Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, Vol 54(5), Oct 2023, 342-351; doi:10.1037/pro0000514
This research highlights the potential significance of leveraging communities of practice (CoPs) for supporting ongoing learning and advancing professional practice. As formal CoPs are rare within the mental performance field, this held a unique opportunity to understand the value gained from active engagement in intradisciplinary collaboration. It also posed an opportunity to share how professionals seeking to develop knowledge in niche domains of practice might leverage similar forms of social learning spaces. These two purposes inspired this qualitative case study. Our CoP comprised a group of eight experienced mental performance consultants from elite sports with the goal of understanding and exploring our role in supporting athletes with sport-related concussions. Individual reflections and collaboratively developed documents were thematically analyzed using E. Wenger-Trayner & Wenger-Trayner’s (2021) value creation framework to assess the value created through CoP participation. Positive value across all eight cycles of the framework was identified (e.g., identification and clarification of our role in concussion support—transformative value; critical boundaries within the practical and theoretical concussion landscape—orienting value). Through this article, we explore these values in an effort to provide insight to practitioners of various domains of psychology wishing to create similar social learning spaces. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)