Caregivers help people meet their daily needs and improve their quality of life. They provide essential support that allows children, older adults, people with disabilities, and others to thrive. Examples of caregiving professions include:
- Childcare and early childhood education
- Homecare
- Respite care
Professional caregivers are essential because they enable family members to participate in the workforce, pursue education, and maintain their well-being.
Challenges in Caregiving Professions
- Not enough workers: There aren’t enough professional caregivers to meet the growing need. Low pay, limited benefits, and demanding jobs make it hard to attract and keep workers.
- Burnout and turnover: Caregiving can be physically and emotionally exhausting. Many workers leave because the job is stressful and the pay often doesn’t match the responsibility.
- Care is expensive, but providers still struggle: Families often have a hard time affording care, while providers struggle to cover wages, facilities, supplies, and other costs.
- Care work isn’t valued enough: Caregivers do essential work that helps families, communities, and the economy, but they are often underpaid and don’t receive the recognition they deserve.
- Lots of requirements, limited resources: Providers must meet safety, training, licensing, and quality standards, but many operate with tight budgets and limited staff.
Cooperatives are part of the solution, not the whole solution. The challenges facing childcare, homecare, and respite care are bigger than any one business model. These fields are experiencing a systemic crisis caused by too few workers, inadequate funding, rising demand, and the historic undervaluing of care work. Cooperatives can help create better jobs and stronger care services, but broader systemchange is also needed.
Home Care
The home care industry helps people receive support and care in their own homes rather than moving to a hospital, nursing home, or assisted living community. It serves older adults, people with disabilities, individuals recovering from illness or surgery, and anyone who needs extra help with daily life.
The demand for home care is growing across the United States. As the population ages, more families are looking for flexible, personalized care solutions that help loved ones live safely and comfortably at home.
Home care cooperatives are home care agencies that are owned and governed by the caregivers who work there. Unlike traditional agencies that are owned by individuals or corporations, cooperatives give workers a voice in business decisions and often allow them to share in the company’s success.
These organizations provide the same types of in-home services as other home care agencies, such as personal care, companionship, meal preparation, and assistance with daily activities. The cooperative model is designed to support both high-quality care for clients and better jobs for caregivers.
By giving caregivers ownership and a stake in the organization, home care cooperatives aim to improve job satisfaction, reduce staff turnover, and create more consistent, person-centered care for the people they serve.
Examples of Home Care Cooperatives
Cooperative Home Care Associates
Cooperative Home Care Associates (CHCA) is a nationally recognized worker-owned home care agency in the Bronx. CHCA was founded in 1985 to provide quality home care to clients by providing quality jobs for direct-care workers. Originally starting with 12 home health aides, the cooperative now employs more than 2,000 staff. CHCA maintains an employer-based workforce development program that provides free training for over 400 low-income and unemployed women annually and serves as a significant driver of employment in the Bronx.
In 2001, caregivers in Waushara County formed Cooperative Care to provide better wages and benefits to workers while offering superior service to people in the community. Since then, Cooperative Care has widened its service area throughout Central Wisconsin and continues to expand its mission of helping people stay in their homes.
Resources & Organizations
Resources
Homecare Cooperative Benchmarking Report. ICA Group, 2025
Cooperative Solutions for Community Care Needs Webinar. UW Center for Cooperatives, 2018.
Cooperative Solutions for Community Care Needs PowerPoint. UW Center for Cooperatives, 2018.
The Cooperative Solution to the Caregiver Crisis: A National Strategy Analysis. The ICA Group, 2017
How to Start and Manage a Worker-Owned Home Care Cooperative. Direct Care Alliance, 2010.
Recruitment and Outreach Toolkit. Homecare Cooperative Initiative/Cooperative Development Foundation.
A Start-up Case Study of Peninsula Home Care Cooperative. Peninsula Homecare Cooperative, 2018.
Underwriting Homecare Cooperatives: A Guide to Support Investment Decisions and Bring Home Care Cooperatives to Scale. Capital Impact Partners, 2018.
Organizations Supporting Home Care Cooperatives
Respite Care
Respite care is short-term, temporary care for a child or adult who needs support because of age, disability, chronic illness, or other special needs. It gives family caregivers temporary relief from the demands of caregiving, allowing them time to rest, attend to personal needs, work, or spend time with other family members.
Respite care is often described as a preventative service because it helps reduce caregiver stress, prevent burnout, and improve the quality of life for both caregivers and the individual they support.
Despite its importance, respite care positions can be difficult to fill. The work often involves inconsistent hours and irregular schedules. Many workers prefer stable, predictable employment.
Like other caregiving professions, wages have not kept pace with the complexity and responsibility of the work making recruitment and retention challenging.
Respite providers are frequently expected to support individuals with specialized needs, including dementia, intellectual and developmental disabilities, behavioral health challenges, and complex medical conditions. However, compensation often does not reflect the level of skill, training, and expertise required to provide high-quality care. As a result, many organizations struggle to recruit and retain qualified respite care workers, limiting access to this critical support service for families.
Benefits of Respite Care Cooperatives
Respite care cooperatives offer a different approach. Caregivers own and help run the business, giving them a voice in decisions and a chance to share in its success.
A cooperative can help:
- Create steadier work. Bringing together families who need care can help caregivers get more hours and more consistent schedules.
- Give caregivers a voice. Caregivers can help make decisions about schedules, working conditions, and how the business is run.
- Build better jobs. More say in the workplace and more reliable work can help attract and keep skilled caregivers.
- Give families more options. Families can have access to a larger group of trusted caregivers.
- Provide more consistent care. Keeping caregivers longer can help families build relationships with people they know and trust.
- Support caregivers and families. The cooperative model can create better jobs for caregivers while helping families find reliable, high-quality care.
Examples
Full Circle Respite Cooperative provides one-on-one respite services that help young people work toward personal goals while giving their families needed support. Services can include building social and emotional skills, daily living skills, healthy routines, career planning, and preparing for the transition to adulthood.
Resources & Organizations
Resources
The Wisconsin Home Care Market Opportunity Assessment. ICA Group, 2023.
Bringing Respite to Your Community (BRYC) Training. Respite Care Association of Wisconsin
Organizations that Support Respite Care Cooperatives