The National Interoperability Community of Practice (NICOP) fills a critical gap by providing an on-line community and knowledge repository for sharing actionable information for professionals from across the country. NICOP provides a virtual hub for people who want to learn from one another and share information about how to make better decisions about creating interoperable systems that serve vulnerable children and families.

Children and their families’ don’t experience their needs in silos - however, the funding streams, service delivery models, technology systems, and policies that under gird them typically operate in fragmented and isolated ways. Unfortunately, this lack of coordination, communication, or sharing crucial data can have life or death consequences. Up until the formation of NICOP there has not been a national clearinghouse that documents best practices, researches key operational considerations, publishes best/worst practices or provides technical guidance about planning for interoperable systems.

Since 2005, Stewards of Change (SOC) has convened thought leaders from the public and non-profit sectors, academia, courts, industry and philanthropy at Yale School of Management. Over 400 participants representing 25+ states, multiple counties and numerous federal agencies have focused on how interoperable technologies and business practices could support the creation of new models to improve outcomes and operations for child welfare, human services, education, and health care. The collective knowledge from the conferences along with Stewards’ other research and development is offered on this website. (NICOP web site is currently housed inside the SOC web site and can be accessed through the client log in section from the home page with a password and user identification).

During the 2010 Stewards of Change national conference, From Field to Fed: Building an Interoperable Continuum of Care, participants identified the need and desire to create a Community of Practice and Knowledge Repository to continue sharing knowledge, experience and practices around Interoperability. Following the conference Stewards of Change began building NICOP and has convened a working group to write a charter for the group.

 Download Charter

The objectives of NICOP include:

• Providing access to the best, worst and next practices that can inform the community and accelerate adoption of successful programs, practices, policies and innovations so that customer (child and family) outcomes are improved. 
• Fostering a ‘community of practice’ environment that connects people and initiatives from across disciplines and around the nation so that ‘wheel reinvention’ is avoided through the sharing of key lessons learned and approaches tried. 
• Creating a leadership pipeline ’voice’ from local or program-based initiatives to state and federal levels around service integration and interoperability so that increased alignment can occur between funding streams, policies and standards. 
• Accelerating the collection and dissemination of up-to-date and applicable business and technology strategies information so that human services leaders can make informed decisions.

We encourage you to participate in NICOP webinars, contribute your ideas, knowledge and experience to build NICOP into a vital hub that will advance the field. Please click here to request a ‘password’ and ‘user identification’ to allow you access to NICOP site. We look forward to seeing you participate in upcoming events.