France has 11 million caregivers, or nearly 3 out of 10 French people who assist in the acts of daily life a close relative who is losing his or her independence. Virginie Guy-Lagoutte, CEO of Ma Boussole Aidants, launched in 2020, knows this subject well.
With the exception of RTT donations, which receive a certain amount of media coverage, more than half of caregivers feel poorly informed about their role and the existing tools and mechanisms. This is why Virginie-Guy-Lagoutte is working in 2020 to create Ma Boussole Aidants, a reference platform that centralizes and aggregates the heterogeneity of solutions that can be activated. Given the lack of visibility and awareness, the stakes are high, but the challenge is not daunting.
After spending many years driving and leading transformation projects in the public sector, particularly in the area of social policy modernization, Virginie Guy-Lagoutte became a partner at Open Communities, a firm specializing in supporting the transformation of public and private organizations.
The approach: design thinking and the stimulation of collective intelligence, i.e. "participative approaches, more cooperative, more attentive, with empathy and benevolence", she explains. This is how, from 2007 onwards, she has been following the co-construction of the Klesia caregiver support program, carried out by several social protection groups under the aegis of the Agirc-Arrco scheme.
A social utility cooperative
Based on this experience, the consultant-entrepreneur came up with the idea of a digital service that would centralize access to information, solutions and assistance available locally for all caregivers, their loved ones and professionals.
"I took the risk of co-founding a firm with three partners around this idea of agile transformation, taking root in the field, getting closer to the beneficiaries, and Ma Boussole Aidants benefited from this approach," she elaborates. We went all the way with these intentions of cooperation and openness by making the project a social utility cooperative."
Another objective was to reach the widest possible target, in a universal way. "The team was determined not to make this a subject only for the insured of the Agirc-Arrco scheme, our funder, but a common good serving the general interest," she continues.
This motivation is reflected in the choice of the legal form of a cooperative company, which allows private and public players to work together. When there are millions of people to address, there can't be too many 15 structures involved," enthuses Virginie Guy-Lagoutte. This creates a collaborative collective intelligence that avoids wasting energy."
A tool for professionals
For the professional sphere, the subject cannot be ignored. For 39% of caregivers, it is often a question of adjusting or reducing their working hours, or even stopping their activity. The digital service provides answers to these problems. "Business leaders are often new to this social issue. They need to take the pulse of what it implies for their structure in terms of repercussions, but also to appropriate the applicable law, which is quite complex", underlines the manager. With Ma Boussole Aidants, actions can be implemented in companies to inform, raise awareness and guide employees.
Beyond that, the platform can contribute to the development of the ecosystem, according to needs and territories. "The fact of consolidating and aggregating data on what exists allows us to reveal, in certain areas, an insufficiently endowed or incomplete offer. In this context, the cooperative can encourage its members to become carriers and operators of new service offers", concludes the director.