guidance, public health evidence, preventive care advice — and we make it genuinely accessible to communities for whom the standard channels do not work. That means translating not just language but framing. A leaflet about Type 2 diabetes prevention that references portion sizes in terms of a typical British meal plan will not land in a household where every meal is prepared from scratch to a different culinary tradition. A mental health information sheet that assumes familiarity with CBT and NICE guidelines will not connect with someone whose understanding of emotional distress is rooted in a different cultural vocabulary. We do the work of bridging that gap — carefully, specifically, in collaboration with the people we serve.
Beyond information delivery, we provide individual advocacy support that accompanies families through the moments when the health system feels most opaque: the hospital letter with unfamiliar terminology, the outpatient appointment where the clinical team and the patient are talking past each other, the mental health referral that arrives as a generic form. Our advocates are not there to speak for people; they are there to ensure that people can speak for themselves — with the knowledge and confidence the system assumes they already have. Every family we support is different, and our advocates are trained to respond to that difference rather than paper over it.
One-to-one NHS navigation support
A structured six-session course that guides participants through the structure, rights and practicalities of using NHS Scotland.
Run in community centres and faith halls across Bearsden and Milngavie, Know Your NHS covers GP registration, understanding prescriptions, accessing urgent care, using NHS 24, and exercising your right to an interpreter. Sessions are delivered in Urdu, Punjabi or Cantonese depending on the cohort, with bilingual written resources participants can take home and share with family members. Each series ends with a Q&A session attended by a local GP or practice manager, giving participants direct access to an NHS voice in a setting that feels safe and familiar.
We train and deploy Community Health Advocates — trusted local volunteers who provide one-to-one support to families navigating health appointments and clinical communications.
Advocates complete a twelve-hour accredited training programme covering health literacy, NHS pathways, safeguarding and professional boundaries. They then offer up to six sessions of personal support to individuals and families: accompanying them to GP or hospital appointments, helping them understand letters and discharge summaries, and signposting to specialist services including mental health, maternity and long-term condition management. In the past year our advocates supported 340 individual families across the area, with 91% reporting that they felt more confident engaging with the NHS as a result.
We deliver evidence-based public health talks addressing conditions with elevated prevalence in South Asian and East Asian communities, including Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and hypertension.
Delivered in partnership with NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde's health improvement team, these sessions translate current clinical guidance into culturally-resonant language — addressing dietary patterns, family history, stress and physical activity in ways that acknowledge the actual lives people lead. We do not lecture; we facilitate. Talks include space for questions, discussion of cultural and religious considerations, and practical take-home action plans. We have delivered over eighty such talks since 2019, reaching more than two thousand adults across East Dunbartonshire.
We create safe, stigma-aware spaces for minority-ethnic communities to explore mental health — grounding the conversation in cultural context before introducing NHS pathways.
Mental health carries particular stigma in some of the communities we work with, and clinical language can close doors before they open. Our Mental Wellbeing Conversations programme begins where people are: with community-facilitated group discussions, led by trained advocates who can speak to the cultural frameworks their peers use to understand distress. From there, we introduce NHS resources — IAPT referrals, GP mental health leads, third-sector counselling — in a way that feels like a natural next step rather than an institutional directive. We currently run monthly sessions in partnership with two local mosques and a Cantonese-speaking community group.
Community hall session, Bearsden
Advocate training cohort