About Us

Our Origin

Established in West Bridgend in 1976, Dumbarton Area Council on Alcohol – better known as DACA – has been supporting people from our local community for the last 50 years.

The organisation grew out of the ‘Quality of Life’ experiment, run in the old Dumbarton District Council area in 1975 which is where our name came from. We were founded by a small group of local volunteers, and although we’ve grown into a highly specialist and professional agency, we’ve still retained our local culture and our commitment to volunteerism.

In 1996 we opened a second office in Clydebank, and DACA began operating right across the West Dunbartonshire geography.

Our Evolution – DACA Connections

In 2026, significant changes to the local authority’s commissioning arrangements resulted in DACA losing the contract to deliver West Dunbartonshire’s community alcohol service. Rather than marking an ending, this change created an important opportunity for DACA to widen access to our high-quality counselling support, and DACA Connections was born.

DACA Connections was created in response to a growing need within our communities for accessible, early-intervention counselling, coaching and emotional wellbeing support.

Across West Dunbartonshire, many people are feeling stressed, isolated, and overwhelmed and they’re using unhealthy or unhelpful coping mechanisms to get through the day. Yet they face lengthy waits for support, and sometimes they can’t access in-person support at all. In a landscape where statutory services understandably focus on those individuals with the most acute and complex needs, many others are left to self-manage.

DACA Connections aims to bridge that gap by providing timely access to high-quality, person-centred counselling and coaching for people who may not yet be in acute crisis, but who are nevertheless struggling and in need of support.

We believe early support matters. With the right therapeutic relationship and a safe space to talk, many people can achieve meaningful and lasting positive change through relatively short-term interventions before difficulties escalate further.

Our goal is simple: to help people access support earlier, improve wellbeing, strengthen resilience and remain connected to their communities.