Using the Image Exchange to Enhance Interdisciplinary Team Building in Child Welfare

Abstract

A team building activity, the image exchange, was helpful to interdisciplinary teams in clarifying perceptions and opinions of participants about the roles of each discipline (child welfare, domestic violence, mental health, and substance abuse workers) at a five-day interdisciplinary training workshop. Discussion of team membersÕ perceptions and views provided opportunities to develop insights about misperceptions. Training in team development and role clarification provided a foundation for the development of eective interdisciplinary collaboration, which may improve interdisciplinary practice.

Stimulating interdisciplinary collaboration among youth social workers: A scoping review

“… The studies were conducted in different countries: 15 studies were conducted in the United States, two were conducted in the Netherlands, and one involved participants from six European countries. Seventeen studies were published after 2001, and one was conducted in 1992. Two categories of studies were identified: 11 publications focused on elements aimed at stimulating interdisciplinary collaboration, and seven focused on interventions aimed at stimulating interdisciplinary collaboration. The outcomes of one of the seven studies (Jones, Packard, & Nahrstedt, ; Packard, Jones, & Nahrstedt, ) were used for two publications. In the “Methodological overview” section, the details of these two publications are regarded as one study.…”

“…The last training was about diversity concerns and collaboration, with a focus on effective meetings, conflict management and role clarification. For an example of an exercise during this intervention, see the next row of this column: Packard et al () .…”

“… Two studies focused on training that consisted of a number of meetings (Jones et al, ; Sands et al, ), one focused on a weekly intervention over a five‐month period (Viggiani et al, ), three focused on a one‐day workshop (Haas, Bauer‐Leffler, & Turley, ; Johnson & Cahn, ; Packard et al, ), and one focused on a course that took three hours in total (Anderson, ). In the intervention studies, two different forms of communication between the participants were used. Three interventions focused wholly or partly on stimulating perspective‐taking between participants by using a written method (Jones et al, ; Packard et al, ; Sands et al, ). These exercises were based on a written text, followed by oral communication in order to start a conversation or discussion to stimulate collaboration.…”

Recommendations from child fatality review teams: results of a US nationwide exploratory study concerning maltreatment fatalities and social service delivery

“…The child welfare system has grappled with such problems since its inception (Murphy, 1997) and continues to do so today. Some helping professionals suggest bringing together multi-agency trainings to openly discuss common misunderstandings and the roles and responsibilities of child welfare professionals Packard et al, 2006).…”

Implementing Services Integration and Interagency Collaboration: Experiences in Seven Counties

“…These should also explicitly address the merging of professional cultures through cross training, staff development, and team building. One example of such cross-training was a five-day training program on inter-agency collaboration (Jones, Packard, and Nahrstedt, 2002) that included team building (Packard, Jones, and Nahrstedt, 2006).…”