About Vibrant Health Advocates - Helix
A Fort William-based SCIO filling a gap that had long been visible to anyone paying attention.
A Fort William-based SCIO filling a gap that had long been visible to anyone paying attention.
Vibrant Health Advocates - Helix was established to address a gap that had long been visible to anyone paying attention to Fort William’s seasonal workforce. Each spring, thousands of workers arrive in Lochaber to staff the outdoor-tourism economy — leading guided mountain routes, managing activity centres, cooking, cleaning, driving, instructing. They come from across the UK, from Europe, from further afield.
Many are young adults managing their health for the first time without family support nearby. Many work irregular hours that make a standard 9-to-5 GP appointment effectively impossible to attend. Many move on before completing NHS registration. The result was a workforce quietly going without health information and support that most settled residents take entirely for granted.
We are a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation, governed by a board of trustees with backgrounds in public health, outdoor tourism, and community development across the Highlands. Our health advocates are trained to provide factual, evidence-based health information — not clinical diagnosis or treatment, but the kind of clear, accessible guidance that helps someone understand a prescription they have been given, decide whether a symptom needs urgent attention, access sexual health services, or talk honestly through the pressures of seasonal work and itinerant living.
Our team, Fort William HQ
We maintain current referral pathways to NHS Highland, local pharmacy services, mental health charities, and specialist organisations, so that when someone needs more than information, we know exactly where to send them.
Our drop-in space on Fort William High Street is open three days a week, with early morning and evening slots specifically designed for workers who cannot leave a kitchen or a guiding group mid-shift. We also run scheduled outreach at employer premises — hotels, hostels, outdoor activity centres — bringing the conversation directly into the workplace. Everything we do is free to the worker. We are funded through charitable grants, local authority partnerships, and employer contributions from businesses across Lochaber who understand that a healthier seasonal workforce is better for the whole town.
Vibrant Health Advocates - Helix began because of a conversation that happened too often. A Fort William GP and a manager at a local outdoor activity centre kept noticing the same pattern: seasonal workers presenting at A&E with issues that could have been resolved weeks earlier, or quietly managing untreated conditions through a full season because they did not know how to access care without a registered GP. Workers said they felt like they fell through the cracks — not ill enough for emergency services, not settled enough to navigate primary care. In 2019, a small group of local health and tourism professionals came together to ask whether a dedicated service could bridge that gap.
The answer was Vibrant Health Advocates - Helix. The name carries two meanings: the helix as a universal symbol of health and biological life, and the spiralling shape of a path ascending a mountain — progress that returns to familiar terrain each time with greater experience and confidence. We began with a pilot running out of a local community centre, one afternoon a week, serving forty-three workers in our first season.
We have grown steadily since, formalising as a SCIO, securing our own High Street premises, training a team of advocates, and building relationships with most of the major tourism employers in Lochaber. The work has never been glamorous. It has always been necessary.
Outreach in Lochaber, 2023
Vibrant Health Advocates - Helix exists to ensure that every seasonal and tourism worker in Fort William and Lochaber has access to free, confidential, flexible health information — regardless of their registration status, working hours, nationality, or length of stay. We believe that transient employment should never mean transient access to health support, and that the people who power one of Scotland’s most important outdoor-tourism economies deserve the same quality of health information available to any long-term resident. We pursue this mission through direct drop-in provision, workplace outreach, and the ongoing training of health advocates who understand the specific pressures of seasonal and hospitality work in a remote Highland setting.
Vibrant Health Advocates - Helix is governed by a voluntary board of trustees who bring together expertise in public health, Highland tourism, community finance, and third-sector governance. Day-to-day delivery is led by our service coordinator and a small team of trained health advocates, supported by a wider network of volunteers with backgrounds in nursing, social work, and outdoor education. Our board meets quarterly to review outcomes, finances, and strategic direction — and every trustee has a direct personal connection either to the health sector or to the seasonal-work community that makes this charity necessary.
Chair
Treasurer
Trustee
Whether you’re a worker, an employer, a funder, or a potential volunteer — we would genuinely love to hear from you.