Participants will look deeply at the realities facing their own congregations and learn about the challenges facing other members of the community of practice. Leadership teams will work with partners from other URJ congregations guiding and supporting each other as they study and learn together. Members of this community of practice will engage in critical thinking and deep reflection to begin working towards the pursuit of excellence. We will provide a platform for professionals and lay leaders to examine and implement new ideas and share their findings, while forging new connections and learning from one another. The specific goal of this Community of Practice is to ensure that congregations make the early childhood center a gateway to deep, lifelong engagement for children and families alike.

Through an 18-month cycle, participating congregations will research and reflect on the realities of their congregation, study best principles of the field together, build a network of peer support and guidance, draft and implement transformative steps toward innovation and share measurable results with the cohort and greater Movement.

Staffing

• Cathy Rolland, Faculty, Early Childhood Education, 212.650.4111, crolland@urj.org

• Research/Study of the Field
  Community of practice participants will take part in on-going monthly webinars/conference calls to explore relevant topics, hear from informants from the field, study best principles and explore common challenges.

• Experiment Design: From Theory to Visioning:
  After learning together for a few months, congregations will craft an experiment that challenges their own engagement work. With the support and guidance of the cohort, each congregation will hone their experiment to ensure clear vision, goals, process and benchmarks for success.

• Experiment Implementation: Getting Our Hands Dirty:
  Participating congregations will launch their experiments, receiving on-going support and reporting back to cohort to share successes and troubleshoot challenges.
  
  
• Evaluation
  Through clearly identified benchmarks for success, congregations will be able to track their accomplishments.

• Sharing Successes
  Throughout the 18-month cycle and beyond, opportunities will be presented to participating congregations to share their successes with the wider Movement. These opportunities will take place at Movement meetings and conferences, including URJ Biennial 2013, as well as on webinars.

• Congregations that currently have a well-established early childhood center (preschool) with a full-time director.
• Early Childhood Professionals who have experience with and are open to the process of organizational change.
• Congregations that have identified a team that will participate in the community of practice - an early childhood director and a synagogue board member.
• Congregations that have secured commitments (time, financial resources) from: president, board of trustees, and professional staff.

• Strengthen your congregation’s ability to continue to grow the number of families choosing your early childhood center.
• Increase the impact of the Jewish early childhood experience and make your congregation more sustainable for the long term.
• Explore the changing landscape of early childhood education, framing your learning through a lens of Jewish values.
• Focus on intentionality, formulating strategies to create a cohesive and consistent vision of excellence in your community.

Community of Practice Participant Benefits

• Learn via collegial coaching, mentoring and peer-to-peer sharing.
• Reflect on your practice and individual and community challenges.
• Experiment, in a safe and supportive environment, with new and innovative approaches in the early childhood center and in connecting families to the congregation.

Participating congregation (preferred) and/or individual CoP members are required to cover the costs associated with sending (a) representative(s) to two in-person gatherings:

• Community of Practice Launch Gathering, January 25-27, 2013, Chicago, IL
• Community of Practice Culmination Gathering, Spring 2014, Location TBD
  

Further, we strongly encourage participating congregations to send (a) delegate(s) to the URJ Biennial, December 11-15, 2013 in San Diego. During this convention, community of practice group learning opportunities will take place as well as occasions to highlight participant experiments/ pilot work to the greater Movement.

Implementing Your Experiment/ Pilot

In order to successfully implement the engagement experiment/pilot that the congregation develops through community of practice participation, financial support beyond what is currently offered is required to ensure success. This will vary widely from one congregation to the next, but appropriate allocation of financial resources will be necessary.

Leadership/ Human Resources

Strong leadership is the cornerstone to success. Therefore, alongside the congregation's allocation of financial support, human resources must be dedicated. This includes the designation of participant(s) in the community of practice program as well as commitment and time of leadership to successfully roll-out the chosen experiment/pilot initiative.