About Care Together

In order to facilitate service model innovation in social care, the Australian government has provided funding for the Care Together Program, delivered by the Business Council of Co-operatives and Mutuals (BCCM).

The goal of the Care Together Program is dignified, safe and quality social care for vulnerable people in all settings, including regional, rural and remote communities delivered by empowered and well-trained workers in decent jobs.

The Care Together Program is an education, advisory and support program designed to foster business model innovation through the application of co-operative and mutual enterprise values and principles.

The Care Together Program will assist successful projects to develop sustainable business models and service delivery plans in areas where current approaches are not working.

Social care includes aged care, disability care, veterans’ care, Indigenous services, allied health and primary health care. Cross sector, multi-disciplinary models will be an important focus of Care Together and aligned to these high-level program outcomes.

The Care Together Program will:

• Support the establishment of new co-operative and mutual enterprises that provide sustainable workforce solutions in areas where current approaches are not working
• Identify and support the growth of existing social care co-operatives and mutuals in priority areas or support existing social care organisations convert to a co-operative or mutual model to help address critical workforce issues

Funding will be allocated to the delivery of projects that support new co-operatives or mutuals to form, or for existing social care co-operatives to scale into priority areas.

A flagship project is to co-design, develop and test a digitally enabled prototype for a member-owned shared business service co-op that will enable smaller organisations to be supported in areas where current approaches are not working.

The program will fund information, education, research and advisory services to support these projects and to build capacity more widely across social care sectors about co-operative and mutual models. Specifically, the Care Together Program will embed co-operative values and principles into each project to demonstrate how a diversity of ownership in care services can deliver improved outcomes for workers, consumers and communities.

The Care Together Program will also raise awareness about the benefits of co-op and mutual models in social care and help attract investment in areas of need through:  

• Resources and tools on co-operatives and mutuals  
• Regional workshops and online events  
• Social Care Community of Practice and international linkages 
• Co-op friendly advisory and support services  
• Independent research and evaluation of the Care Together Program  
• Support and advice on developing an impact measurement framework for co-ops and mutuals utilising the Mutual Value Measurement Framework©

Projects are selected through an expression of interest process.

Find out more

Have a look at our project approach to understand the kinds of projects that Care Together is supporting.

Download the Care Together Program flyer.