Kent Research Partnership developed Kent-based Communities of Practice (CoPs) to support the delivery of high quality social care research on the topics that matter most in our region.
Development:
Our CoPs were developed during 3 priority-setting events that brought together adult social care providers, experts by experience (in receipt of social care services themselves or supporting someone who is) and researchers across Kent.
(please see our links to event recordings below)
Community of Practice aims:
- To bring together people with different social care experiences and expertise around a shared interest in a particular topic.
- To provide opportunities for innovation based on a diverse range of experience.
- To encourage knowledge sharing, awareness raising and network building within the wider social care community.
- To facilitate opportunities for training, development of practice tools and other resources, and promotion of and contribution to social care research.
We ran 2 thriving Communities of Practice which bring together researchers, practitioners, social care stakeholders and people with lived experience:
CoP1: Enhancing, diversifying and sustaining the social care workforce
CoP2: Supporting people with complex needs throughout the lifespan
Format: monthly meetings, speakers on specific issues, challenges or good practice highlights, followed by wider discussions and learning from how others are addressing common challenge(s) or issue(s).
There were also opportunities to build networks and develop projects on relevant sub-topics in smaller groups.
CoP members were able to:
- Connect with social care practitioners and people with lived experience of social care to plan future research, disseminate findings and talk about evidence-based practice
- Present research ideas and get pre-application feedback on research questions, methods, public involvement plans and routes to impact.
- Offer funded pre-application PPI support: CoP members with project ideas relevant to our members’ priorities could request pre-application support (e.g. 1-2 Working Group members reviewed an application or helped draft a Plain English Summary).
- Co-research from the very start: CoP members could discuss whether any were interested in being involved as collaborators in funding applications.
- Share their experience of KRP CoP involvement at a range of dissemination events and in a journal article (please see below).
Read about the development of CoPs:
Hashem, F., Zhang, W., Mikelyte, R., Rajan-Rankin, S., Porumb, E., Trapp, O. & Towers, A.-M. Our approach to developing communities of practice to foster research capacities for the adult social care workforce. NIHR Open Research 2024, 3:43
To open, click here: https://doi.org/10.3310/nihropenres.13461.2
Read our Quick Guide to CoPs:
CoPs – quick guide for new members