Innovation: Ourselves Care Cooperative platform

Netherlands

AAI Domains:

• Capacity and enabling environment (use of ICT)

• Independent, healthy and secure living (care to older adults)

• Participation in society (social connectedness)

Ageing societies require socially innovative means of organising social care provision to meet the care needs of older people and the people who provide care. In the Netherlands, there are more than a million older people who are in need of domestic help or personal care with many meeting the costs from their own pockets. There has been a growing trend for localities to establish care cooperatives that enable the organisation and provision of social care on both a mutual voluntary and payments for services basis, often under the inspirational leadership of an individual with experience in the social care field.

The care cooperative movement has encouraged the provision of social care to supplement that organised by the state and the market and has proven to be successful. However, there are legal and taxation issues that can be difficult for people with little experience in these matters to deal with and so this can limit the ability of people to establish local care cooperatives.

To address the issue of the challenges of establishing and sustaining a care cooperative, the social enterprise Vanevoor has developed an online platform that complies with the legal framework and taxation rules of the Netherlands that enables people to more easily establish care cooperatives. Vanevoor is run by husband and wife social entrepreneurs Maurice Smith and Willemien Visser who, along with a team of ICT and tax experts, have developed a standardised method for establishing a care cooperative with legal statutes and contracts for participants along with an easy to use payment system for care services that uses PayPal.

They piloted the system in Zoetermeer, a small city in South Holland, and have developed a relatively simple 10-step process for people interested in establishing a care cooperative to follow. This includes training for board members, in the use of the online platform and the recruitment of participants in the locality which is absolutely essential to the operation of any cooperative. Vanevoor receive 9% of the income turned over by providers of paid service in order to finance the operation of the platform and to further develop the care cooperative concept.

The online platform is in the process of being scaled up with work underway with care cooperatives in Delft, Drecht, Amsterdam, Maastricht and the Hague with more in the pipeline. Vanevoor is planning to be able to support up to 100 care cooperatives in the years ahead as it becomes increasingly refined and well known as a relatively easy way for people to organise themselves to meet the challenges of providing social care.

In relation to active ageing, the Ourselves Care Cooperative is based on the innovative use of ICT to enable the development of socially innovative care cooperatives. The Active Ageing Index indicators that it is most relevant to are the provision of care to older people and building strong social connectedness within communities. Although it is still in the process of scaling up its operations there is justifiable scope for optimism that this could enable the expansion of the care cooperative movement in the Netherlands.

Websites

Vanevoor

Wijzelf

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