Communities of Practice

My Communities of practice

Professionally, I am part of a network of educators and practitioners aiming to provide Aotearoa New Zealand with skilled social service practitioners who are qualified for the social practice sector and who are accomplished in the application of theory in practical contexts relating to registration and practice.

I could say that I am simultaneously a member of several communities of practice - recognizing the existence of multiple knowledge and sites of learning within my organisation and (my field of practice - Social Practice).

I am particularly attracted to communities that perpetuate my professional values and views. An example of my communities of practice is my department. The majority of my colleagues share a commitment to social justice - meaning that we have identified (and continue to identify through day-to-day conversations) structures, institutions, ideologies used by others to oppress and marginalize others in society. This is shared problem (for us) and we keep discussing ways of addressing and managing the problem. We share ideas through weekly meetings/ online staff room (share articles, comments e.t.c.)

As a community, we develop our practice through a number of activities including:

• Problem Solving
• Requests for Information
• Discussing Developments
• Mapping Knowledge
• Identifying Gaps

I would call us a social justice community. The following book is documentation of some the amazing work done my a similar community - sharing a commitment to social justice

Involvement with more communities/ sharing knowledge through publications (online or print)/

• How to make research findings available to those who provide or manage services? 
• How to make the available research meaningful? 
• How to get meaningful research into practice?
• Finding out what works for policy-makers, practitioners and service users; and how to implement it.
• Finding out what does not work, and how to stop it.

References

Le May, André. Communities of Practice in Health and Social Care. Hoboken, NJ, USA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 2 February 2015.
Copyright © 2009. Wiley-Blackwell. All rights reserved.

http://www.socialserviceinstitute.sg/Documents/COP-halfdayseminar.pdf

Benefits of community of practice for the individual and for the community: