Collaborating across the threshold: The development of interprofessional expertise in child safeguarding

Abstract

Collaborating across the threshold: the development of inter-professional expertise in child safeguarding. AbstractThis paper reports on an empirical study of the expertise that different professionals develop in working together to safeguard children. The research involved three key professional groups who work with children: nursing, teaching and social work. The methodology used a clinical scenario and critical incident to explore professional perspectives and experiences of collaboration. Data collection was via semi-structured interviews with a sample of 18 practitioners, composed of pre-and post-qualifying practitioners from each professional group. Data analysis was undertaken through an inductive process, with open coding of transcripts followed by the synthesis of themes into a qualitative framework. The findings identified different elements of interprofessional expertise including assessment and decision-making, responsibility, risk and uncertainty, managing relationships, and dealing with conflict and difficulty. Collaborative activity was found to be shaped by the threshold between statutory and non-statutory services and mediated by the relationship between practitioners and parents. The paper concludes by exploring constraints and opportunities for addressing potential gaps in interprofessional expertise in this area.

Large Scale Blended Learning Design in an Interprofessional Undergraduate Course in Norway: Context Description and Supervisors’ Perspective

“…The vast majority of the supervisors responded that the course was relevant to professional practice. This is a very positive finding since there is a need for better IPC in kindergartens/schools and the health and welfare services (Anderson, 2013;Power et al, 2013;Hood et al, 2017;Martinussen et al, 2017;GDB 2017SDG Collaborators (2017; Fukkink and van Verseveld, 2019). Some of the present students will not work with children and young people as pupils/students/patients/clients in their future jobs.…”

“…In teacher education programmes, priority is given to three interdisciplinary themes: democracy and citizenship, sustainable development, and public health and well-being (Ministry of Education and Research, 2015). School is an important arena for promoting mental and physical health in children and young people (Hood et al, 2017). However, to the best of our knowledge no large-scaled IPL study has been published including students from both teacher educations, and health and social care study programmes.…”

Collaboration of Child Protective Services and Early Childhood Educators: Enhancing the Well-Being of Children in Need

“…Through professional training, they can unravel situations if something is not right with the child in their practices, including finding out if the child is physically harmed or if the child behaves increasingly different from what can be deemed normal or expected from the child. Bell and Singh (2017) and Hood et al (2017) indicated that the probability of an educator recognising abuse or neglect is high.…”

“…Both collaborators in the current study found that strengthening collaboration requires training-training of teachers to identify the child in need, but also joint training for a common understanding of the child in need and the helping process. Hood et al (2017) emphasised that as multiple thresholds coexist, it is therefore crucial for the education to incorporate various aspects of interprofessional collaboration. Collaborative learning opportunities during professional education, including practice learning through field placement, would allow educators to teach and supervise in practise collaboration, and provide knowledge and skills concerning how to navigate the process of interdisciplinary collaboration.…”

A Realist Synthesis of Interprofessional Collaboration in the Early Years; Becoming Familiar with Other Professionals

“…From the 248 articles, 29 were selected for assessment of the full-text eligibility. We subsequently excluded 19 studies from our analysis that did not report empirical findings but were conceptual or were narrative reviews, leaving 10 primary studies [33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42]; the results of some studies are integrated in the discussion.…”