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Workshop at the AGM of Co-operative Councils' Innovation Network

Veronika — Fri, 01 Apr 2022 09:54:57 +0000

Workshop at the AGM of Co-operative Councils' Innovation Network Veronika Fri, 04/01/2022 - 10:54

As affiliate members of Co-operative Councils' Innovation Network we've had an opportunity to contribute during the Annual General Meeting (AGM) in February.
Graham, our Chair, was part of the panel discussing the newly launched report The Cooperative Difference in Care and Danielle, our Registered Manager, lead a workshop sharing our learning and answering queries from participants.

And you can watch the recording of the workshop here!

We have learnt that amazing things are possible: Sharing Care – a brief closing reflection

Veronika — Tue, 30 Nov 2021 12:47:51 +0000

We have learnt that amazing things are possible: Sharing Care – a brief closing reflection Veronika Tue, 11/30/2021 - 12:47

The opportunity to take time to learn, reflect, pause, reach out to others, connect, support and bring it all together has been amazing! Thanks to the funding from Power to Change we have had resources that have allowed us to support the building of the movement in the co-operative and care sectors, learn alongside others and take steps towards realising our vision of great care that works for everyone involved. Here are a few things we have learnt that feel worth sharing…

We’re holding this big slate.
Sue, one of our board team members, our Nominated Individual, and also one of the researchers on Sharing Care has coined this sentence and we have all felt it land. Each of us is in a corner of this complexly shaped thing, sometimes others join to support us holding it as well, and the moment one of us lets go, it gets that bit heavier. We’ve been through all sorts of pinch points – minor crises, and what felt like major crises. We’ve also been through great milestones, achievements, leaps forward. And the team dedication means we are still here and moving forward.

The pit of challenges can feel bottomless.
When we started we thought agreeing on the type of PPE we will use was the hardest thing we did – exploring waste management in our area, finding out innovative new products, debating cost versus environmental impact. It was a very long debate that has helped us set ground rules for our environmentally aware procurement. And then the pandemic arrived. Everything shifted for everyone in many ways. The ripples are felt throughout the societies and systems globally as well as locally. Recruitment. Procurement. Financial pressures.

It’s worth looking at finances again and again...and again.
We held our second AGM on 25th November 2021 and we have been able to tell our members that things are going...we are still here. We are now registered, offering care and support in the community, have a committed team of staff. When we were preparing for the AGM to be able to discuss the current financial situation, we realised that we were on the track, slower, yet moving in the right direction – the hours, days and weeks of looking at, reviewing, throwing out of window, starting from scratch, reviewing again of finances is paying off. The time of so many of our members, experts, supporters, advisors has contributed to this and we are so grateful for all the support. We shall continue to review and reshuffle and again and again.

We are not alone and people want change.
Running learning webinars, holding meetings with community groups, local authorities, being invited to speak at events and conferences has been really affirming. The day to day doing of setting up the care co-op has been hard work and it has been uplifting and re-energising that we have been able to see that others feel really inspired by what we know. We have been speaking with peers from other organisations who have gone through similar struggles, have been able to share our creative solutions to some of the challenges and recognise ourselves that, as pioneers, we are doing what we can to make the care co-op a success.
Most importantly, we hear from people that they want change in care and when we have been able to offer care and support in our community the way we want we have had great feedback!

We don’t have it all worked out it – far from it – we are committed to keeping learning, consulting with our staff and volunteers, getting our members engaged and drawing on the support of the community when we can while offering our learning, wisdom as well.

Great care can make living good lives possible.

Blog tags

Power to Change

sharing learning

Sharing Care

great care is possible

Federation: research, summary, learning, action

Veronika — Thu, 01 Jul 2021 06:46:41 +0000

Federation: research, summary, learning, action Veronika Thu, 07/01/2021 - 07:46

Historically, the co-operative movement has grown through ‘principle 6’ (co-ops supporting each other) - with that in mind, during its start-up phases Co-operative Care Colne Valley (CCCV) has had an eye on its potential futures, and how the innovative model of care might be scaled into other communities for wider benefit and impact through a future federation.

