Social Care Community of Practice – 21 June 2023
Social Care Community of Practice (CoP)
The Social Care Community of Practice (CoP) is a series of online meetings and events designed to develop a network of people and enterprises interested in business model innovation involving new models of ownership that empower consumers and workers in social care. Attend our next Social Care CoP meeting.
Guest speakers
The BCCM invited Katrina Kazda, Program Director, Home Care, The ICA Group and Adria Powell, CEO Co-operative Home Care Associates, to share the US co-operative journey to establish a network of worker owned home care co-operatives. Katrina and Adria have made a significant contribution in establishing the Elevate Co-operative, a national secondary home care co-operative that will provide value added services to the national network of home care co-operatives across the US.
Elevate Co-operative’s mission is to drive the profitability, growth and influence of home care cooperatives for the mutual benefit of caregivers and clients. Elevate Co-operative is built upon the culture of best practice sharing and peer learning, elevating what’s already been accomplished through enhanced cross-cooperative collaboration to take the model to the next level. In the US, there are 17 home care cooperatives in operation across nine states and Puerto Rico, employing over 2500 caregivers, and over a dozen new start-up initiatives underway in as many states.
The BCCM’s CEO, Melina Morrison and Care Together Program Director, Gillian McFee, facilitated this discussion with Elevate Co-operative along with Q&A from attendees. We also provided a Care Together Program update.
Katrina Kazda Program Director, ICA Home Care
Katrina joined the ICA Group in January 2017 and has been leading the organisation’s home care work since. As Director of ICA’s Home Care Program, Katrina leads the development and implementation of ICA’s national home care strategy, including Elevate Cooperative, and participates in a variety of hands-on development activities, including strategic growth consulting, start-up consulting, educational programming for the National Home Care Cooperatives Conference and the National Home Care Cooperative Initiative—sector benchmarking, and more. Katrina has co-authored over a dozen research studies and articles on home care cooperative development and scale, including Profitability, Growth, and Influence: Elevating the Home Care Cooperative Sector with Formalized National Collaboration (January 2021) and The Cooperative Solution to the Caregiver Crisis: A National Strategy Analysis (January 2017).
Adria Powell President & CEO, Cooperative Home Care Associates, Board Member, Elevate Co-operative
Adria is President and CEO of Co-operative Home Care Associates (CHCA), the largest employee-owned co-operative business in the country. Adria is responsible for the oversight of more than 2,000 home care workers and over 100 administrative staff. CHCA has been operating for 32 years and is firmly anchored in the Bronx. Adria joined the agency as a co-ordinator in 1993 and has since fulfilled progressively higher levels of responsibility. She leads the organisation with the belief that investing in the home care workforce will result in quality outcomes and higher consumer satisfaction.
Meeting agenda
1. Welcome to Country
Uncle Ray Minniecon (TBC), Executive Member, Peoples’ Organisation Australia (IPO) and Care Together Program Advisory – Subject Matter expert
2. Care Together Program Update
Melina Morrison, CEO, BCCM
3. Care Together Program – Why the secondary co-operatives are important in regional, rural and remote areas
George Masri, Assistant Secretary (TBC), Thin Markets Branch, Indigenous & Thin Markets, Dept of Health, and Aged Care
4. Introducing Secondary Co-operatives
Michael Pilbrow, Director & Chairman, Strategic Development Group
Angela Yee, CEO SILC
5. Co-operatives supporting other co-operatives – Introducing the Elevate Co-operative
Introduced by Gillian McFee, Program Director, Care Together
Guest Speakers:
Katrina Kazda, Program Director, Home Care, The ICA Group
Adria Powell (TBC), CEO Co-operative Home Care Associates (New York/Bronx) and board member of the Elevate Co-operative
Angela Yee, CEO SILC
6. Interactive discussion and questions to speakers
Facilitated by Gillian McFee
7. Closing comments
Next Community of Practice – Wednesday, 30 August 2023
If you missed the CoP webinar, you can watch it online.
About the Social Care Community of Practice
The Social Care Community of Practice (CoP) is a series of online meetings and events designed to develop a network of people and enterprises interested in business model innovation involving new models of ownership that empower consumers and workers in social care.
These collaborative meetings enable the sharing of information and resources about co-operatives and mutual enterprises fostering a spirit of self-help and innovation in social care. Being part of the CoP is an opportunity to learn from other co-operatives and mutuals both in Australia and overseas.
Emerging from the Action to Empower Report and Roundtable held on 25 August 2021 the CoP is designed as a place for sharing ideas and learning from co-op experts about how the co-operative and mutual business model can help transform social care services.
Terms of Reference
- The purpose of the Social Care Community of Practice (CoP) is to develop a community of practitioners to share knowledge, learnings, and experiences about how to establish co-operatives and mutual enterprises in social care.
- Social Care CoP members will consist of people who are interested in knowing more about co-operatives and mutuals and understanding how this business model can apply either to existing enterprises or start-ups.
- The Social Care CoP will start as a self-help initiative based on open sharing of ideas and knowledge. As commitment grows, and as resources become available, the aim is for this to evolve to foster deeper learning and application through the establishment of a Mutual Support Program for some targeted innovation projects in thin markets.
- Social Care CoP members should ensure regular representation at the CoP meetings.
- BCCM will provide a secretariat function for the Social Care CoP.
- BCCM will invite practitioners to join the Social Care CoP based on a registration of interest.
- BCCM members may request to join the CoP.
- Following two introductory sessions led by BCCM, the CoP will co-design a program of meetings and/or events that will be promoted by BCCM and members of the CoP.
- BCCM commits to organising three free CoP meetings annually with an agenda circulated prior to the meeting. Other events will be held on a cost-recovery basis reflecting the shared interests of the CoP.
- Discussions and sharing of information will be done under the Chatham House Rule.
Join the Community of Practice
Browse our upcoming Social Care Community of Practice dates.
Please email Nicole Vlakic to apply to join the Social Care Community of Practice.
Related events and education
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