Communities of Practice for engaging health and care staff in the green transition

Abstract The green transition and related staff engagement are still new topics in health and care services, but they are attracting increasing interest. There is an urgent need to develop methods to effectively engage staff in health and care workplaces in a participatory knowledge-building process towards the green transition. Participation can encourage staff to take a more active role in making health and care systems more sustainable. Communities of Practice (CoPs) emphasize situated learning as an interactive way to engage staff; however, health and care organizations need a culture of smart engagement. One way to do this is to strengthen and support CoPs as groups of health and care staff who share a concern and passion for the green transition and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area through ongoing interaction. This research focuses on participatory staff engagement in a health and care CoP, a network of environmental partners of a Finnish health and care service provider, the Wellbeing Services County of Päijät-Häme. The network creates a space where the environmental partners can discuss and make sense of different issues related to the green transition and develop practices, skills and knowledge for it. A participatory employee engagement model, ENGAGE, was co-developed with the County as part of CARING NATURE. This research describes the co-development process and the ENGAGE model and contributes to the understanding of how participatory methods can be used to effectively engage staff. Participation can raise awareness of the status, challenges and opportunities of environmental sustainability in health and care systems, support the search for staff members’ ideas for greening their work contexts, and promote the mainstreaming of different practical solutions.