Toolkit for Developing a Community of Practice
This is a toolkit for those interested in establishing communities of practice for frontline practitioners in health, housing, criminal justice and social care agencies. The aim of such communities is to improve front line collaborative service responses to multiple and complex needs and exclusions. The toolkit draws on our experience of instigating and supporting six communities of practice in England during 2012. It includes the experience and views of facilitators and members of those communities of practice collected during the projects and their evaluation.
The toolkit is designed to guide you step-by-step through all the stages in planning, developing and running a
successful community of practice. It includes the following sections:
- What is a community of practice?
- Is a community of practice right for us?
- Choosing a facilitator
- Selecting and recruiting participants
- Getting started: your first meeting
- Case-based learning
- What is a ‘knowledge broker’ and why is the role important?
- Overcoming challenges
- Evolutions and endings
- External resources
The toolkit ends with a number of example case studies to show what communities of practice can look like in practice.
