Nominee Summary
The Usual Place operates as a popular community café from a former church building in Dumfries and opened in July 2015. This social enterprise provides training, education and employability skills for young people with additional support needs. Over 10 years, we have supported over 2000 young people. It is not just a team, it’s a growing community of people who all contribute to transforming lives, understanding lived experience, creating a social hub, inclusive workplaces and inspiring others. We have partnered with D &G College to deliver 4 accessible SVQ’s, a range of other qualifications including Food Safety and First Aid.
Overcoming Challenges
Despite our national reputation and the overwhelming evidence of our success, we face an undeniable financial reality: we will never be able to make enough cups of tea to cover all our costs. While our café, venue hire, and events serve 3K customers per month and generate around £250K pa, rising costs, including a £25K increase in National Insurance and £26K in Real Living Wage costs from April, alongside inflation in the costs of produce and utilities, are creating financial pressures we cannot ignore. Our limited access to statutory funding and reliance on a complex web of over 12 funders make long-term financial stability increasingly challenging. The Trustees have made the difficult decision to restructure our staffing and focus on our core charitable aims. This means:
- Prioritising our core work.
- Halting wider projects.
- Continuing our commitment to autistic young people.
- Strengthening our newly developed Employer-Ability Mentorship programme - with D&G facing one of Scotland’s largest Disability Employment Gaps, this work is more important than ever.
- Scaling back additional enterprises,
Reducing office space related to our wider projects.
We are heartbroken to be entering a redundancy process, which will see our team of 31 wonderful and dedicated staff reduce by 6 FTE posts. John Swinney visited in April promising support We know these challenges are significant, but we also know that with the strength of our staff, our partners, funders, volunteers, supporters, café customers, and our community behind us, we will overcome them.
Supporting the community
The Usual Place celebrates its 10th Anniversary in June 2025 and has been at the heart of our community in D&G for a decade: transforming lives and growing stronger. Built in response to the voices of young people who would otherwise be marginalised and unseen, we have expanded to meet their needs – providing opportunities where none existed, replacing invisibility with empowerment, and enabling young people to build a life, not just receive a costly, and often, inadequate service. Without our support, many of the thousands of young people who we have worked with would face a future reliant on institutional care. But instead, they are thriving, contributing and shaping a more inclusive society for us all. Our work is not just about individuals – it is about cultural and attitudinal change, challenging perceptions and influencing decision-makers to create a more inclusive future for all young people with additional support needs. Over 10 years, we have supported over two thousand young people, many of whom would have otherwise been marginalised and unseen. Our motto is ‘creating a life, not a service,’ and through our strengths-based, needs-led approach, they have gone on to be active, engaged contributors to their communities, shaping a more inclusive society for all of us. See more on YouTube
Ethical/environmental standards
Our Core Values
- Everyone is of Equal Worth
- Everyone Can Contribute to the Community
- Everyone Should Be Treated with Dignity and Respect
- Our mission is to create a supportive, inclusive environment where young people with additional support needs can thrive and become active citizens and employees in the wider world.
- Through volunteering and training under the guidance of experienced mentors, young people develop personal confidence, vocational skills, earn qualifications, and can work toward meaningful employment while building confidence and independence. Whether they wish to develop transferable skills for life or aim for a career in hospitality or other areas of work, our Early Enablement team and our Cafe Mentors are here to help them succeed.
- We work with businesses and organisations across D&G through our Autism Awareness Training courses, Good Connections for Autistic Adults and Employer-ability programmes. We are a Disability Confident Leader - 70% of our staff force has a disability. Disability Confident is creating a movement of change, encouraging employers to think differently about disability and take action to improve how they recruit, retain and develop disabled people. Being Disability Confident is a unique opportunity to lead the way in your community. It can help all your people fulfil their potential and contribute fully to your team’s success.
