Other Services
Communities of Appreciative Inquiry Practice
Communities of Practice provide an opportunity for those using Appreciative Inquiry to come together to share their practice and learn from each over to develop their knowledge and skills.
Typically, Communities of Practice are established after a training course or Appreciative Inquiry event where participants are keen to keep the impetus of the experience alive and wish to embed and deepen their learning about Appreciative Inquiry in their work or their community.
Communities of Practice provide a mutually supportive environment in which to do this on a regular basis, usually monthly or quarterly, with participants bringing examples of their experience to discuss and/or focusing on a particular aspect of Appreciative Inquiry practice to explore in more depth. One example is Appreciating Church’s Appreciative Space programme which has been offering monthly one hour gatherings for church-based practitioners since November 2022.
Our support offer
IAAI can provide support to facilitate Communities of Practice especially in the early stages when determining how the Community of Practice might operate and when input on different elements of Appreciative Inquiry might be helpful. In the longer term we encourage Communities of Practice to become self-directed, but we remain available to provide support as needed.
The benefits of Communities of Practice include:
- A regular opportunity for participants to explore particular experiences in more depth in a supportive environment
- An ongoing space to deepen learning about appreciative inquiry, and how it can be embedded in a specific workplace
- Through the experience of mutual learning and development, to strengthen relationships and wider collaboration in an organisation as well as enhance an organisation’s learning culture.
Appreciative Inquiry Consultancy
Members of the International Alliance for Appreciative Inquiry (IAAI) also provide organisational development consultancy based on strengths based approaches. For example:
Inspiring Partners
Inspiring Partners help organisations to create the future they desire.
At Inspiring Partners we use different strengths-based activities, add inspiration, and support creativity. This helps people and teams to grow and move forward.
We support organisations to plan and define organisational developmental strategies that promote the creation of high-performance teams, foster improvement processes, optimise organisational resources, and increase competitiveness.
We offer solutions and work in the Spanish Speaking regions.
Examples of Inspiring Partners Appreciative Inquiry Advisory Projects
| LACTALIS Food Service - Valuing the company's origins and laying the foundations to build a common path for the future | ASPAPEL - Define strategic lines of inquiry and design action plans for delivery of new strategy during 2015-2018. | BOOLINO - Motivate and unite the team. Build on existing strengths and carefully integrate new personnel with complementary skills into the team. |
| IL3 (UNIVERSIDAD BARCELONA) – Achieve a more collaborative, transversal, flexible, and co-led organisation. | CAPSIDE - Celebrate how Capside got to where it had and take use the accumulated learnings to build the desired future. | Town of CATALUÑA - Promote an action plan (through citizen movements) to promote and achieve better democracy. |
| P4 OGILVY - Maintaining unity and cohesion with customers and enable continuous improvement. | FOSS – identify current best practices and involve the team in consolidation of practices and choosing which practices to keep and which to develop. | NARANJAS TORRES - Create a more participatory organizational culture, define strategic plans and gain commitment to achieving them. |
| NOVA INNOVACIÓ - Promote transition workshops for change (with young people) focusing on social transformation |
Alder Advice
Alder Advice are a group of independent professionals who are committed to using strengths based approaches to enable improvements in the adult social care, children’s social care, health, and housing sectors.
We all share a common value base and work together across Britain as specialist advisers.
Our mission is to help people who need support to achieve wellbeing to live the lives that they choose and to overcome the inequalities that they, all too frequently, experience and we are proud to use Appreciative Inquiry approaches to help us deliver our mission.
Examples of Alder Advice Appreciative Inquiry Projects
| Apr 2023 to June 2025 – Portsmouth City Council - Appreciative Inquiry into the development of strength based practice to improve lives. | Mar to Sept 2023 – NHS NW London ICB - Appreciative Evaluation of the North-West London Pilot Keyworker Service to inform the future approach | Jan to May 2023 – Bridgend CBC – Strengths-based inquiry into opportunities to support adults with learning disabilities to live their best lives. |
| Nov 2022 to Apr 2025 – Bury Council – Towards Independence Strengths-based Reassessment Programme- Adults with learning disabilities with complex needs. | June to Oct 2022 – Bury Council – Strengths-based inquiry into opportunities to support adults with learning disabilities to live their best lives. | Aug to Dec 2021 – Yorkshire and Humberside ADASS – Appreciative inquiry into learning from COVID response to improve Adult Social Carees post COVID. |
| Mar to Sept 2021 Essex Social Care Academy -Trained all Essex Adult Social Care Managers to use “Emotional Touchpoints” technique during supervision. | Mar 2021 - Bedford Council - Strengths-based training to social services older people’s, hospital discharge, physical & learning disability, and safeguarding staff. | Feb 2019 to June 2020 – Barnet LBC - Strengths-based inquiry to identify/appraise opportunities to improve effectiveness of the Barnet Learning Disability Service |
| Sept 2019- Mar 2020 – Cardiff Council - Strengths Based Inquiry to identify opportunities to support adults with learning disabilities to live their best lives. | Apr 2018 - Bridgewater Com-munity Healthcare NHSFT - Asset-based approaches training as part of the local Social Leader-ship Programme. | Mar to July 2018 – United Response – Appreciative Inquiry into Torfaen outreach service for people with complex learning disability and additional needs. |
Thinking Partners
A Thinking Partner is similar to the role of a consultant, mentor, advisor or coach. They are someone who is removed from an organisation’s day to day life who can bring a fresh and experienced perspective to a situation. Thinking Partners are primarily facilitative and work alongside an individual or a group. They can provide the opportunity to think and reflect in confidential surroundings, sharing issues and concerns with somebody who has been in similar situations and has knowledge and skills to help move things forward and support creative solutions.
IAAI Support offer
Members of the IAAI are able to act as Thinking Partners to individuals and groups who wish to explore particular issues from an appreciative (strength-based) perspective.
The benefits of Thinking Partners include:
- Having a neutral person to help think things through, especially if working alone
- Providing a creative space to throw ideas around and see what emerges
- Testing a plan with someone who has expertise in people, organisations and on occasion specific work area
- Clarifying thoughts and ideas before discussing things with others eg your team, funders, boss and board
