Community of Practice

Community of Policy and Practice

A Community of Practice is a group of people or organisations working on a common problem who come together to share knowledge, problem-solve and build best practice over time.

In today’s economy, where competition is often core to national procurement models, opportunities to share approaches and build collective best practice are limited.

A Community of Practice is intended to challenge this environment and return the end users of a service or program to the centre of decision-making. It does this by encouraging providers to pool their experiences and resources to address common challenges and to innovate.

Engagement across a Community of Practice can and should take a range of forms – including meetings, online collaboration spaces and a mixture of many touchpoints – to cultivate learning and shared capability building.

A Community of Practice provides a space for members:

to exchange expertise, wisdom and lessons
to test and refine tools and resources
to engage in ongoing reflection, continuous improvement and feedback loops, linking research, evaluation and lived experience
to integrate research and data analysis into practice and policy discussions
to build and strengthen community leadership
to inform and drive a systemic approach to local challenges (looking at and addressing challenges in the whole system rather than around individuals)
to come up with new ideas and ways of doing things to advance policy goals and systems change
to ensure two-way knowledge flow between local CICs and national policy influencers
to identify and act on advocacy opportunities, influencing system settings such as service design, commissioning models and policy priorities.

The NYEB has established two different communities of practice:

A Community Investment Committee Community of Practice (CIC CoP) bringing together partner organisation staff and CIC Coordinators to share and reflect upon data and evidence about working in place and to identify ways to adapt and continuously improve practice. It provides learning spaces and opportunities for CIC Coordinators to reflect on their current practice in engaging and facilitating the CIC, driving action and building shared projects. It also encourages sharing and connection in between formal CIC CoP meetings.

A Community of Policy and Practice (NYEB CoPP) bringing together all NYEB members including members of CICs, national governance groups, philanthropic partners and the Enabling Organisation to share knowledge and best practice and build common goals together. The CoPP is convened as a multi-day in-person event twice each year.