O4O: Older for Older – The FutureDr Carol Hill. Crichton Centre for Research in Health & Social Issues

What did O4O set out to do?

• Counter social constructions of ageing, and (mis)perceptions about the capacity of older people

• Engage older people in the co-production of services (for other older people)

• Test the feasibility of sustainable social enterprises emerging from communities (of older people) in remote and rural areas

• Generate positive community impacts

• Enable older people to live longer, healthily and happily in their own homes and communities

AND WE DID ALL THAT!

What did O4O produce?

• The O4Os

• Our collective learning

• A volunteer guide

• A Heritage DVD and Guidance booklet

• Case study leaflets, newsletters, a website

• Vehicles (3)

• The Toolkit

• Policy briefings

• A Book and academic papers

Rationale for O4O?

1.The right time demographic, economic, ideological, cultural drivers (inter-NPP variation)

requirement to develop novel modes of service delivery

individual expectations and entitlement

2.The right place awareness of specific service delivery ‘issues’ in remote and rural regions

3.The right people recognises and promotes the notion that ‘older people’ are not an

homogenous group of frail, dependent people who are ‘past their best’

… so what did we learn ?

Ideal O4O true, self sustaining social

enterprise

Traditional voluntary sector CD response reliant on handouts

Minimal or no support Substantial

support

… what we found

The most optimistic model of social enterprise hasn’t been borne out in the project i.e. that self-sustaining SEs (or projects) would emerge from communities and be led and driven by them

BUT

… we did find that identifying, supporting and harnessing the potential of communities to develop initiatives they felt they needed could be successful, sustainable and meet O4O and Policy objectives

BUT

O4O was a test case; a pilot.

It’s early days

So what do we need to do to take the O4O concept forward?

What are the next steps?

Next Steps: Where does O4O go from here?

A new model of delivery requires a new model of support: a hybrid of expertise

Voluntary sector has the social orientation and knowledge of service delivery; is good at assessing and identifying needs and envisioning social solutions; but it isn’t driven (primarily) by entrepreneurialism or a profit motive.

Entrepreneurs routinely seek out new business opportunities and have the acumen to develop ideas; but any ‘social orientation’ is generally secondary to the profit motive

Context mapping highlighted the different social, political, economic positions within O4O’s NPP partner countries. Is a homogenous ‘next step’ possible?

The Toolkit can help bridge the ‘social’ and the ‘entrepreneurial’ dimensions but isn’t an end in itself.

So! What is the next step? What do we need .... ?

O4O Needs ….

Political buy-in

conducive policy (allow the potential for O4O to be in the mix)

mainstreaming ageing issues

review of non-essential bureaucracy

Investment in an O4O developmental (action-oriented)

infrastructure / umbrella organisation / entrepreneurial bank. Key

dimensions might include:

leadership and community engagement

funding (including pump priming)

business start-up, development and management

Ethics etc.

What can we, the O4O-ers’ do?

Provide clarity around:

what constitutes an O4O (narrow or pluralistic definition?)

the ethos of O4O? (profit driven? rights based? needs based? Service delivery?

what the goals of an O4O should be (collective wellbeing → one-to-one personal care)

Potential (tools) for measuring outcomes