Over the past decade different approaches to mobilising knowledge inCommunity2University Partnership (CUP) contexts have emerged in the UK. Despite this,detailed accounts of the intricate texture of these approaches, enabling others to replicate orlearn from them, are lacking. This paper adds to the literature which begins to address thisgap. The case considered here concentrates on one particular approach to knowledgemobilisation (KM) developed in the UK context. It provides an account of the authors’involvement in applying the concept, and practical lessons from a community of practice(CoP) approach, to developing knowledge exchange (KE) between academics, parents andpractitioners. The authors’ approach to KM explicitly attempts to combat power differentialsbetween academics and community partners, and problematises knowledge powerhierarchies. The paper explores the CoP concept and critically investigates key elements ofrelevance to developing KE in the CUP context. Specific themes addressed are those ofpower, participation and working across boundaries by CoP members with very differentsubject positions and knowledge capitals. The paper concludes that CoPs can be a usefulmechanism for KM, but have many limitations depending on the specific context in whichKM is being undertaken

Parent-carers of children with complex needs often lead lives impacted by challenging constellations of disadvantage and can become enmeshed in complex and contradictory tapestries of care structures and relations. Against a backdrop of financial austerity and under-resourced or exclusionary service practices, peer support groups may become increasingly important and confer valuable benefits not available elsewhere. This paper focuses on one such group which was developed for the parentcarers of children diagnosed with ADHD, and reports on semi-structured interviews with thirteen parent-carers. Drawing upon Jeannette Pols' (2015) empirical ethics of care, we nuance and detail the care that emerged in these settings, highlighting the material and relational practices that developed. We conclude that peer support groups can offer new and vital possibilities, re-situating participants from individualised positions of burden, isolation and social exclusion to confident, positive, active connectedness, by means of an affective and effective relational process we call 'solidarity-as-care'.

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