Adrian Ashton has been ‘walking alongside’ CCCV over the last few months, supporting us to explore what a commitment to future growth through a federated model would mean and how we might begin to design our governance and operations now.

The findings of Adrian's work have been presented at the Celebrating Co-operative Care event on 1st July and all of the resources are hosted here too! You can find the presentation from the session here; read the brief summary of the findings and also delve into the full report.

Do let us know what you think - we're hopeful that this piece of work will be useful not just to our development, learning and growth but also to others who are thinking on making their enterprises work through federative co-operation.

Blog tags

Sharing Care May webinar: Fair Care

Veronika — Wed, 09 Jun 2021 06:56:31 +0000

Sharing Care May webinar: Fair Care Veronika Wed, 06/09/2021 - 07:56

Our May webinar offered an opportunity to learn more about, discuss and consider Fair Care - a framework for just and fair care for everyone involved!

Fair Care was developed by Change AGEnts following discussion events and conversations with Older People and partner organisations (within and outside) of the Co-operative Commonwealth, with the intention of exploring a just and fair co-operative solution to care provision across the UK. Cheryl Barrott and Mervyn Eastman (alongside other members of Change AGEnts: The Cooperative Guild of Social and Community Workers) guided us through a session which offered an overview of the main principles of Fair Care - The Three Cs - and facilitate a discussion about the model.

Sharing Care April webinar: first steps for great care in Colne Valley

Veronika — Tue, 25 May 2021 08:16:48 +0000

Sharing Care April webinar: first steps for great care in Colne Valley Veronika Tue, 05/25/2021 - 09:16

In our April webinar a few members of our staff team and the board shared their thoughts about how the first few weeks of working in our community had gone. We also heard our user members' take on why they had chosen to get support from us and what their thoughts were after the first few weeks of us working together.

March webinar - Co-operation: between users and workers

Veronika — Mon, 12 Apr 2021 13:22:17 +0000

March webinar - Co-operation: between users and workers Veronika Mon, 04/12/2021 - 14:22

We're glad to share our March webinar recording with some of the questions from those who joined us as well. Our speaker this time was Cliff Mills and the session was chaired by our own Graham.

The UK co-operative and mutual movement is best known for organisations established by customers – retail co-operative societies and building societies – although there is also a strong tradition of worker and producer co-operatives. More recently there is growing interest in organisations which recognise and accommodate more than one constituency of interest – most commonly users of a service, and employees or workers.

The Co-operative Movement had started to develop its own approach to this through multi-stakeholder co-operatives. A radically different approach was introduced in 2003 through legislation for NHS Foundation Trusts, which has given rise to another possible approach, with ownership and governance designed around having two or more categories of members.

This webinar explores different approaches in (and beyond) the context of care co-ops, the impact they can have on commitment and engagement of members as well as quality of services.

Cliff Mills is a co-operative lawyer who, as well as writing individual and model constitutions for a range of co-operative and member-based organisations, established a number of the first three waves of NHS Foundation Trusts. He has subsequently used the learning from that to develop user and worker-based ownership and governance arrangements in other sectors.

Any questions, comments, feedback? Let us know!

Blog tags

multi-stakeholdership

membership constituencies

innovative governance

co-operative governance

Cliff Mills

February webinar - Exploring different models of care delivery

Veronika — Fri, 19 Mar 2021 22:29:22 +0000

February webinar - Exploring different models of care delivery Veronika Fri, 03/19/2021 - 22:29

Our second webinar in 2020 explored different models of care delivery with speakers from three different organisations which have been on different journeys and used different approaches to provide care.

Together, we:

looked at the different organisational models and their pros & cons
celebrated wins, progress & 'collateral gains'
considered the biggest barriers along the way
discussed & shared other learning

Our panel was chaired by our very own Sue Richards, one of the Co-operative Care Colne Valley Directors and our Nominated Individual.

