Professional Reintegration in Social Cooperatives in the Lodz Region

Social cooperatives are one of the tools of active social policies that aim to support people at risk of social exclusion and lead them through the inclusion activities aimed at the socio‑professional reintegration. This allows them to regain their employability in the later stages of their careers, and lets living according to the model accepted by society. Social cooperatives in Poland are developing for over 10 years, which allows to analyze the effectiveness of these organizations in terms of reaching their objectives. This type of analysis is particularly important due to the fact that social cooperatives are generously supported and promoted by national authorities. Therefore, it is worth to find out whether substantial budgetary resources should be allocated for the development of this type of organization? The paper was based on the results of surveys carried out on a group of 116 founders and 74 employees of 42 social cooperatives from the Lodz region in the period from December 2013 to June 2014. This research was a part of larger research project on the effectiveness of social cooperatives in terms of reintegration of people at risk of social exclusion in Poland. The study was conducted on the example of the Lodz region and an attempt was made to reach all 82 cooperatives registered in the region at the end of November 2013. Undertaken analyzes enable the verification of social cooperatives as an effective method of reducing social exclusion through professional reintegration. Beneficiaries of social cooperatives need to be evaluated separately in two subgroups, i.e. employees and founders. They differ in terms of remoteness from the open labor market, due to the varying degrees of problems affecting their social exclusion threat. Employees were people with a low degree of independence, waiting to propose them ready‑made solutions to their socio‑professional situation. The founders are people with completely different characteristics – self‑reliant and entrepreneurial. The social cooperative gave them the opportunity to overcome temporary problems by setting up companies which are often the fulfillment of their dreams and passions. Working in a cooperative representatives of both sub‑groups develop competence in terms of skills and attitudes. As a result, they became attractive to employment on the open labor market.