care co-op set up

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

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

January webinar - learning while setting up a care co-op

Veronika — Tue, 19 Jan 2021 19:08:34 +0000

January webinar - learning while setting up a care co-op Veronika Tue, 01/19/2021 - 19:08

Co-operative Care Colne Valley - initial learning from journey towards setting up a care co-op

We would like to invite you to the first of our webinars where we will be sharing our learning as well as bringing in experts exploring different challenges and joys on the journeys of establishing different innovative community based care organisations.

To start the series off, and in response to feedback we have received, we would like to share our learning on the journey of setting up a care co-op in Colne Valley so far.

We’ll look at what have been the main strengths and advantages that have got us to the point of now being business ready and also talk through the barriers and challenges we have faced and what we have learnt from them.

While this won’t cover all the elements of our journey it will both show the possibilities and potential and the challenges and difficulties and will show our way through this process in context of time.

We would be grateful if you can join us on Wednesday 27th January at 7pm

The session will open at 6.45pm for 7pm start.

If you want to join us, drop us a line: sharingcare@valleycare.coop

Blog tags

webinar

care co-op set up

sharing learning