About Vibrant Health Advocates – Hermes

Vibrant Health Advocates – Hermes is a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation registered in Scotland, governed by a volunteer trustee board and run day to day by a small, dedicated team of health advocates and community workers. We are based in Forres — a market town of around 10,000 people in Moray — and we have been quietly, consistently supporting the families who live here for well over a decade.

Our name reflects our roots: Hermes, in the local tradition, speaks to connection, communication, and the passing of knowledge between people. That is precisely what we do.

We work with families from pregnancy through to a child's fifth birthday, though many families stay connected with us well beyond that. Our approach is grounded in the most current public health guidance from Public Health Scotland and informed by the principles of the Scottish Government's Getting It Right for Every Child framework.

Vibrant Health Advocates – Hermes grew out of a recognised gap that a small group of parents, health visitors, and community volunteers identified in Forres in the early 2010s. Families in this part of Moray had access to NHS services, but there was very little in between a health visitor appointment and nothing at all — no informal space to ask questions, no peer group for new parents, and almost no community-led resource focused specifically on children's early health.

A founding group came together, applied for initial funding through the Moray Council Third Sector Fund, and ran their first session in a church hall on Tolbooth Street with twelve families and two borrowed folding tables.

From that modest beginning, the organisation incorporated as a SCIO, secured longer-term funding, and grew steadily — always led by what local families actually needed rather than by what was easiest to deliver. Today we are a recognised part of the Forres community landscape, trusted by health visitors, midwives, and GPs who refer families to us, and valued by the hundreds of parents who have sat in our circles over the years.

We have never lost sight of why we started: the belief that a well-supported parent raises a healthier child, and that no family in Moray should have to figure it out alone.