The concept of mutual support is frequently linked to community care, helpfully opening up a wider understanding of care in the community. At the same time, Warren connects mutual support with Durkheim's notion of ‘organic solidarity … a type of interdependence in interaction’ (Warren, 1963, p 196). The concepts of mutual support and solidarity are therefore grounded in a tradition of powerful ideas. These in turn connect strongly with community development and civil society.

In the practice field, research undertaken in Scotland on community care and community development concluded that it was inappropriate to use a narrow definition of community care. A significant number of the local people and community development workers interviewed said that they experienced and articulated their involvement in providing support within a social inclusion framework. This led the researchers to conclude that the issue of caring communities must form part of corporate policymaking rather than being left to the social work/social services department (Barr et al, 2001). Commitment to using social justice and social inclusion as frameworks underpinning government and local authority policies has always been strong in Scotland. As a result, a body of experience has accrued from which other countries can learn. Rather than thinking of community care as being concerned, traditionally, with client groups of older people, people with mental health problems and people with physical or sensory impairments, a community development approach to community care seeks to connect the needs of vulnerable people with wider community issues and networks.

Our purpose in this chapter is twofold:

• • to argue for the need to reposition community care within the mainstream of community development policy and practice. Caring for others is a necessary part of any definition of a strong community, yet currently it is marginal to community development;

• • to explore the question of how communities can develop and maintain a commitment to mutual support and solidarity.

We begin by placing community care and solidarity in historical and contemporary contexts. We then summarise two case studies of community development approaches to community care and solidarity. These provide the basis for setting out ‘ground rules’ or principles of good practice with which politicians, policymakers, community development organisations and leaders of civil society need to engage if they are to embed the idea of community care genuinely and effectively in and with communities.