Case Study - Community of Practice
Conversation Co was engaged by a metropolitan Council to establish and coordinate an internal Community of Practice (CoP) to build staff capability in planning and delivering effective community engagement. The CoP brought together staff directly involved in engagement activities, providing a dedicated space for shared learning and collaboration.
Purpose of the Project
Improve community engagement skills and staff confidence levels in planning and delivering community engagement projects.
Identify future learning priorities and professional development needs.
Identify upcoming projects to support capability building in real time.
Foster regular knowledge sharing and collective problem solving
Methodology
Firstly, we delivered a co-design session to establish a shared understanding of the group’s purpose, scope, and expectations. A variety of activities were undertaken during the co-design session, including:
Voting to understand engagement confidence levels (mentimetre).
Small group discussions focusing on the aspirations of the group.
Physical mapping of upcoming engagements.
Prioritising learning topics (mentimetre).
All-in group discussion to determine the preferred meeting length and frequency.
Following the co-design session, a Terms of Reference was drafted and the CoP program of seven sessions was planned to address the identified needs and aspirations of the group. The meeting schedule was set based on the preferred frequency and length of participants.
Keys to Success
Co-designing the CoP with participants increased-buy in through encouraging staff ownership and demonstrating value..
Physically mapping engagement activities allowed staff to visualise the upcoming ‘pain points’ for the organisation and highlighted opportunities for partnership.
Designing the CoP sessions to align with participants’ needs and the community engagement plan template, enabling staff to learn while developing their own engagement plans.
Vic Health COP
Conversation Co partnered with Vic Health to establish and facilitate a Community of Practice (CoP) with LPHUs across the state to strengthen staff capability in planning and delivering community engagement. The CoP brought together staff involved in the delivery of Prevention and Population Health projects across 6 LPHUs who often work in isolation, creating a shared space for connection, learning and collaboration. Importantly, this CoP was developed for officer-level staff to provide a peer-led network of support for health planning, building skills and sharing ideas, partnering for advocacy pieces and replicating work.
What We Did
Conversation Co facilitated a series of co-design workshops to define the group’s purpose, scope and expectations. Staff used Menti polls, small-group discussions and mapping of projects and communities to identify current challenges, confidence levels and learning priorities. From this, we drafted a Code of Practice, Terms of Reference and designed a seven-session program enabling staff to take on a session in a group and facilitate something their team were interested in gathering feedback, support on. In the Co-design sessions, the group landed on a simple structure: ‘Share, Discuss, Apply’ for their sessions. Conversation Co provided resources for planning, inspiration for formats, data collection, reporting back and technical support to enable LPHU staff to develop their own facilitation and engagement skills whilst participating in their CoP. After several rounds of CoP sessions followed by participant evaluations and tweaks we landed on a good formula for the group to pick up and use. We then stepped out of the CoP, leaving it in their capable hands to continue.
What We Learned
The CoP gave staff a home for floating ideas, challenges and support, making their work feel less lonely and giving them a place to test ideas and share tools. Mapping activities revealed overlapping work and helped reduce duplication and potential community fatigue. We also learned the importance of clear facilitation frameworks: our role wasn’t to provide answers, but to guide conversations, to keep it simple with sessions focused on one topic at a time and help staff build a shared understanding of quality practice.
The Impact
By the end of the program, staff reported higher confidence, better coordination across teams and stronger connections with colleagues. The CoP created a sustainable structure for ongoing capability building peer to peer, we also established some techniques for collaborative practice and built confidence in facilitation skills.
