Aging & Social Change: Fourteenth Interdisciplinary Conference

Abstract

Home care is an underutilized method for delivering care to seniors across Canada. The initial development of Canada’s senior care system was through the expansion of poor houses. This poor house approach established the warehouse method of care for seniors bringing seniors to the facilities to save on healthcare costs incurred by provincial governments. This project examines the development of community-based home care worker co-operatives. These co-operatives focus on the provisioning of home care within communities by local personal support workers (PSW) that understand the care needs within the community but lack the business acumen to establish a viable business without supports through collaborative co-production with business experts. Through a descriptive case study and survey approach this project outlines the development drivers and challenges that are faced by personal support workers in establishing a co-operative that provides home care services. Questions of agency, awareness of goals, and awareness of business approaches to meet those goals will be examined as moderators for PSWs deciding to become co-operators within the care sector. Statistical analysis of survey responses shows that goals focused on community care and agency pull workers toward entrepreneurship, but awareness of co-operative business models push them to co-op entrepreneurship.