Cool2Care - Tackling Disability by Connecting Young Carers with Families in Need
This entry has been selected as a finalist in the
Making More Health: Achieving Individual, Family and Community Well-Being competition.
Today there are countless families with disabled children that are in desperate need of support. At the same time, there is a myriad of young people seeking experience and employment during a tough economic climate. Cool2Care trains a new generation of open-minded young people as ‘personal assistants’ and carefully matches them to care for disabled youth. Through its personalized introductory service, Cool2Care promotes long-term support for families and their disabled children, quality training and experience for young job seekers, and gives families control over who is supporting them and their disabled child. This system offers cost savings of 20-40 % and attracts young people to the sector, providing training for a new pool of individual to support health care delivery in the future.
About You
About You
First Name
Emily
Last Name
Ghazarian
http://twitter.com/#!/cool2careuk
Facebook Profile
About Your Organization
Organization Name
Cool2Care
Organization Website
Organization Phone
0845 123 5484
Organization Address
Woodbury, Littleford Lane, Shamley Green, Surrey, GU5 0RH
Organization Country
United Kingdom
Country where this project is creating social impact
United Kingdom
Is your organization a
Non‐profit/NGO/citizen sector organization
How long has your organization been operating?
1‐5 years
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Innovation
Entry Form title
Cool2Care - Tackling Disability by Connecting Young Carers with Families in Need
What change do you want to bring to the world?
Today there are countless families with disabled children that are in desperate need of support. At the same time, there is a myriad of young people seeking experience and employment during a tough economic climate. Cool2Care trains a new generation of open-minded young people as ‘personal assistants’ and carefully matches them to care for disabled youth. Through its personalized introductory service, Cool2Care promotes long-term support for families and their disabled children, quality training and experience for young job seekers, and gives families control over who is supporting them and their disabled child. This system offers cost savings of 20-40 % and attracts young people to the sector, providing training for a new pool of individual to support health care delivery in the future.
What are the primary activities of your project?
During 2010-14 we aim to support 5,000 young disabled people & their families by connecting them with young PA's. To do so we will recruit and train 10,000 potential PA's. We take a blended learning approach to training so interested people can access quality training via face to face and online instruction via our innovative and interactive webinars, improving access to training for both rural and urban areas. This will lead to 5,000 young people participating in society & enjoying friendship; 4,000 families to experience lower physical/mental stress or improved health; 500 parents being able to return to work or gain new employment; 250 families to avoid breakdown; 5,000 new jobs created for PA's.
What is innovative about your initiative? How is it a new contribution to the field?
Traditionally, if a family with a disabled child qualifies for support from the local authority then how that support looks is largely out of the family's control. They are allotted a set amount of support hours per week and the council provides them with a carer on set days for a set amount of hours per week. The individual who helps the family might be a different person each week, acting as a road block to establishing a positive long term relationship between the family and carer.
What we do is train young people who have expressed an interest in becoming PA's for young disabled people, then we connect them with like-minded families who are seeking support. We help potential PA's complete a profile to act as a CV while helping families create a profile of their support needs. Profiles are reviewed so we can match individuals and families based on both experience and interests, bringing like-minded people together. The family is given the opportunity to interview potential candidates and once an appropriate connection is made the family becomes the employer of their PA. This system of personalisation promotes long-term support for families, consistant support for young disabled people, quality training & experience for young job seekers, and importantly gives families control over who is supporting them and their child and the terms of support. This system can offer cost savings of 20-40% when compared to traditional state support and attracts young people to the sector, providing training for a new pool of individuals to support health in the future.
What stage is your project in?
Operating for 1‐5 years
Tell us about the community that you engage? eg. economic conditions, political structures, norms and values, demographic trends, history, and experience with engagement efforts.
Current Political Climate: Public sector funding in the UK has been cut by 25% in line with the coalition goverment's vision of the Big Society. The prime minister has said public services have been the backbone of the country but that results were often not good enough. This year the government unveiled its Public Services White Paper with key elements: outsource local health services to companies, charities or community groups; give people the 'right to choose' services; and allow providers to make profits by getting people off benefits and into work.
