About us

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Background and History

Stepping Stones for Families is a registered charity and company limited by guarantee in Scotland.

For over 21 years the organisation has created a distinctive service that is both responsive to the need of children and parents and is respected by the community.

Our community development activities create a real sense of hope and empowerment within local people and our work reaches out to over 1000 families each year in our centres and in the family home. Our social enterprise activity creates employment for local people, opens up the possibility for local people, opens up possibilities for people to enter training and employment and our childcare and childminding development programmes assist local people to set up their own childcare businesses. All of this supports local economic development.

The communities in which we currently work are located across the north of Glasgow, from Drumchapel in the west to Easterhouse in the east, and in South Ayrshire our services cover both urban and rural communities throughout the entire area.

Continuous improvement underlines all of our work and we strive to achieve and maintain the highest ratings in our Care Commission inspections. We consistently receive ratings of ‘Very good’ and ‘Excellent’ across all of our services.

We have a highly skilled workforce recruited through our ‘safer recruitment’ procedures. We employ 110 people in full time, part time and sessional posts and our Future Jobs Fund programme supports unemployed young adults into work. There are also many volunteers who support our work in the rural and urban communities.

Each year we face the challenge of securing funds which will allow us to continue our work with vulnerable families. So we greatly appreciate the funding we receive from Glasgow City Council, South Ayrshire Council and the various different trust funds who support our work. Our current annual income is approximately £2m per year.

The organisation is governed by a board of Directors appointed by the membership at the Annual General Meeting. Our board recruitment procedures ensure that we have the necessary skills set to effectively manage the organisation.

We believe that our work makes a difference and our service users past and present testify to that every year in our self evaluation feedback. Our recent publication ‘Stepping Stones Stories’ contains stories from parents who have accessed our services over the past 21 years.