Social Policy and Society

Table of Contents - October 2012 - Volume 11, Issue 04  

Articles

Personalisation and the Co-operative Tradition

Jenny Fishera1, Susan Bainesa2 and Mary Raynera3

a1 Department of Social Work and Social Change, Manchester Metropolitan University E-mail: j.fisher@mmu.ac.uk

a2 Department of Social Work and Social Change, Manchester Metropolitan University E-mail: S.Baines@mmu.ac.uk

a3 Co-operatives UK E-mail: mary.rayner@uk.coop

Abstract

There is growing interest in how enterprises based on co-operative values can help to meet needs relating to welfare and re-energise public services. The objective of this article is to examine critically the intersection of personalised adult social care services and the co-operative tradition, which emphasises mutual aid and value-led enterprise. We do this by retelling the story of personalisation through a co-operative lens, and ground this reading in case studies of two new co-operative enterprises that were supported under a Department of Health programme in England (2006–2009) intended to demonstrate how personalised adult social care could be extended by developing collaborative, co-operative organisational forms.

Key words:

  • Social care;
  • individual;
  • collective;
  • values;
  • co-production