The Cottage Family Centre

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The Cottage Family Centre was established in 1987. The focus of the work at the Centre is to provide a range of support to those families and individuals within family units who are vulnerable to social exclusion as a result of factors such as poverty, unemployment, poor housing, relationship breakdown, drug and alcohol problems and health related issues.

Following significant efforts in fund raising, the Cottage completed the construction of a purpose built Centre and moved there in 2005.

The Cottage Family Centre is located in the Templehall area of West Kirkcaldy. The Templehall area appears in the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) 2006 as an area which is in the top 5% most deprived areas in Scotland for overall multiple deprivation.

From the SIMD findings, the Templehall area, along with other surrounding areas, is reported as:

  • being in the top 15% of data zones (an area of around 700 – 1000 population) with high levels of working age adults with no qualifications;
  • having a high percentage of children among the population;
  • having a significantly higher percentage of single parent households compared with the national average; and,
  • having weekly household income significantly lower than the national average; and,
  • having a much higher percentage of people who are unemployed and people in receipt of key benefits and credits compared with the national average.

In order to deliver a holistic but focused service, the Cottage delivers a range of services to families.

The main services funded by Fife Council include:

  1. Adult Groupwork
  2. Family Services
  3. Children’s Services

However, in addition to these, as stated above, the Cottage operates a range of other initiatives and activities which complement and support their main business functions which are funded separately. These include:

  1. Children’s Therapeutic/Counselling Service
  2. The Cottage Club (After School Service)
  3. Dad’s Group (Environmental/ Horticultural Project)
  4. Baby Cafe Group
  5. Accommodation/ facilities for supervised contact for parents separated from their children (managed by social work staff)
  6. Accommodation/ facilities for Family Contact (formal court access arrangements – managed by Relationship Scotland)
  7. Accommodation/ facilities for ante-natal clinic (drop-in clinic managed by NHS staff)