Get involved and motivate others
The Rehabilitation Community is where you can meet, connect, and exchange information with like-minded rehabilitation professionals from across the globe. The community discussion groups and forums can be used to:
- Solve problems
- Generate ideas
- Share information and knowledge
- Develop best practices and share lessons learnt
- Collect reflections from personal experiences
Community growth depends on the inclusion of every individual voice!
How to encourage engagement and generate discussion
Follow these simple ideas to help generate discussion, encourage engagement and build connections amongst group members.
As a group member
- Commit to setting aside time in your schedule, ideally daily, to contribute to the discussions and participate to the fullest extent possible. Take time to consider new content that can be shared with fellow group and community members.
- Introduce yourself whenever you join a new group. Write a few lines about your professional background and the context in which you work. It can also be useful to add what you would like to gain and/or contribute to the group discussion as well as your motivation for joining the group. If there is no existing post or discussion forum where you can add your introduction, try creating a post of your own.
- Respond to posts and discussions by sharing relevant personal experiences, stories, thoughts and ideas. If you have nothing to share, you can also click “like” as an acknowledgement of your support.
- Share your perspectives and experiences on topics that you are familiar with. This may include more information from your personal perspective, links to relevant research articles, guidelines or websites that you know about or have visited recently. This can help to build on other’s strengths and help each other improve personally and professionally.
- Connect directly with members that you find interesting, have something in common with, or have a topic that you would like to discuss more deeply. You can use the messaging function to connect personally and continue the conversation.
- Contribute to an atmosphere of problem solving. Feel confident in sharing your problems and challenges in the spirit of community support and engagement. Don’t forget to also share positive experiences, success stories and lessons learnt to celebrate together.
As a Group Organiser and leader
- Always open the group discussion with Welcome and introductions. Create a specific post or discussion thread where new members can get to know the group members and add a few details about their own professionals background and interest in the group.
- Encourage participation by asking questions or requesting more detail about points mentioned in discussions or comments.
- Write more posts. It may even be something more personal or trivial such as asking members to share their ”wins” for the week, or Intentions for the coming week etc. Be sure to add your own responses to get the ball rolling.
- Add pictures or links to videos and websites to posts, these are more visually appealing and can help catch the eye.
- Make videos intermittently. These can be something to do with the overarching group topic e.g. record a client assessment, or share a series of pictures to present a case study before and after client treatment. Add a question or request for feedback that group members can respond to.
- Share links to any websites, videos, research, podcasts, books or anything else that’s related to the discussions that participants might find useful or interesting.
- Send private and group messages often. For example you can send reminders about adding introductions to your “Welcome” or “Introductions” discussion thread or post. You can also send updates or reminders about upcoming events or encourage members to respond to a case study or discussion.
For more information about acceptable use and moderating discussions, check out the Discussion Guide for group members and moderators
References
- Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (2021) Public Health Professionals Gateway – Plan and Prepare – Launch a CoP. Retrieved 18th September 2022 from: https://www.cdc.gov/publichealthgateway/phcommunities/resourcekit/launch/launch-a-cop.html
- ISPE (2022) Communities of Practice Rules and Etiquette. Retrieved 18th September 2022 from: https://ispe.org/membership/communities-practice/rules-etiquette