Sunderland Home Care Associates

Like the John Lewis Partnership model and others who are not registered on the stock exchange, Sunderland Home Care Associates have a wide range of videos to be introduced to our blog. Sunderland Home Care Associates merits special attention as they are co-operatives i.e. one person, one vote, possibly equal wage systems and obviously a not-for-profit business. This does not mean, of course, that profits are not desirable but it does mean they are re-invested, after outgoings, within the organisation's structure. They would also probably have to be registered under Industrial and Provident Society legislation, although they could also be a Company Limited by Guarantee and/or a Community Interest Company. The interesting thing about co-operatives is that even the first piece of legislation, and certainly not the two others, fails to precisely state the actual operation of how cooperatives should, and could function.

Replicating the John Lewis Partnership Model?

The John Lewis Partnership Model is explained in this useful video.  The important connection here of course is that the Government often sees the John Lewis Partnership Model as a potential way in which 'social enterprise' can become a more useful and established concept. But the obvious problem is how projects dealing with disadvantage, welfare and minority interests can replicate this? John Lewis has huge resources; superb employment opportunites, including a sabbatical every ten years; and in-house profit sharing on an annual basis. How can similar results be acheived by those not listed on the stock exchange?

Visual resources

There were just too many to fit under 'Peter recommends' so I've listed below some of the interesting and unusual links I've come across while looking for material for the blog. Please do add your own!

Check out this brilliant you tube animation film on the recent book 'The Spirit Level' on the Equality Trust website. The book provides a cutting analysis of poverty, unfairness and inequality in our country.

Charlie and Marie: a tale of ageing is a very good animation feature from the Young Foundation: setting out some of the problems of ageing in terms of links with others, communication and, often, a fundmental change of regime.


Nice video about Street League for kids enjoying a kickabout in Downing Street with the PM


Brilliant ‘Funny How’ video from Flack, a group of pro-active people with problems of homelessness who are currently involved with the launch of their new Street Magazine. I see they also have thirteen videos available on their website.

Education, learning and community in New Earswick

I recently came across a brief piece online about the long-lasting New Earswick initiative in York. It provides some radical ideas about how community development, social and community enterprise models provide really useful background information about how, if the Libraries Department. really thought about creative uses of their small, and large, library resources, radical and use reforms would be achievable. With and without the use of unpaid workers... But my view is, as always, that the county council fails to understand the theory and practice behind these models.

Learning from young people

Watch this short animated film by a ex-detainee Palestianian children which, although it may not seem initially relevant to our thinking, has immense implications about how disadvantaged children express themselves and their disadvantages.

More about collaboration...

In my wilder moments, and drawing upon the unique experience of SCIE and their amazing visual learning approaches, I begin to wonder what formal teaching of medicine, education, planning, social work and associated areas is all about. The game for me is re-exploring the Nineteenth Century concept of Smilesian Self-help and I've not come across a group that does it better. Surely we all learn through apprenticeship models and what over-formal teaching does is simply remove us would-be professionals from thinking about ways in which we relate to people. Let's reinvent the world through blogging and here's COVER's (and my) first challenge. How many of our readers have thought about how we often duplicate each others' work and can any of us produce examples of consciously and reflectively working together? This doesn't mean that we take each other over but it does mean that we would all move on if we thought more about formal, and informal, cooperation.

Health resources

What about GP commissioning? COVER’s recent research shows how many VCS organisations felt that GPs did not understand the links between their work and positive health outcomes. But there are plenty of examples around how employment, benefits advice and unemployment relate to health issues. For example, check out the Bromley by Bow centre.

I don't see psychiatrists speaking openly on British videos. Take a look at a Community Health Centre’s videos in Ontario. This provides fantastic examples of people being enabled to become really involved in thinking about their own illnesses.  As one lady comments 'It's more than about doctors....'

Some American websites thinking aloud about various forms of emotional ill-health seem streets ahead of work 'over here' in terms of visual descriptions and knowledge.

Try healthy place.com for down-to-earth knowledge ranging from Alzheimer's through to depression and bi-polar disorder.

There are some good examples available from over here:

Few videos provide such a detailed account of exploitation, mistreatment and abuse of people who are ageing as on You Tube's Protecting the Dignity of our Older People.

cutmovie.co.uk is a Women's Aid video which can only shock us all as it details ways in which women are abused by men....

We should be especially proud of pioneering work in Cambridge: MakingMentalNotes is a user-led media thinking about mental and emotional health which includes more than relevant videos from Frank and Rachel Bruno and many others.

Benefit Scrounging Scum blog

Readers of this blog will have appreciated, we hope, our admiration for the BenefitScroungingScum blog which, through deliberate irony, is now delivering their visual criticisms of capacity and other benefits in 'Nothing ever happens....and the needle returns to the start of the song'.  These three powerful videos demonstrate how incredibly articulate women with severe disabilities don't need us professionals when talking about their own views of the increasingly punitive benefits system. Don't miss these videos. They tell us more about how to rethink our, too often top down, values than years of social work tuition. These people - not clients, users or patients - are looking for support and we should all join as followers.