Our Journey

Cartrefi was established as a not-for-profit charity in 1989 by a group of parents and activists.


They wanted to ensure that people with learning disabilities living in rural Wales and the Valleys had the opportunity to live in their local community with the highest quality of support.

They also wanted to create a Wales-based agency that understood and engaged with Wales’ distinctive communities and institutions.

At the time, the priority was to enable people to escape from large institutions and be supported to live nearer their roots. The accommodation was usually provided by housing associations, whilst Cartrefi provided the support to help people live a good life in a homely environment.

The vision of our founders is still visible in our work today.

We still work mainly in rural Wales and the Valleys, mainly with people with learning disabilities, and we mainly provide support for people living as supported tenants of housing associations.

But we haven’t stopped still. Our commitment to quality has meant that we have become cutting edge exponents of Active Support, Positive Behavioural Support, and Autism Sensitive Support. We provide flexible, sessional support for people with or without a learning disability, and we are increasingly proud of our innovative work with older people. And in 2016, we became a co-operative, enabling the people we support, employees and community supporters to become co-producers of our future. We are at the start of a whole new exciting era.