Co‑operative Care Colne Valley: Empowering care givers and receivers

“We saw that people working in care were getting the short end of the stick – poor terms and conditions, low pay and a lack of respect for their profession. We also saw lots of people receiving care getting poor quality service – and not in control of the service they were being given,” said Co-operative Care Colne Valley’s (CCCV) Graham Mitchell.  

 “As we explored the situation further and started talking to people in local government, we could see the arrangements weren’t working for them either. They were putting out large contracts for delivering care, which were expensive to procure and not meeting anyone’s needs.” 

And that’s how Co‑operative Care Colne Valley in Huddersfield came into being.  

The organisation provides home care for older people and adults with disabilities. The service has been designed to put the people providing and receiving care in control though a multi-stakeholder co‑op. “It gives ownership and input to those stakeholders and other community members who want to invest and be supportive,” said Graham.  

With their local community behind them, Graham and his colleagues successfully raised funds from grants from Power to Change and the council to get CCCV on its feet. “We had strong support politically and that opened doors for us. It enabled us to accelerate plans and get things set up,” he said.  

“We held local public meetings that were well supported. Communities need to take responsibility for looking after the people in their community. We got a lot of interest and people shared our views.” 

Their next step was to raise money via a community share offer, which was supported by the Community Shares Booster Fund. “We raised about £75,000 from the local community and that was matched by the Booster Fund, so we raised £150,000 in total. That was working capital to get us up and running,” said Graham.    

“Being supported by the Booster Fund gave us a credibility that we might not otherwise have had. People could see it had the Community Shares Standard Mark on the share offer document and knew it was a quality offer. 

“They could also see we were serious and that we would double our total if we could raise £75,000. All those things were really good and enabled us to be successful in raising the funds. It was invaluable in that sense.”  

The organisation launched operations in 2020 and has faced the challenges of the Covid 19 pandemic and the energy crisis – all while learning the delicate balancing act of running the business and carefully managing its development. 

“Where we are right now is that we’ve done lots of learning, got some really good people in the organisation and we’re operating sustainably.” 

The team currently cares for around 40 people, with the same number of carers looking after them, who CCCV are treating with the respect, fairness and empowerment they saw lacking elsewhere in the sector. 

They’re all about empowering their people and giving them a voice too. “We recruited a new service manager who is doing a fantastic job – and has implemented lots of good ideas about ensuring people are valued and listened to in the organisation. We’ve got a whole raft of tools that support giving people a sense of ownership,” Graham said. 

“We want to make membership meaningful for them in terms of it being their organisation. What comes out of that, in my experience, drives a passion for the job and creates a desire to do well for the business and the people you’re serving.  

“The feedback we get from the people we’re looking after and the people working for us is by and large very positive. By leveraging co‑op values and principles, we aim to deliver a qualitatively better service for everyone concerned – and I think we are doing that.”  

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