Boingboing is a vibrant community of practice of people eager to develop resilience research and practice together. Kim Aumann, a community practitioner, ponders her long term involvement and what’s been achieved so far.

Having always worked in the third sector, it’s clear to me that the cards don’t get dealt fairly, too many experience social exclusion and more and more people have little access to the opportunities we should all enjoy. So, when back in 2004, I heard that Professor Angie Hart and colleagues were exploring the notion of resilience, my ears pricked up. At the time I was managing Amaze, a support charity for parents of disabled children. We were eager to see if the resilience academic evidence base could translate into practice for families to use in regular everyday ways. What mushroomed from this beginning was a whole community of researchers, academics, practitioners, parents, commissioners, young people and onlookers too - all trying to blend participatory research and practice development in order to build the resilience of children, young people and adults having tough times.

10 years of achievement Ten years down the line, I think we’ve made a significant impact. There’s not room to mention everything but here’s a taste. We’ve engaged literally thousands of people in the pursuit of learning about resilience and secured funding from a myriad of sources, to deliver specific projects charged with tracking down ways of building resilience. We have written a couple of books about resilience including one with and for parent carers. We also designed a parent support course that is now used in four local authority areas. We laid a strong foundation for an ongoing collaboration with the world leaders in the ‘communities of practice’ approach, to test it with groups of researchers, practitioners and parents. Collaborative arts based work with different groups, including young people and kinship carers has produced jointly written handbooks. Building a website was key for collating resources and documenting project work for others to use. A monthly Brighton based resilience forum for people helps to manage and sustain interest and while it needs co-ordination, it attracts new and old attendees. A second forum has just been launched in Hastings with help from Cupp. We’ve published our ideas in journals to add to the international debate about resilience, pushing for the most disadvantaged children to be included in research studies. And, setting up a community interest company, has provided a structure from which to negotiate and sustain the work into the future.

I wouldn’t want to give the impression that community university partnership working is simple. It hasn’t always been straightforward or painless. For example, people come and go and we have had minor and even major disagreements along the way. This has disrupted continuity and left us rather deflated at times. For me, building trust and keeping dialogue going in learning spaces that bring different types of people and identities together are key ways to keep things going. There are real and perceived inequalities over professional status, resources, privilege, production and affirmation of knowledge.

While firmly committed to knowledge exchange, it hasn’t been easy attracting new academics to join in. Supporting PhD students has been a key strategy for us and it’s paid off. Funding cuts to the third sector have also made it difficult to secure organisational interest, as their priority has been survival. It seems to work best when new funding is found to make it worthwhile for local and national groups to partner with us. Some of the more recent ‘boingboingers’ are independent students or workers, which can pose issues for generating the added value of co-production, embedding resilience work across systems or aligning the learning with other aspects of people’s lives so that the ideas being developed spread beyond those directly involved.

Challenges and opportunities But challenges are opportunities to problem solve and new projects provide fresh prospects to test what we’ve learnt about working together: the Economic and Social Research Council funded Imagine project brings practice based ventures in five European countries to the table to develop resilience ideas, using a CoP approach; collaborative work with YoungMinds, the National Lottery and the 75 million pound Headstart initiative is focused on building children’s resilience via local communities and schools and we have plans for co-design work to represent resilience in artistic and digital formats.

Almost without realising it, we have built a sustained community university partnership. With a bit more time, we might be able to leave a legacy that is not dependent on the individuals who set things up. It is really hard to change the odds when things are stacked against you. This community of practice includes a host of people who share a passion to swap, share and combine their different areas of expertise, to work out how to use and develop resilience ideas to change those odds – I think that’s what keeps it going.

Kim Aumann, Manager Boing Boing CIC, Visiting Fellow University of Brighton

http://www.boingboing.org.uk/