Partnership Brokers - Certificate in Advanced Practice Melbourne June 2025

This course is for those who have been engaged in partnership brokering, and/or have completed one or more of the Partnership Brokers Association’s (PBA) training courses. The Certificate in Advanced Practice course takes partnership brokering to the next level in terms of issues, concepts, insights and practice. It is designed to build further confidence and courage by considering and practicing how to:

• Tackle concerns and contradictions in effective and transformational ways

• Facilitate open (and sometimes difficult or uncomfortable) conversations

• Strengthen partnering capacity and build more collaborative organisational cultures

TIME INVESTMENT
Online Sessions: 

• Wed 11 June 2025 (1300-1600h) 
• Friday 13 June 2025 (1300-1600h)
  

In-Person Sessions: 

• Tuesday 17 - Friday 20 June 2025 (0900-1700h daily)
  Four full days in-person with your trainers and cohort at University College in Melbourne.

Your personal contribution both online and in-person, as a member of the training cohort, is important, and full attendance at all sessions is required to receive your Certificate.

To be eligible for this courses, you will need to bring:

• A real curiosity to learn, reflect, explore and challenge your own partnering practice
• Some experience of working with groups and collaborative processes
• Commitment to helping organisations, groups and partnerships realise their collaborative potential
• Experience of working as a partnership broker in either an internal or external capacity
• Interest in deepening understanding of adult learning approaches participatory training methods, working with multi-stakeholder perspectives and collaboration for change processes.
  

TRAINING APPROACH

The training approach is built on the key principles of partnership brokering. It uses participatory and experiential learning approach, to both reflect on existing practice and build new insights and knowledge that can contribute to the discipline of partnership brokering, moving forwards. 

The programme aims to foster an open, courageous, and equitable environment for diverse participants and curators to share learning, raise reflective questions, provide feedback, generate new ideas, and potentially transform their practice. The course draws from diverse sources such as Paolo Freire, Malcom Knowles, Otto Scharmer, and Wilfred Bion as well as PBA’s own practicebased frameworks. It includes papers on partnership brokering topics like reflective practice, brokering tools, governance, and leadership, authored by brokers as part of their Accreditation Programme submissions. 

Additionally, it explores the significance of concepts like Complexity Theory to help brokers understand when to facilitate collaborative problem-solving and manage tensions by 'holding space' with partners.