Disability Snapshot: in the UK there are 770,000 disabled kids under 16 (many more young disabled adults), 80% of families with disabled children experience high levels of stress, 60% live in or at the margins of society, 34% live in households where there is no adult in paid work, and there is a 33% increase in the divorce rate between parents with a disabled child.
Staff: We uniquely understand the needs of disabled children with 25% of our workforce being made up of parents with disabled children and young people who frequently contribute to the strategy and planning within the organisation. Our staff and trainers are highly experienced in providing structured vocational training to extremely marginalised young people and finding them employment working as PA’s for disabled children and young people.
Employability/Training: Historically the care sector has been predominantly staffed by females aged 35 and up with a background in nursing. The majority of PA's we train are between the ages of 18-25 and many are Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET) when they are recruited for our training programme.
Families: In terms of diversity, just over half of the families we support are white, with the rest consisting of Black, Asian or Ethnic Minority (BAME) or mixed backgrounds.
Engagement: By consulting with young disabled people and their families we have learned that there is a high level of need for young PA's, as many young disabled people prefer to be supported by someone from their own age group. We have also found a challenge in fullfilling requests for young male PA's due to their small presence in the sector. We have had success recruiting young people and inclusing young males during our pilot programmes and we intend to focus our recruitment efforts further to build upon this success. We have successfully launched pilots across the UK and have found the uptake and support for our services to be extremely encouraging in terms of our future growth.
Share the story of the founder and what inspired the founder to start this project
The story of Cool2Care starts with a boy named Shaun, born in Japan in the spring of 1998. Within a few months it became clear that he had physical & learning disabilities, with his sight, coordination, balance, muscle strength & learning all affected. His mum and dad worked for several years to get a diagnosis and learned the hard way that this would affect the whole family for the rest of their lives. Stress took its toll, and Shaun's parents - Phil & Keiko - realised they needed help if they were to be able to keep their family going. They searched for 2 years to find someone to help look after Shaun and their second son Adam. Finally they found someone they liked and trusted - and she is still helping the family to this day.
Following this long struggle Phil became determined to help other families get the support they needed. He decided to take an assignment away from his job with IBM, and founded Cool2Care in late 2007. Phil believes that we can change lives by listening to families. He listened to his family and many others and was inspired to find a solution.
He worked for IBM for 20 years in various international roles and spent four years based in Tokyo. In addition he is a trustee of the UK based charity ‘Contact a Family’, that provides support & information to families with disabled children. He has a BA in Mathematics from Oxford University and an Executive MBA from London Business School. He has also recently become and Fellow of Ashoka and it was through this connection that we became aware of this competition.
Social Impact
This Entry is about (Issues)
Please describe how your project has been successful and how that success is measured
Across the whole of Cool2Care during 2010, we trained 678 non-disabled young people to become PA’s and supported 357 disabled children and their families to find the support they needed.
We have grown as an organisation and now employ 47 people throughout Cool2Care; 9 of which are full time and the rest who are part time. Each member of staff works flexible hours from home to suit the needs of the business and the requirements of their families, with 25% of our staff being parents of a disabled child or young person. Working remotely also keeps overhead costs to a minimum.
We apply a Social Return on Investment methodology in order to measure our successes and impact. Our initial SROI work has shown that regular flexible 1-1 support to the family and young person gives benefit to the whole family, reducing physical and mental stress for the parents, improving family cohesion, lowering health costs and improving quality of life for the disabled young person. Cool2Care’s SROI plan won the “Best Social Impact” award in the Global Social Venture Competition in 2007.
We believe that one of the major challenges families face when seeking support is that they are not given due choice or control about how that care looks. In addition, the expense associated with sourcing support causes further limitations to access. Family support is deeply personal and our business model allows for personalisation of support and profitability through blended revenue streams to ensure sustainability. As a community interest company all profits we realize are reinvested into the company or community (in 2010 we turned a profit of £52k).
