Please comment paragraph by paragraph on the Blog version of this document, on the menu above at Social Co-op Grassroots
1. We will not be able to meet the challenges and respond to the increase in social care needs with a single, uniform approach. Wales Progressive and Newport Co-operators believe that social care co-operatives are an important part of the mix because the co-operative model champions ethical values and principles as well as economic success through self-reliance. Responses to the challenges will depend on local needs and circumstances, including the level and quality of local authority and other provision.
2. The provision of social care service co-operatives have developed over the past 35 years since they were first established in Italy. This model empowers services users, their families, paid staff and volunteers to participate in the design and delivery of services best suited to them. This is what distinguishes co-operatives from other social enterprises such as mutuals.
3. Most co-operative models also encourage active involvement of local community interests. They attract low cost communal forms of capital, and active involvement with statutory planners and service providers. A Social co-op should not be regarded as an alternative to properly funded public services, but rather as complementary and additional to them. They are a means of testing how those services are conceived, designed and delivered.
4. The concept of co-operative principles we have promoted over the last few years could be applied beneficially to the provision of social care. The co-operative movement and statutory authorities have largely accepted our model. The challenge now is twofold. First, to translate that theory into practice and show that multi-stakeholder social care co-operatives are a viable alternative in Wales. Second, to improve wellbeing and the quality of services to our ageing population.
Next Steps
5. Last summer a small steering group was brought together to take these issues forward and issued a draft consultation document. This however had a limited response. Possibly because we did not make it sufficiently clear that it was not our intention to direct developments from the centre.
THIS paper considers how to take this matter forward in developing a social care co-operative movement in Wales and is the approach being adopted in Newport.
6. We need to encourage groups of people to identify needs and ways of addressing them using co-operative principles of self help organisation. This is not about direction from the centre. Deciding what outside support is needed from those with relevant knowledge, experience and expertise is a matter for the local groups themselves to determine.
7. The value of Co-operative businesses has evolved over 160 years as a worldwide movement. A pre-condition for social co-operatives are its members. Leadership must be driven by the grassroots if they are to achieve their potential.
8. Without grassroots initiatives there is no raw material to build upon. One of the main challenges is how we encourage, enable and support the emergence of local social co-operative groups. The use of community development methods can help participants to respond to any external support needs, which they themselves identify - possibly by means of a ‘federal group’that they themselves would elect. This kind of approach will hopefully lead to authentic, sustainable developments that will encourage other groups to participate.
9. We also need to consider how social care co-operatives might communicate with each other and with the wider co-operative movement and to what extent we can assist this process. The Global Media Hub arm of the Co-operative Press can help with this.
10. We can also perhaps learn from the experience of the Scottish Co-production Network. This is an informal and inclusive, "free and open to anyone who is interested in co-production in Scotland". This has a wide remit, but a wider forum involving housing, credit unions, food, food retail, financial institutions, community pharmacy, funeral care, education and time-banking etc might prove very useful. It would enable us to build effective links and a shared sense of purpose that a successful 2012 UN Year of Co-operatives should lead to a 2021 Co-operative Decade.
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