Teams Outputs: Experiences & Learnings from the Clapton Circle.

Output

• Teams collaborate with the social workers and/or other social care professionals supporting the people they care for.

• People receiving care build their own team, choosing friends, family members, local volunteers and vetted Equal Care workers as team members.

• Key operational roles for each team to self-manage shared amongst team members as "Team Hats".

• Teams operate semi-autonomously from the local circle with distributed decision-making authority.

• Care workers choose what their hours are and where they will work.

• Peer learning communities, observation, training, and coaching are team-specific.

• Care workers are paid more.

• Key roles or "Team Hats" are nominated by team members sociocratically.

• Multi-stakeholder service evaluation measures the social climate, individual well-being and quality of life of Team Members.

• People giving and getting support consent to each other in a mutual match.

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What We Did

Our project focused on improving the quality of care through collaboration with social workers, empowering care recipients to build their own teams, promoting team autonomy, and integrating shared responsibility. Here's a breakdown of our activities:

Care recipients were encouraged to build their own care teams consisting of friends, family members, local volunteers, and Equal Care workers. The process was facilitated by a “Team Starter,” who helped map the care recipient’s existing network and identify appropriate team members. This approach allowed care recipients to have more control over who supported them.

For individuals receiving local authority-funded care, such as our Team owners social workers, acted as gatekeepers for direct payments and changes to care packages . This collaboration was essential, especially in Hackney, where the involvement of social workers was required for any changes to care. However, social workers were often overstretched and difficult to engage consistently. We recognized the need to include social workers as defined members of the care team.

Given that teams were built toward the end of the project we have yet to hold many team meeting to identify and distribute "Team Hats" . Teams were given the authority to operate semi-autonomously from the local circle, allowing them to manage their own care processes. This distributed decision-making structure provided flexibility and empowered teams to handle day-to-day care responsibilities. For example, care workers had the flexibility to choose their work hours and locations. This aimed to improve job satisfaction and allow care workers to have more control over their schedules.

We introduced higher pay for self-employed care workers between (£17-20/hr) to reflect their increased responsibility and autonomy as independent workers.

We employed a multi-stakeholder service evaluation system that measured the social climate, well-being, and quality of life of both care recipients and workers consulting team members over the course of it's design and delivery.

The matching process between care workers and recipients was based on mutual consent, ensuring that both parties were comfortable with the arrangement. However, given the challenges we had with recruitment the value of mutual consent was not so significant given the limited choice available to both care workers and people seeking care and support.

What We Learned:

Collaboration with Social Workers: Social workers are key stakeholders to build relationships with. All our participants were in receipt of local authority funded care and the process of making any kind of changes, to direct payments or care packages, therefore had to go through them. Poor communication and long delays in follow through between social workers and team owners was a major barrier and cause of frustration.

People Receiving Care Build Their Own Teams: The success of care team-building was highly dependent on the care recipient’s existing social network. For more isolated individuals, assembling a team was more challenging. Additionally, we learned that many people who had been isolated for long periods found it difficult to say “yes” to social invitations, using “no” as a coping mechanism to manage stress. Building confidence and providing gradual support was critical to helping individuals re-engage with their community.

Care Workers Choose Their Hours and Work Locations: Allowing care workers to choose their own hours and locations increased their job satisfaction, but it also created logistical challenges in matching their availability with the care recipients' needs. This mismatch occasionally resulted in care gaps.

Peer Learning Communities: Peer learning promoted team-specific development and collaboration, but there were gaps in accessing formal training programs, especially for specialized care needs. The peer learning model provided a solid foundation for ongoing development, but more structured opportunities were needed.

Lack of freedom and choice: Higher pay improved job satisfaction and the mutual match process fostered trust between care workers and recipients. However, in practice, care workers had limited options in terms of the number of hours they could take on or which team they wanted to join. This is determined by the scale of the service: small number of teams means there isn’t much choice. Participants felt that it was not possible to offer security and commitment without opportunities for increased hours.

Recommendations:

Engaging with social workers: Social workers should be considered a part of Care Teams with a clearly defined role. Encourage social workers to attend presentations and engage in the project by framing it as a professional development opportunity. Avoid an adverserial attitude towards social workers as representatives of the local authority, recognising instead their power and potential to improve care.

People Receiving Care Build Their Own Teams: Care team-building should continue to be facilitated by a "Team Starter," with a focus on supporting isolated individuals. Additionally, building confidence in care recipients should be a priority, especially for those who have been disconnected from their communities for a long time. Gradual re-engagement and companion support should be provided to make community involvement less overwhelming.

A 'Community Connector' in Every Team: Each team should have a designated community connector to facilitate relationships with local networks, spaces and organisations. This role is important in order to gradually build the confidence of team owners to participate in social spaces. Sometimes people are unlikely to go to a new space unless they have a buddy to accompany them. The community connector can also use mapping exercises to identify meaningful potential connections.

Multi-Stakeholder Service Evaluation: Simplifying the evaluation process will reduce the burden on teams while still providing valuable insights into team performance and the well-being of both care recipients and workers.

Mutual Match Consent for Giving and Receiving Support: We recommend emphasizing the value of the team model over and above the significance of mutual consent. Mutual consent does not mean a great deal if you are only offering people an extremely limited choice of people to give or receive care from. Emphasizing the self-managing teams model, however, remains a significant unique selling point even when struggling to recruit a range of care and support workers.