Deep Experience

Introduction to Deep Experience

These learning communities bring together people with deep experience around a specific area of social enterprise activity or challenge.  They have an intention to learn together, solve problems related to the focus area, and develop practices to share widely.

The key attributes of Deep Experience learning communities are that they:

• Focus on a specific area of shared inquiry and relevance to the social enterprise sector.
• Leverage wisdom across diverse individuals, organisations, and roles with expertise in the focus area.
• Build trust among community members to enable the free exchange of information and knowledge.
• Facilitate interactions that enable members to gain learning from the group and contribute to the group’s learning in the identified focus area.
• Have an identified coordinator (or co-coordinators) and processes to support regular communication, interaction and learning.
• Have regular meetings (online) and pursue activities between meetings that create learning value for group members.
• Develop agreed terms of reference and ways of working.
• Provide insights and advice on issues related to their area of focus.
• Develop new practices, guidance, tools and strategies to build capability in the identified focus area.
• Share knowledge and practice resources with the sector to advance the area of practice.
• Inform the development of a collective and strategic voice on the topic.

Examples

Examples include:

•  Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth
• Settlement Engagement and Transition Support Community of Practice (SETSCoP)
• National Disability Services Community of Practice