Young people seeking employment also come up against challenges when seeking training and experience. We offer a quality training programme free of charge to people interested in becoming PA's. We support them further by helping develop their profile and working to 'match' them with a family in need, leading to a mutually beneficial employee/employer relationship. We have received positive feedback from PA's as well as families we have supported and we consult young disabled people to share their experiences with disability and input into how we can improve our support services.
“We are very pleased with the service Cool 2 Care have provided our family with. Advertising, interviewing and initial training are added pressures that we don't have to deal with because of your professional and efficient service package. We will continue to use Cool 2 Care in the future. “ Mother of a 12 year old boy with Fragile X Syndrome
How many people have been impacted by your project?
1,001- 10,000
How many people could be impacted by your project in the next three years?
1,001-10,000
Winning entries present a strong plan for how they will achieve growth. Identify your six-month milestone for growing your impact
Achieve our 2011 target of supporting 500 families & young people
Task 1
Build deeper relationships with Social Care teams in Local Authorities
Task 2
Improve our local marketing profile via family support groups, special schools and the boosting access via the internet to our website
Task 3
Establish links with local GP consortia, as a new & emerging source of referrals
Identify your 12-month impact milestone
Build a full business plan for our next phase of growth during 2012-16.
Task 1
Research the opportunity in the Personalisation of Health in Social Care for disabled children & young people
Task 2
Transform Cool2Care’s business model to a consumer-led personalized model, less reliant on Local Authority contracts
Task 3
Secure £100k of equity investment into the business, aiming for High Net Worth Individuals and other Social Investors
How will your project evolve over the next three years?
We will increase our capacity and scope to reach families across the UK. We have made connections with potential partners in Wales and are currently developing a pilot scheme to launch throughout the country. By improving our ITC and building our brand awareness we aim to be able to support any family that should contact us regardless of location, including those in rural areas. We are exploring ways we can increase our service offering to include support for transition from children to adult services, short breaks and special education needs. We will also evolve by further developing our Social Return on Investment Model so that we can accurately measure our impact to support our efforts to gain further social investment.
Sustainability
What barriers might hinder the success of your project and how do you plan to overcome them?
The primary barrier we are facing is that public sector funding has been cut by 25%, resulting in more fierce competition to secure contracts from local authorities. We plan to overcome this barrier by presenting cost efficient service plans to local authorites. Our competitors are diverse, but only cover 10% of our overall target market, so there is great opportunity to reach many more families and young people not yet aware of Cool2Care.
We are well placed to fulfill the Personalisation agenda, providing quality support service and cost savings simultaneouly. We are able to this by having a blended approach to our revenue streams which consist of local authority contracts, placement fees, and social investment made up of grants, loans, and equity.
The other key barrier is that many local authorities do not promote their Direct Payment scheme, DP’s are made by local councils to people receiving social care services, instead of the council providing the service directly. Research shows that two of the main factors hindering Direct Payments is the lack of people available to work as personal assistants, as well as confusion around managing Direct Payments among service users and carers. Our expansion plan will allow us to: adapt our Business model to lower Public Sector spending, new government reforms & the “Big Society”; double our revenues via diversified income streams; and increase the number of children & young adults supported to 2,000/year.
We have been working closely with social workers and commissioners to understand and promote Direct Payments as well as our services. As a new organisation we have an additional challenge of relatively low brand recognition, but building relationships with the aforementioned will help us to build our presence and customer base.
Tell us about your partnerships
We partner with Social Investors Big Invest, Venturesome and CAN who are investing £500k as a consortia into Cool2Care through a mix of grants and loans. Various trusts, foundations and the Big Lottery support us financially through grants. Ashoka supports our Founder & CEO as a Fellow, giving access to the extensive Ashoka Support Network of accomplished Social Entrepreneurs from all over the world. IBM provided corporate support during the first 4 years of Cool2Care during 2070-11. We are now actively seeking a second-generation corporate sponsor.
