CADD Corner: Inter-Professional Collaboration — Curriculum for Schools of Social work and Allied Professions

By Jack Wall, Ph.D., Director, San Jose State University School of Social Work

Inter-disciplinary collaboration continues to be touted as an important goal of many professions, especially in the area of behavioral health. The Affordable Care Act advocates for inter-professional teams to work effectively together to provide comprehensive health services to clients. This effort has a dual focus—to provide better health care and reduce health care costs. This call for action is being heard by social work educators and increasingly, more courses focus on inter-professional collaboration.  Schools of social work are engaging with other disciplines such as medicine, nursing, occupational therapy, psychology and others to develop curricula that will prepare future professionals to increase their understanding and appreciation of different disciplines, as well as learn to collaborate together to provide quality services to individuals, families and communities.

In order to develop and implement such training, schools of social work and allied disciplines need to be open to engaging with one another, setting aside professional competition and concerns about turf issues, as well as embrace the value of inter-professional collaboration. This process is easier said than done. Nonetheless, the time for this endeavor is now and it is exciting to see schools of social work and other professional disciplines collaborating together to create such training opportunities for their students.

Last summer, faculty from the School of Nursing, Department of Occupational Therapy and the School of Social Work at San Jose State University (SJSU) took a number of students to University of Jyväskylä in Finland. This university is comprised of the Colleges of Applied Sciences, Heath and Social Studies. The Colleges of Applied Sciences and Health have created innovative curricula that require their students to spend their first and last semesters learning together on timely issues related to inter-professional collaboration. The intervening semesters focus on their discipline specific coursework and internships. This example is offered as an illustration of how professional disciplines can create innovative curricula when they endorse the value of inter-professional education and practice.

This is an exciting time for schools of social work and other allied disciplines to collaborate together. Through these exchanges, innovative training programs will continue to evolve and better prepare graduates to offer more effective services to their clients, families and communities.