Transcript Putting CoP into Place!

Communities of Practice
“Communities of practice are groups of people
who share a concern or a passion for
something they do….. and learn how to do it
better as they interact regularly.”
Etienne Wenger
“It’s not about working harder, it ‘s about
working smarter.”
Communities of Practice
Community Members:
• engage in joint activities and discussions
• help each other
• share information
• build relationships that enable them to
learn from each other.
• develop a shared repertoire of resources:
experiences, stories, tools, ways of
addressing recurring problems—
in short a shared practice
Communities of Practice
• enable practitioners to take collective responsibility
for managing the knowledge they need
• create a direct link between learning and
performance, because the same people participate in
communities of practice that are in the field trying
to meet the needs of the community they serve
• are not limited by formal structures: they create
connections among people across organizational and
geographic boundaries.
What Do Communities of Practice Look Like?
Problem solving
“Can we brainstorm some ideas on how to better serve our
growing population of kids with ASD?.”
Requests for information
“How many students with ASD are identified in your
programs?”
Seeking experience
Reusing assets
Coordination and synergy
‘Has anyone dealt with a child with these behaviors?”
“I have a behavior plan I wrote for a student last year. I can
send it to you and you can easily tweak it for this child.”
“Can we combine our programs to serve more students?”
Discussing developments
“How have you used the Positive Behavior Support
system? Does it really help?”
Documentation projects
“We have faced this issue five times now. Let us write it
down once and for all.”
Visits
“Can we come and see your after-school program? We
need to establish one in our city.”
Mapping knowledge
&Identifying gaps
“Who knows what, and what are we missing? What other
groups should we connect with?”
Putting Communities of
Practice in Autism (CoPA)
into Place!
Where do we go from here?
Communities of
Practice in Autism (CoPA)
A collaborative grant funded by:
– DMHMRSAS
– The integrated Training Collaborative
– The VA Department of Education, Special
Education Instructional Services
Purpose
• To share knowledge, information and resources to
help providers improve services for infants and
toddlers and young children with ASD and their
families in natural environments
Key outcomes:
– Share resources
– Improve supports and services
• Develop a means to communicate individualized
service delivery
– Enhance families’ confidence and competence
– Address both providers’ and families’ skills
Mission
• Sharing information about evidence-based
strategies with a focus on infant/toddlers and
young children in natural settings
(e.g., joint attention, behavior intervention strategies)
• Guidelines for educating parents and
professionals about effective strategies and
using the strategies to meet IFSP/IEP goals
Issues
• Lack of knowledge about what is evidence-based
practices for infants/toddlers & children with ASD
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Strategies on providing services
Variety of services
Transition between programs
Not providing/having services that families perceive as
appropriate
• Overlap or gaps in services to children/families
• Professionals don’t always know what to do
• Professionals don’t always know what to say to
families
Outcomes: Year 1
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Develop local CoPA goals based on our mission
and community issues and needs
•
Hold 9 meetings based on the CoPA goals
PLAN
September 2007 – September 2008
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Measure progress toward the mission and local CoPA goals
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Did anyone learn anything?
Did services get better?
Are we making progress?
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Likert scale
Use pre/post measure to evaluate community standing (Adrienne)
Develop a sustainability plan
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Train new CoPA leaders?
Satellite CoPAs?
Identify needs for sustainability (funding, supports)
Process
When to hold meetings?
– Day or evening?
– Rotate?
• Where you hold meetings?
– Rotate location?
– Central location?
• How long will you meet?
– World News takes 30 minutes!
• Disseminating information about the
meeting and in between the meetings
•
Process
• Who do we invite?
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Invite people based on how EI system is set up
Family Members
TTAC
EI Systems Managers
Part B – ECSE
Head Start Programs
Others (Dev. Ped, University Faculty, ASD experts, Parents
Linking with University certificate ASD training programs Size of
CoPA group
• Talk with system managers about structuring
meetings & disseminating information
• Ask key players to make a commitment to
the CoPA & 9 meetings
Process
• Challenges & Solutions
– Communicating between meetings
• Email, snail mail, a variety of ways to meet
all members’ preferences
– Time & Commitment
• CoPA leader is only a facilitator
• Delegate tasks
– Defining evidence-based practice
– How to choose topics
• Brainstorm & prioritize topics
– Getting people involved and committed