Resource Center

The competencies desired in interprofessional teamwork must be delineated in terms of knowledge, skills, and attitudes before decisions can be reached about the best curricular arrangements for attaining these objectives. It must be emphasized that interprofessional content is just one of many competing concerns that the curriculum planner juggles in designing a social work education program.
The material related to effective teamwork is not an exotic, foreign fabric; the principles are already woven into the social work curriculum and applied to client and community contexts. Yet, despite the homespun familiarity of the ideas, the subject of teamwork cannot be ignored; students will not automatically transfer principles of organization, communication and group management to the interprofessional team. The educational systems of the various professions must reinforce the importance of working at teamwork by affording the topic some curricular importance.
The matter of reinforcing behavior through curricular emphasis is not a trivial consideration. When professional students, whatever the discipline, find their teachers emphasizing the need for teamwork skills and giving attention to the process of practicing effectively in a teamwork context, they will also attach significance to the subject. If teamwork is ignored in the formal curriculum, at the very least students will receive reinforcement for the opinion that there are no particular challenges to working on the interprofessional team. If he has given no prior consideration to teamwork as a difficult and skilled process, the new practitioner is likely to blame conflicts and miscommunications on his teammates. The professional student needs to be taught the importance of examining teamwork as a process and understanding his own contributions to its success or failure. It is, therefore, preferable to introduce the subject with all its uncertainties and unanswered issues than to allow students to enter the professional world without even realizing that there are questions to be asked about interprofessional teamwork.