Support Services
ACE provides a number of services supporting our local community in health, training, money issues, access to food, and supporting families, based at the Dusty Forge and at other community locations.
ACE builds stronger communities by working with local people to:
- improve health & wellbeing
- support people in crisis
- help vulnerable community members take action to overcome challenges
Advice and Support
ACE Community Support provides information and support sessions to help with money and benefits issues. ACE staff and volunteers can provide immediate practical help for those in difficulty, and we also work to find long term solutions to underlying problems. We provide help with:
- managing energy and food costs
- problems with benefits
- grants for essential household items
- accessing other advice services (e.g. debt advice)
All advice and support is free, confidential and impartial. No appointment needed for weekly drop in service.
Your Local Pantry -
Dusty Forge
Your Local Pantry is a network of community food stores run by volunteers for the benefit of their local communities. It is a membership scheme aimed at helping make your money go further by reducing food shopping bills (members can save over £600 each year).
We have set up a new Your Local Pantry Community Shop at the Dusty Forge centre https://www.yourlocalpantry.co.uk/dustyforge/
We are the first Your Local Pantry in Wales, providing high quality affordable food to a growing membership of local people. We have a great team of enthusiastic volunteers who have got stuck in to managing the food deliveries and helping the first members use the Pantry.
If you would like to join our membership and find out more about the Pantry, visit us at the Dusty Forge centre or contact Stacie or Sam at 02920003132.
ACE Community Shop
The ACE Community Shop opened in 2016 at the Dusty Forge centre and is run by a team of dedicated volunteers. The shop provides clothing, household items and food. Donations are welcome, either cash or donated items, as these keep our shop running. The Community Shop now serves around 100 people a week and we are getting great feedback from the community –
“Great for my children who go through clothes and shoes like no tomorrow and I cannot afford full price in a shop.”
“The service and people are awesome. They make people feel great and it’s nice to be appreciated.”
“Friendly staff, make me and my daughter feel very welcome and less self-conscious, will definitely be back.”
If you have a donation of clothing, small household items, please drop if off at the Community Shop (sorry, we are unable to make pick ups).
Opening times are 10 am – 4 pm, Monday – Thursday.
Working Well
The Working Well project is supported by the National Lottery Helping Working Families Programme. Through this project we are working with local families to:
- understand more about the challenges of juggling work and family life,
- provide an opportunity to earn Time Credits
- work with local people to make positive changes for our community
If you want to get involved, or know someone who might, then please contact Sam Froud-Powell on 02920003132.
Health & Wellbeing
ACE currently delivers two contracts for Cardiff and Vale University Health Board: –
Guided Self-Help and Social Prescribing (previously Tier 0) – providing 1:1 guided self-help for anyone referred by their GP and open-access courses providing self-help information for managing anxiety and depression.
Access to Wellbeing Support – providing 1:1 wellbeing support and information for anyone registered with a GP in South West Cardiff and supporting the development of community-led wellbeing activities.
ACE Mental Health Team
ACE is funded by Cardiff and The Vale University Health Board to deliver the Guided Self-Help and Social Prescribing service. It is available to anyone over the age of 18 and is confidential, free and easy to access.
Based on Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), the Guided Self-Help approach uses self-help materials selected exclusively for you. It looks at how you see your problems and manage them by changing the way you think and behave.
If you’re experiencing mild to moderate anxiety or depression, stress or insomnia, Guided Self-Help could make a positive difference to how you feel. A Primary Mental Health Worker will help you to make positive changes in your life over four weekly sessions, guiding you through self-help materials in the form of workbooks, and you will be supported to work through these in between sessions.
You can be referred by your GP to our Guided Self-Help Service, or self-refer by calling Tel 029 2000 3132.
Guided Self-Help and Social Prescribing is an NHS Cardiff and the Vale service which ACE delivers in the East, West, South West and North of Cardiff. Positive outcomes reported by participants include improvements in; managing their mental health, physical health & self-care, social networks, identity & self-esteem, and trust & hope for the future
Stress Control & ACT-ion for Living courses
Stepiau is a service developed by the Primary Mental Health Support Service (PMHSS) for Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan, primarily provides accessible self-help resources and links to local services as a first step to developing mental wellbeing. Stepiau run Stress Control & ACT-ion for Living.
Stress Control
This course has been designed to help people learn to control their stress or anxiety better. You will learn new stress control tools and as the course goes on, how to put these together. At the end of the course, you will have a tool kit that you will be able to put into practice.
september, 2023
ACT-ion for Living
Struggling to get rid of an emotional problem can seem to make it worse. Putting your life on hold waiting for the problem to go away is not good. The answer may be to learn to accept your emotional problems using an approach called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.
september, 2023
'Yourspace' - Wellbeing Support
Access to Wellbeing Support
Yourspace is a wellbeing service open to anyone registered with a GP in South West Cardiff (Ely, Caerau, Canton and Riverside). Our Wellbeing Connectors can work with you to help you decide on things you would like to do to improve your wellbeing and help you to access local groups and services, meet other people and join in with local volunteering projects (focussed around Canton, Riverside, Ely and Caerau).
We also have a community development service which works with local people to develop new ways to help you stay well, by talking about what’s missing and working with the community to develop new services and activities. The service is currently developing regular walking groups, a cycling club and a regular coffee morning in the Dusty Forge garden.
To self-refer or to find out more, call the Dusty Forge on 02920 003132 and ask for the Yourspace team.
Yourspace is part of the South West Cardiff Primary Care Cluster’s Transformation Project, which involves health, wellbeing and support services in South West Cardiff working together in new ways to improve health and wellbeing.
