Sense Scotland was formalised as a charity in 1985. It grew quickly, from its beginnings as a small group of families pressing for services for their children, who were affected by deafblindness, many because of maternal rubella.

Since then, the organisation has gone on to successfully support hundreds of disabled people and their families, in thousands of projects and services, throughout Scotland.

Timeline 

• 1985 – Sense Scotland formalised as a charity.
• 1986 – First office and charity shop open in Glasgow.
• 1987 – First group of disabled people move into our service in Glasgow, the first service for deafblind adults in Scotland.
• 1991 – HRH, The Princess Royal, opens our Family Resource Centre.
• 1993-1998 – Services open in Glasgow, Fife, Dundee, Lanarkshire and Ayrshire.
• 1998 – Arts programme introduced.
• 2001-2003 – Services start in Highland, Aberdeenshire and Aberdeen.
• 2003 – Healthy Living for Deafblind people project starts.
• 2008 – HRH, The Princess Royal, officially opens TouchBase Glasgow.
• 2010 – New respite service for children opens in Argyll & Bute.
• 2012 – Sense Scotland launch Partners in Communication, an inclusive communication programme.
• 2013 – The Early Years project is launched to help families with children aged up to eight-years-old.
• 2016 – TouchBase Lanarkshire is officially opened by HRH, The Princess Royal.
• 2017 – Mrs Chris Weir, Trustee of the Weir Charitable Trust, officially opens TouchBase Ayrshire in Ardrossan.
• 2018 – The Scottish Government’s Malawi Development Fund awards £1.2m to Sense Scotland to continue the organisation’s life-changing work in Africa.
• 2020 – Sense Scotland celebrates 35 years.
• 2022 – Angela Bonomy appointed CEO.
• 2022 – RNIB Visual Impairment and Learning Disability services transferred to Sense Scotland.