Building partnership Angie Hart – University of Brighton Kim Aumann – Amaze

In the beginning…

Using the CoP approach “CoPs are groups of people who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interacting on an ongoing basis”. (Wenger, E., McDermott, R & Snyder, W.M., Cultivating Communities of Practice, HBS Press, 2002)

CoPS ‘groups of people informally bounded together by shared expertise and passion for a joint enterprise’. (Wenger and Snyder 2000, pp ). ‘share their experiences and knowledge in free-flowing, creative ways that foster new approaches to problems’. ‘As a locus of engagement in action, interpersonal relations, shared knowledge, and negotiation of enterprises, such communities hold the key to real transformation – the kind that has real effects on peoples lives’. (Wenger 1998, p.85).

CoP ingredients Domain.... has an identity defined by a shared field of interest; shared commitment and competence that distinguishes members from others. Community... members engage in joint activities, discussions, help each other, share information – to pursue their interest in the domain together. They build relationships that enable learning from each other. Practice... members are practitioners who develop a shared repertoire of resources: experiences, stories, tools, ways of addressing recurring problems – a shared practice.

A group of people who … share similar challenges interact regularly learn from and with each other improve their ability to address their challenges bring out each others tacit knowledge

BOUNCING BACK Building resilience with children and young people having tough times Folk who wanted to develop their thinking and practice around applying a resilient approach to work or home Common interest in children, young people and families

Who was involved 21 members: 3 parents, 6 academics, 8 voluntary sector practitioners, 4 statutory sector workers Monthly 3 hour meetings over 2 years Facilitated meetings Space to meet, think about and test a range of discrete resilience ideas in their own settings….with a view to developing RT further Core group (2 community partners and 2 academics) administered the group and evaluated the CoP activity

Different perspectives Different types of knowledge

In role What’s your unique knowledge base? (regarding children and young people socially disadvantaged and/or resilience)

Identifying what you bring

In role What do you need to happen in the CoP for it to be useful to you?

How we did it –Group agreement: commitment, research participants –Group forming time –Initial training and learning in resilience and RT –Experimenting with resilience ideas in their own homes or work settings –Feeding back to group; using group as a resource to critique, refine ideas and practices –Willing to create and share resources –Additional support time for parents

COPs Add to our understanding of how we come to know and learn Raise issues about what knowledge is, whose knowledge we are talking about, how we come to know things, whether different approaches to finding things out result in different knowledge Offer a framework that helps to see past the usual way of knowing and learning that happens within organisations & classrooms Focus is on engagement with practice and the informal learning that comes with that engagement Involve a process (not just an event) – brings out tacit knowledge

Second CoP - East Sussex Focus on building resilience with young people members: 2 foster parents, 3 voluntary sector workers, 9 statutory workers, 1 academics Monthly meetings for 3 hours, for 1 year Co-ordinated and facilitated by community partner Evaluated by University

Capturing impact Interviews with CoP members at beginning and end of the project to capture their: –Understanding of RT –Ways in which they have or have not been able to implement it into their practice/families –How RT has or has not impacted on their own well-being –Own evaluation of the RT approach Evaluators also observing CoP meetings to explore the detail of the transition from theory to practice

CoP products and activity Training resources - Resilient Casework examples; Musical Resilient Bingo; workshop exercises tested and refined Ready Steady Secondary Course – building resilience with parents and young people anxious about the transition to secondary school Kinship Carers Action Research Project Using RT with staff practice forums Integrating RT into staff supervision Building resilience with learning disabled young people via inclusive arts work

CoP products and activity Using RT alongside Under 5s Protective Behaviour course for parents and little ones Bullying Workshop for Parents including resilience building ideas Applying RT to an organization’s strategic plan Testing RT as a framework to evaluate a Telephone Helpline Understanding Resilience – workshop for local authority children’s workforce delivered by service users Applying RT in group work with LGBT young people Linking resilience and the Common Assessment Framework tool RT & Cognitive Behaviour groupwork with women refugees

East Sussex CoP products Foster parents applying RT in their work with ‘looked after children’ ‘Pick ‘n’ mix’ box of resilience ideas to help client identify their own goals and a plan of action which provides a visual means of evaluating progress Tool box to use with young men’s group: each tool engraved to include resilient ideas as a prompt for discussion Incorporating RT into parent support course Evaluation tool to measure resilient outcomes that incorporates young people’s views about their progress or positive change

East Sussex CoP products Creating a range of different games: Magic box + questionnaire to be used over series of sessions with young person to chart progress Children's game using body maps and a series of exploratory questions Board game to assist young people to identify their own resilient qualities and those around who can be enlisted to help them Organisational Review of Young People’s Pathway Plan, adding a stronger resilience emphasis to review young person’s progress

Challenges Need a budget So hard to get folk to read even though they kept turning up Insufficient challenge for academics Raising questions without answers Getting beyond the superficial Sensitivities might need to be held

Positives Sets up relationships for the future Built confidence of many – now training, doing more with their organisations Developed knowledge base for some Further developed RT Cross fertilisation between members

CoPs over time… Accumulate knowledge and become bound by the value they find in learning about resilience and RT together Develop a unique perspective on RT as well as a body of common knowledge, practices and approaches (eg tools, standards, manuals, materials) Develop personal relationships and established ways of interacting with each other Encourage inclusion by making connections and consolidating learning across potential lines of division in relation to joint enterprise Cross boundaries which causes people to look afresh at their own assumptions, facilitated by creation of ‘boundary objects’ - eg language, artefacts and ‘brokering’ - eg linking differing perspectives.