Fwd: [BH] Blackshaw Support Circle November update
Sandra McNeill
-------- Forwarded Message --------
| Subject: | [BH] Blackshaw Support Circle November update |
|---|---|
| Date: | Tue, 19 Nov 2019 17:11:42 -0000 |
| From: | an...@amossman.co.uk |
| Reply-To: | blacks...@googlegroups.com |
| To: | blacks...@googlegroups.com |
| CC: | 'Emma Back' <em...@equalcare.coop>, 'Kate Hammon' <ka...@equalcare.coop>, 'Amber Wright' <am...@equalcare.coop> |
Hello all
Apologies for such a belated update, we met on the 4th November, how time has flown?! Anyway, we had a really enjoyable and productive meeting; after the October meeting, people were starting to feel a little lost, like we weren’t quite sure how to move forward. What we realised is that we’d forgotten to stop and reflect on what we set out to achieve and where we’d got to. So, we decided to use the meeting on the 4th to do an ‘’After Action Review”, which basically uses some structured questions to ask ourselves to re-visit:
- what we set out to do,
- what actually happened,
- what were the differences and
- what will we do next.
We went around the circle asking each person in turn to contribute until we’d everything out on the table, and what we discovered are some key learnings:
- we set out as a small band of neighbours to take part in an experiment, to create a ‘platform’ based co-op delivering care & support: something that has never been done in the UK before, and that seeks to address a fundamental societal issue – our broken health & social care system. We needed to remind ourselves more often that this is an experiment, and we were all working it out together, and no-one has the answers
- many of us (myself included) were emotionally invested in trying to get to a quick solution, where really, a quick solution wasn’t achievable. That emotional connection made me push too hard for delivery (a personality trait of mine!), if I wasn’t also a carer, I would probably have noticed this sooner and taken things slower
- expecting to be able to run a 32 member, community wide volunteer service without a technological solution to support it was a very big ask, and thinking someone in our community would be able to run than manually, free of charge was probably somewhat ambitious! This one really could only be learnt through doing what we’ve done this year
- Starting with the paid for care & support provision although seemingly easier than point 3, was beset with other challenges – available resource vs number of care hours needing delivery, despite creating 3 paid for carers in the village delivering care, the amount of time they have available doesn’t match the hours required. Again, we couldn’t have known how this one would have panned out without trying to establish the circle in the first place.
It was an immensely freeing activity to allow ourselves that space to reflect, and while we reviewed our lessons, we reviewed our successes too:
- The share offer raised a whopping £411k – without our involvement, telling our story and saying why we believe in the model, that share offer would not have been so successful
- Equal Care Coop now have 9 fully trained care & support workers, and a significant number of clients seeking support that they can now match
- Our testing of the various technology platforms enabled Equal Care to understand much better what was and wasn’t needed
- Because of the funding, there are now 2 technical partners actively working on creating the platform, based in part on our feedback and experiences this year
- 2 new roles are currently being recruited for, one is for a Facilitator to bring together carers & those needing care, and the other is for a Community Circle Organiser, who’s role is to work with us, and future circles, to help us set up well and move forward with confidence
- CQC are actively seeking input from Equal Care to help them devise more appropriate frameworks for assessing, given the self-managed model doesn’t fit with the current assessment process very well
- And finally, Emma was invited to speak in New York (all expenses paid) about creating a care & support platform based co-op, because what we’ve all been working on this year is so new, and so different, people will travel around the world to hear about it!
We ended the meeting feeling rather proud of ourselves, so much so we’d like to have a little celebration in January to mark our 1st Anniversary, you’re all invited 😊 we’ll plan it at our next meeting in December.
Think that covers it!
Angie x
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