Our panelists were able to share their wisdom and experience as well as the presentation and additional resources.

Sian Lockwood from Community Catalysts talked about community micro enterprises.

John Roberts from North West Care Co-operative shared some of the key learning from NWCC. And you can have a look at the evaluation of their work from 2020.

Adrian Roper from Cartrefi described the journey from being a charity to becoming a multi-stakeholder co-operative.

Hope you enjoy the video and find the presentations useful.

Any questions, comments, feedback? Let us know!

Blog tags

Community Catalysts

North West Care Co-operative

Cartrefi

differnet models of care

Councils as conduits for care co-ops

Dorothea — Fri, 26 Feb 2021 14:24:18 +0000

Councils as conduits for care co-ops Dorothea Fri, 02/26/2021 - 14:24

Sharing Care webinars have been attended by colleagues from councils around the country who need to ensure high quality social care is available to their residents. They can see that a care co-operative has great potential as a solution that ensures care is tailored to individual needs, promotes better working conditions for staff and is genuinely part of the community. This blog is our initial exploration of how Sharing Care might develop work with local authorities to enable them to support local care co-ops. Feedback is welcome.

Co-operative Care Colne Valley has benefited greatly from financial and in-kind support from Kirklees Council. Right from the start they responded positively to our ideas and could see the potential. Local councils have a crucial role to play in encouragement and support of care co-operatives. However the membership and management of the co-operative will of course come from the local community. A top down initiative is not likely to be successful. How can the Sharing Care project support this council/community relationship?

Here are some possibilities:

Supporting community engagement activities to establish needs and interest. We can talk about our experiences of establishing Co-operative Care Colne Valley from scratch and have honest conversations with local people.
Hosting visits from interested communities to meet established co-ops (virtual and face to face, once that’s an option)
Providing tools and templates to assist developing co-operatives so that getting set up is less daunting
Advice and guidance from our experienced team
Informal and friendly advice from existing care co-ops, and signposting to other sources of support
We can involve and draw on the lived experience of our user and staff members as well as management.

We want to continue dialogue with local authorities about what they need and what we could help with so that we can shape this offer.

Don’t hesitate to get in touch. Send email to sharingcare@valleycare.coop or call Graham Mitchell on 07421 765329.

Blog tags

care co-op set up

Webinar with folks from South West

Veronika — Mon, 22 Feb 2021 18:56:36 +0000

Webinar with folks from South West Veronika Mon, 02/22/2021 - 18:56

On Saturday 23rd January we were speaking at the webinar hosted by South West Peninsula Co-operative Party Council and Devon Local Campaign Forum.

The session was recorded and has been kindly shared with us. Enjoy!

The previous blog about us joining the session & the programme are here.

Any questions, comments, feedback - do get in touch!

Blog tags

Learning while setting up a care co-op - January webinar videos

Veronika — Mon, 22 Feb 2021 18:28:26 +0000

Learning while setting up a care co-op - January webinar videos Veronika Mon, 02/22/2021 - 18:28

At Sharing Care January webinar we looked at what have been the main strengths and advantages that have got us to the point of now being business ready and also have talked through the barriers and challenges we have faced and what we have learnt from them.

Here is a summary of key points from our speakers.

Here's Graham, Founding Member at Co-operative Care Colne Valley and the current chair offering an overview of the set up journey.

Here's Jan, Founding Member at Co-operative Care Colne Valley and the current secretary talking about some of the positives we have been able to benefit from on our setting us journey.

Here's Sue, the Nominated Individual at Co-operative Care Colne Valley talking about some of the challenges we have faced.

Here's Dorothea, Founding Member at Co-operative Care Colne Valley talking about some of the challenges we have faced.

Here's Graham again talking briefly about the community share offer and how we've made use of technical platforms.

We are planning more sessions - have a look at the outline here.

And don't hesitate to get in touch with comments, feedback, co-operation interests or any other enquiries.

Blog tags

community share offer

communication

recruitment