Current annual budget of project, in US dollars
More than $1 million
Explain your selections
We recieve support from Individuals via social investment grants and loans; from Foundations via applications to grant making bodies; from Businesses through corporate support to help fullfill corporate social responsibility and/or customer charters, this includes awards applications, fundraising on behalf of Cool2Care and brand promotion; from Regional Governments via going to tender for support contracts; from National Goverment via grant applications through agencies such as the Department of Health; and from Customers through a one-time placement fee of £200 paid by families after a suitable PA has been matched for them (this £200 may come from families DP payments issued by their local authority).
How do you plan to strengthen your project in the next three years?
We have a regional growth plan to expand our scope and services. We are currently exploring what we can offer in terms of: DP Admin, Adult Service Support, Special Educaton Needs, and Short Breaks support. We have analysed the opportunities for each and are currently working on strategy plans. We would like to do a feasability study to aid this planning and ensure it is robust and comprehensive.
Challenges
Which barriers to health and well-being does your innovation address?
Please select up to three in order of relevancy to your project.
PRIMARY
Limited human capital (trained physicians, nurses, etc.)
SECONDARY
Restrictive cultural norms
TERTIARY
Other (Specify Below)
Please describe how your innovation specifically tackles the barriers listed above.
1 - A key barriers families face when seeking support for their disabled child is difficulties with the availablity of people to work as personal assistants. We directly address this barrier with our core service of recruiting & training people to become PA's. By targeting young people to get training we are supplying the sector with a workforce seeking longterm employment.
2 - Direct Payment Schemes have been around since 1997, however most Local authorities have not promoted them due to a lack of understanding & lack of support agencies to make DP's beneficial. We promote & explain DP Scheme to local authorties & have seen the uptake increase; we're also developing plans to expand our support to include DP Admin.
3 -
How are you growing the impact of your organization or initiative?
Please select up to three potential pathways in order of relevancy to you.
PRIMARY
Grown geographic reach: Within host country
SECONDARY
Enhanced existing impact through addition of complementary services
TERTIARY
Leveraged technology
Please describe which of your growth activities are current or planned for the immediate future.
1 - We recently launched our regional growth plan & now operate across the UK via 6 regional heads. Within each region 'offices' are staffed by 2-4 people to provide support as agreed by local contracts & to build brand awareness. We are also looking to reach new markets by extending our coverage into new local authorities making our sevices available to up to 1.5 million families, children and adults.
2 - We are currently exploring other services we can offer: Direct Payment Admin, Adult Service Support, Special Educaton Needs, and Short Breaks support.
3 - We have increased our IT capability to now offer training via blended learning, which combines face to face and online instruction. We are now developing and costing a strategy for complete e-learning modules.
Do you collaborate with any of the following: (Check all that apply)
If yes, how have these collaborations helped your innovation to succeed?
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 | 25 weeks agoPhil Conway said: Just to give you our latest news (Dec 2nd 2011): We have won contracts to set new services in Milton Keynes & Lincolnshire in England. ... about this Competition Entry. - read more > |
| 26 weeks agoEmily Ghazarian said: Thanks! We are thrilled to have been chosen as one of the finalists and have been sharing the annoucement through our social networks ... about this Competition Entry. - read more > |
| 26 weeks agoJessi Wolz said: Congratulations on being selected a Finalist in the Making More Health competition! You have an exciting model that helps families with ... about this Competition Entry. - read more > |
| 28 weeks agoCool2Care - Tackling Disability by Connecting Young Carers with Families in Need has been chosen as a finalist in Making More Health: Achieving Individual, Family and Community Well-Being. |
| 35 weeks agoEmily Ghazarian updated this Competition Entry. |
| 35 weeks agoEmily Ghazarian updated this Competition Entry. |
| 35 weeks agoEmily Ghazarian updated this Competition Entry. |
| 36 weeks agoEmily Ghazarian updated this Competition Entry. |
| 36 weeks agoEmily Ghazarian updated this Competition Entry. |
| 36 weeks agoEmily Ghazarian updated this Competition Entry. |
