Explore the vast range of titles available.

Memories, Hopes, and Conversations is a powerful resource that introduces readers to Appreciative Inquiry—a transformational organizational change process that focuses on the strengths of a group. The second edition has been revised and expanded throughout, featuring important new materials on leadership and missional frameworks, as well as five chapters from pastors describing the transformational experiences of their churches and neighbors using Appreciative Inquiry. The book offers a dynamic overview of the Appreciative Inquiry process, real stories of change in action, and a wealth of practical resources for churches to pursue this journey of appreciation, imagination, and change. The second edition includes dynamic stories of Appreciative Inquiry in practice from: Christopher Gobrecht (New Covenant United Methodist Church, Maryland), Jim S. Amstutz (Akron Mennonite Church, Pennsylvania), Jean Burch (Community Bible Church, California), Andrew Menzies (Camberwell Baptist Church, Australia), Michael R. Wilson (Chestnut Level Presbyterian Church, Pennsylvania).

BackgroundTeenage pregnancy remains a significant public health concern in South Africa that remains a challenge in the context of Ubuntu in the African philosophy.AimThis article explores grade nine leraners’ experiences on Ubuntu workshop in Mopani District.SettingThe study was conducted in Limpopo province of South Africa. Limpopo province is one of the nine provinces on the far northern side of South Africa. It is bordered by Mozambique and Zimbabwe as its neighbouring countries.MethodsA qualitative exploratory descriptive design was used based on the 4-cycle appreciative inquiry. A non-probability purposive sampling was used to select 32 participants who were grade nine learners who participated in the health education programme for teenage pregnancy. Data were gathered through workshop group discussions. The interviews were audiotaped and transcribed verbatim. Thematic analysis was used to categorise and analyse themes that emerged from the data.ResultsFour main themes were identified: Empowering self and others; Outcomes for the future; Imparting knowledge; and Shaping others.ConclusionBased on the four themes that emerged from the findings, it is clear that participants prioritise personal growth, empowerment and positively impacting others. These findings suggest that teenage pregnancy prevention programmes should focus on empowering teenagers to empower others and that knowledge sharing with the infusion of Ubuntu principles promotes self-worth, dignity and empowerment, enabling teenagers to make informed decisions about their reproductive health.ContributionAdds to the body of knowledge by presenting Ubuntu teenage pregnancy prevention programmes.

Narrative inquiry has often been merged with other methodologies to conduct research in schools. Its interweaving with appreciative inquiry as a methodology to research within education, however, is newly emerging. In this study, which interweaves the two methodologies, narrative inquiry and appreciative inquiry are used to examine stories of teaching and explore teacher identity—an evolution of narrative inquiry that facilitates the telling of participant school stories in a focused and intentional way through an appreciative inquiry framework. This paper explores the interweaving of the methodologies and provides an example of its use. It draws on a doctoral study titled Identity as pedagogy: Locating the shadows in the sacred space between, which examined the stories of teacher identities and the ways such stories manifest in pedagogy, with a group of teachers from a common educational jurisdiction in eastern Canada. The data that emerged through the appreciative inquiry process were narratively analyzed and understood through the common themes they presented.

The study concerns psycho-social domains experienced in a diverse suburban middle-class community, reporting the most positive cases and the deepest suffering, and interactions towards adaptation in stressful situations, such as the Coronavirus pandemic. This qualitative investigation used a descriptive design, with a strengths-based perspective directing a two-phased method. Through non-probability convenience sampling, 80 participants completed a web-based qualitative questionnaire (phase one). From those, 20 purposely selected volunteers participated in individual, face-to-face, open-ended, and unstructured interviews (phase 2). Themes, interpreted as one set, show how strengths and resilience appear, despite extreme shock and uncertainty. Transitional processes in psycho-social spheres reveal conscious decisions towards dynamic engagement, embracing change, reflecting on life’s value, and regarding novel meaningful priorities in contrast with “before”. Most prominent relational spaces have human connections in the inner (close) and outer (community) circles. Personal, meaningful relationships strengthen social bonds. Appreciative inquiry (AI) assisted in the transitional process to co-construct awareness of the positive core, emotional agility, and pride in embracing and expanding on newly developed strengths. Interpreted inductively, meaning described in abstracted knowledge can be transferred to and integrated with other contexts, identifying new initiatives and trans-, multi-, and inter-disciplinary debates mitigating psycho-social consequences and fostering resilience during disasters.

