Community of Practice

NEW for 2025!

On Wednesday 5 February we were delighted that Core Members of the HI Network from 8 different countries came together for the first session of our new online Community of Practice.

HI CoP Session One : summary from 5 February 2025
COP Coming Together Feb 25 : accompanying slides from 5 February 2025

The next session of the CoP will take place on Wednesday 21 May at 12.00 UTC and will focus on Awareness and Promotion. Participants will be encouraged to share their experiences of promoting a homeshare programme:

What has worked well?
What has not worked so well?
Call to Action! What can be taken away and applied to future practice?

All Core Members are invited to take part. If you run a homeshare programme, but aren’t yet a Core Member, do join our international homeshare community!

What is a Community of Practice?

– A Community of Practice (CoP) is a group of people who share a common concern, a set of problems, or an interest in a topic and who come together to fulfil both individual and group goals. The concept was first proposed by cognitive anthropologist Jean Lave and educational theorist Etienne Wenger in their 1991 book Situated Learning.

– Our Community of Practice will focus on sharing best practices and creating new knowledge to advance professional practice within the field of homeshare. Interaction on an ongoing basis is an important part of this process.

– A Community of Practice framework develops around three core elements:

Purpose: making homeshare a safe and affordable option for all who could benefit from it. The term ‘homeshare’ is used here according to HI’s understanding of it as an exchange of housing for help around the home, with matches facilitated by established homeshare providers.
People: HI Core Members who deliver homeshare programmes around the world.
Practice: members of the community commit to coming together every three months to explore and deepen their practice and take away shared objectives for improvement.

This is a useful overview of a CoP, and the principles behind it.

How does the CoP work?

– The CoP is held online every 3 months, and is specifically for Core Members, whatever their level of experience in running a homeshare programme.

– The CoP focusses on the higher-level skills of engagement and development. It involves active contributions of reflecting, questioning, collaborating, problem solving and sharing. (Compared to the format of presentations that only require sharing and telling where people may or may not do anything with the information)

– CoP members will collaborate to develop better ways of working with homeshare, and leave sessions with specific ideas and actions for improving their practice.

– the Homeshare International CoP will achieve this through break out rooms in English, German and French with translation at the end in English to bring the contributions together.

Can I attend?

If you run a homeshare programme and are a Core Member of the Homeshare International Network, then please commit to joining this new initiative to support and enrich your practice.

The collaborative nature of the CoP will benefit the wider homeshare community, leading best practice, encouraging the launch of new programmes, and sharing ways to raise the profile of the homeshare model.

If you run a homeshare programme and are not yet a Core Member, please join us! You will be most welcome to become part of the international homeshare community.

All Core Members will receive a link to join the session nearer the time. If you oversee a larger programme, you can also nominate one of your homeshare managers to attend on your behalf.

Community of Practice 2025

Wednesday 5 February at 12.00 UTC*
Wednesday 21 May at 12.00 UTC
Wednesday 3 September at 12.00 UTC
Wednesday 3 December at 12.00 UTC

* you can find the time where you are by clicking on the link and opening the UTC Converter tool

Community of Practice 2025

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