Building Understand and Igniting Change through a Community of Practice

Joanne Cashman

Director, The IDEA Partnership

at

NASDSE

Members of the National Transition Community of

Practice

NSTTAC, 2009

Purpose of Today’s Meeting• Ask: Can we work across agencies, localities and

stakeholder groups to improve transition services for youth with disabilities?

• Introduce Communities of Practice ( CoP) : The Infrastructure for Coalescing Groups around Issues

• The National CoP on Transition• State CoPs: Modeling the Work at the State and

Local Level• www.sharedwork.org : The Interaction System• Moving from ideas to action and outcomes• Learning from the approaches in other states • Coaching other states on issues that we have

successfully addressed• Surface issues and identify coordinated actions• Building connections through www.sharedwork.org

What are Communities of Practice?

A way of working • Involving those who do

shared work• Involving those that share

issues• Always asking “who isn’t

here?”

A way of learning• To create new knowledge

grounded in ‘doing the work’

• Learning with those who can advocate for and make change

Coming Together around the Transition Needs of Youth with Disabilities:

Finding Our Shared Work

• Who is interested in this issue and why?

• What efforts are underway separately to address the work?

• How can we build new connections?

• What ‘real work’ goal could unite us?

What is a National Community?

• Mechanism to build understanding across groups

• Infrastructure for conducting an open dialogue around shared interests

• Conduit for supporting shared work

• Tool to look at issues at multiple levels of scale

STATE

LOCAL

SITE

INDIVIDUAL

Multiple Levels of Scale : Learning Loops Built Through Community

FEDERAL

STATE

LOCAL

SITE

INDIVIDUAL

STATE

LOCAL

SITE

INDIVIDUAL

Two-Way Learning Communicating to Learn What Works

LOCALTO

STATE

STATETO

LOCAL

How is a National Community Built ?

• Bring people together from many levels : national, state, local, site, individual

• Invite professional and advocacy groups that share interests around an issue

• Invite federal research and TA investments

• Engage decisionmakers, practitioners and consumers

• Cut across organizational boundaries

• Cut across agency boundaries

• Unite people around their common interests

• Something concrete…Examples from the National Community

How Do Groups and Individuals Get Their Needs Met Within a Community?

• Communities focus on ‘big picture’ goals• ‘Practice Groups’ unite individuals with special

interests or specific issues• Practice groups help the community understand

specific interests and issues in more depth• The community keeps the practice group focused on

the ‘bigger picture’• Both the ‘community’ and the ‘practice group’ are

necessary to get needs met • Both the ‘community’ and the ‘practice group’ are

necessary to respond to issues in context

• Stories from the Practice Groups…

What is New about the Community We Are Creating Together?

• Connecting with intentionality

• Building the infrastructure to enable connections

• Bringing decisionmakers, practitioners, consumers and youth into shared work

• Reaching new levels of involvement for individuals and local programs

• Modeling new ways to reach out and engage people

• Building the network to sense emerging issues and evolving practice

• Commitment to seeking engagement from varied roles and diverse perspectives

• Using the Community to raise awareness of new issues and new approaches

• Always going for meaning…not just information

• Always asking who is not here?

• Reflection from the stakeholders…

Raising the Profile of Stakeholders as Allies:The Human Side of Better Outcomes

Through our interaction, we are creating a set of community standards for engaging stakeholders that will inspire and lead us. These are not a remote set of standards, rather an agreed upon set of behaviors that:

• will shape how we approach transition work in our states organizations, schools and families

• will define how we will begin to measure or success.

They are a common vision of where we are going and how we model our beliefs through our own work.

We may not all meet the standards for a while…but we are moving toward them!

So Far…

• What excites you most about the community?

• What puzzles you most?

• For you, where is the ‘value added’?

The Big, Bigger and Biggest Pictures

• Big: We are about shared interests, stakeholders and networks: We believe that engaging leaders at all levels can create a multiplier effect…a ‘Tipping Point’

• Bigger: We are about inclusive, non-duplicative, work…we honor the work that has been done and is being done currently. We seek to find a way to be of value to those efforts and…..we always ask, “Who is not here?”

• Biggest: We are about organizational learning…helping those in leadership/authority at all levels see the potential of community to meet persistent problems. We are looking for pathways through complex and interrelated issues. No person, organization or agency can do that alone.

• The National Community and the Practice Groups are the conduit• The states, organizations and agencies are the laboratories of change