Thoroughly revised and updated, the second edition of Appreciative Inquiry offers OD and HR professionals a user-friendly resource for discovering how they can tap into the power of the Appreciative Inquiry (AI) process. An innovative process, AI is an effective way to work with a company as an organic system whose success depends on a holistic approach to connect that organization's human, technical, and organizational functions.This new edition meets the challenge of making the AI process accessible and updates three key areas of the process: the theoretical basis, fundamental assumptions and beliefs, and the basic processes. It includes step-by-step guidelines on how to apply AI in a variety of organizational situations and shows how it can be used with a wide range of initiatives, such as coaching, leadership development, strategic planning, and teambuilding.\"If there's one book to read on AI, this is it. It provides the context and rationale for this paradigm changing approach to change at any level of system. Buy it, read it, use it and enjoy achieving great results and renewed energy and enthusiasm.\" —Barbara Sloan, director, Organizational Development and Learning, New York University, Langone Medical Center\"Appreciative Inquiry brings the freedom and creativity of AI together with the 'nuts and bolts' of how to actually do it all. It contains everything I would want to have as a fresh practitioner, from potential designs to sample questions and excellent Case Stories.\" —David Shaked, founder and CEO, Almond Insight, United Kingdom\"This book serves as a complete roadmap for those interested in the philosophy and practice of Appreciative Inquiry. The Case Stories encourage readers to find their own way on the journey by providing examples of successful interventions.\" —Terry Egan, professor, Management Studies, Pepperdine University

When things go wrong, people traditionally have a negativity bias and dig deep into what went wrong. Kylie Bell introduces Eve Ash to Appreciative Inquiry, an alternate approach devised by David Cooperrider that starts with asking \"What is already going well?\" We explore this flipped way of solving a problem through a 5D model: define (this is goal), discover (what is already being done well), dream (what are we ultimately aiming for?\"), design (plan how the goal is achieved) and destiny (making the dream reality and powering up commitment). Kylie gives examples of where this was used, in government and a retail client.

In this article, 'NQM' will be used to describe a newly qualified midwife in their first year of practice, rather than the commonly used Australian term 'new grad'.

Appreciative Inquiry has touched and inspired the work of thousands who apply its development principles in a wide range of settings including industry, government, spiritual and not-for-profit organizations. The Advances in Appreciative Inquiry series facilitates an emergent dialogue within the social sciences and supports innovative and challenging scholarly work. It is dedicated to the advancement of Appreciative Inquiry as an approach to organizational and human development, and as an interdisciplinary, non-deficit theory of positive change processes in human systems. Guided by the ethos of Appreciative Inquiry, the book series supports an ongoing, distributed inquiry into the true, the good, the better and the possible. It is dedicated to advancing a \"scholarship of the positive\" and \"positive scholarship.\" This volume aims to push the frontiers and solicit new tools and insights for expanding the state-of-the-art applications of Appreciative Inquiry. It revolves around three fundamental aspects of organizational generativity, namely: generative knowledge and organizational life, collective action and the appreciative inquiry summit, and sustainable inter-generative dynamics.

Introduction Co‐production with communities is increasingly seen as best practice that can improve the quality, relevance and effectiveness of research and service delivery. Despite this promising position, there remains uncertainty around definitions of co‐production and how to operationalize it. The current paper describes the development of a co‐production strategy to guide the work of the ActEarly multistakeholder preventative research programme to improve children's health in Bradford and Tower Hamlets, UK. Methods The strategy used Appreciative Inquiry (AI), an approach following a five‐step iterative process: to define (Step 1) scope and guide progress; to discover (Step 2) key issues through seven focus groups (N = 36) and eight in‐depth interviews with key stakeholders representing community groups, and the voluntary and statutory sectors; to dream (Step 3) best practice through two workshops with AI participants to review findings; to design (Step 4) a co‐production strategy building on AI findings and to deliver (Step 5) the practical guidance in the strategy. Results Nine principles for how to do co‐production well were identified: power should be shared; embrace a wide range of perspectives and skills; respect and value the lived experience; benefits should be for all involved parties; go to communities and do not expect them to come to you; work flexibly; avoid jargon and ensure availability of the right information; relationships should be built for the long‐term; co‐production activities should be adequately resourced. These principles were based on three underlying values of equality, reciprocity and agency. Conclusion The empirical insights of the paper highlight the crucial importance of adequate resources and infrastructure to deliver effective co‐production. This documentation of one approach to operationalizing co‐production serves to avert any misappropriations of the term ‘co‐production’ by listening to service users, stakeholders and other relevant groups, to develop trust and long‐term relationships, and build on the learning that already exists amongst such groups. Patient or Public Contribution The work was overseen by a steering group (N = 17) of individuals, both professional and members of the public with experience in undertaking co‐production, and/or with some knowledge of the context of the two ActEarly field sites, who provided regular oversight and feedback on the AI process.