Social Cooperatives

Concept

Characteristics

"In implementing a mutual approach to local delivery we believe the UK needs to learn lessons from countries with diverse co-op models of social care, including Italy, Canada, and Japan. Research into these international examples yields four novel and common characteristics:

• Multi-stakeholder co-ops involving care service co-producers including workers, volunteers and service user members

• Co-design work and co-development methods to build social solidarity between members including paid and unpaid workers and service users and families

• Local authority partnerships with procurement in four main operational areas: social services, health services, education and the workforce integration of excluded people

• Human scale built into the model by defining a clear locality to serve and maximum size growth levels"

More Information

• Pat Conaty on Social Cooperatives [1]

Report

* Report: Social Co-operatives: a Democratic Co-production Agenda for Care Services in the UK.

URL = http://www.uk.coop/sites/storage/public/files/the_importance_of_mutuality_in_localised_social_care.pdf

"scoping out the potential for introducing social care co-ops to the UK" [2]