Who we are
The Sunshine Coast Alliance for Seniors’ Care Co-op (SCASCC) is a new, nonprofit, nonpartisan grassroots organization working to improve care for local seniors. We are creating an alliance of individuals and organizations to work together to build multi-stakeholder models of co-operative care for seniors on the Sunshine Coast.
Currently we are incorporated as a community service co-operative; our goal is to help launch local multi-stakeholder health care co-operatives for specific types of seniors care.
All stakeholders in the SCASC Co-operatives will be members: seniors, families, healthcare workers. Like a credit union, every member has a vote for the Board, and therefore a say in how care is provided. Our allies and supporters will include provincial, indigenous and local governments, labour unions, credit unions and other community organizations.
Please click here or email us at [email protected] to join us or be added to our email list for regular updates.
The Co-op’s vision includes adult day programming, assisted living, respite care, long-term care, and community supports. The focus is on providing respectful, compassionate and participatory care to an aging population on the Coast. Our self-governance model of participatory seniors’ care will be a pioneer project in British Columbia.
The COVID-19 pandemic highlights the risk that seniors and health care providers face, in both for profit and not-for-profit long-term care settings and retirement residences. We believe that a Co-op will provide better care delivery and health care outcomes for seniors and health care workers by having inclusion in the operational management and care delivery model.
Where we are at (July 2020)
The articles recently published by our members John Richmond and Paula Larrondo in the Coast Reporter and The Tyee focus on the benefits of an alternative co-op long-term care model. These articles have generated a significant interest in our working group on the Coast. Our immediate goal is to develop the co-operative to be capable of launching a variety of co-operative senior care projects here on the Coast.
We are currently developing working relationships with residents of the Sunshine Coast, seniors groups, housing providers, health care experts, credit unions, labour unions, Indigenous groups and nations, the Victoria Health Cooperative, Co-op development experts, other co-op senior care and health care organizers and advocates across BC and Canada.
The Sunshine Coast has an increased need for long-term care beds. Paying attention to lessons learned from the horrific impact of COVID-19 on institutional models of senior care in Canada and around the world, Our Seniors Care Co-op model offers a sustainable, grassroots solution to long-term care and to the crisis.
Initial objectives
- Welcome any ideas or suggestions related to seniors’ care on the Sunshine Coast from Port Melon to Lund.
- Develop and promote projects designed to enable aging in place for seniors who wish to remain at home as long as possible
- Create assisted living projects designed to promote seniors’ wellness and independence.
- Promote Reconciliation through new and innovative partnership senior care projects with the Shishalh and Tla’amin First Nations.
- Educate seniors, families and allies in senior health and social policy, and in the governance of long-term care and assisted living facilities.
- Empower seniors, families and allies to develop self-help and self-care programs.
- Design, build and co-manage with other stakeholder groups, long-term care and assisted living projects on the Sunshine Coast that provide the highest-level quality of care and degree of inclusion and autonomy possible, to support mutual respect and self-help.
How can I help?
- Join us! Get on our mailing list, tune in to our meetings.
- Write to our leaders and media about co-operative seniors care.
We acknowledge that our homes are on the unceded ancestral home of the Shishalh, Tla-amin and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Nations.