Playing well with others: Preparing students to engage in IPCL
Presenter: Dr. Kelli Fox, Stony Brook University, NY (USA)
10 September 2024
15:00 UTC/11:00 ET
Co-sponsored by the American Interprofessional Health Collaborative (AIHC)
Moderator: Dr. Maha Habre
Description:
A gap exists in the interprofessional education research literature that specifically explores interventions or models that address how to prepare students for encountering, responding, and mitigating issues of hierarchical attitudes, bias, and power dynamics that may arise in interprofessional collaborative learning. The current study sought to understand how best to prepare students to respond to these issues that challenge the value of their role and profession as a member of the interprofessional team. While this study focused primarily on social work students, inadequate preparation of students for IPCL across professions can lead to frustration, misunderstandings, and challenges to learning outcomes.
Abstract:
Social workers bring a unique lens to the interprofessional healthcare team that is often misunderstood by other professions. Social work students participating in interprofessional education (IPE) frequently encounter other health profession students and faculty that lack knowledge or have biases and assumptions about the profession which create barriers to students’ participation and ultimately, learning outcomes. Encountering negative stereotypes, bias and hierarchical attitudes can make it difficult for students to find their place and voice within the interprofessional team during collaborative learning activities. Being primarily educated in siloes, students are often unprepared to respond to these challenges. Studies on the impact of IPE demonstrate increased knowledge of professional roles, interprofessional attitudes, confidence, teamwork skills and communication as well as acquisition of the Interprofessional Education Collaborative (IPEC) competencies. Research on student readiness for engaging in IPE has generally used tools that measure students’ professional attitudes and the IPEC competencies, similar to those used to measure learning outcomes. A gap in the research literature exists that specifically explores interventions or models that address how to prepare students for encountering, responding, and mitigating issues of hierarchical attitudes, bias, and power dynamics that may arise in interprofessional collaborative learning.
The current study sought to understand how best to prepare social work students to respond to these issues that challenge the value of their role and profession as a member of the interprofessional team.
In this study, social work students (n = 15) from 2 universities were surveyed after participating in a uniprofessional workshop designed to contextualise IPE in social work education, explore benefits, challenges, and barriers to interprofessional teamwork, increase understanding of the role of social work on the healthcare team, and improve student self-efficacy for managing conflicts that may arise from stereotyping, hierarchical attitudes, bias, and power dynamics.
Kelli S. Fox, DSW, LCSW, LADC, CCS
Dr. Kelli Star Fox is Stony Brook Medicine’s inaugural Director of the Center for Interprofessional Innovation (Stony Brook University, New York, USA). The Center is charged with building a centralized IPECP presence across health professions programs and promoting and fostering interprofessional education, research, and clinical practice. Prior to her appointment at Stony Brook, Kelli was an associate clinical professor, director of practicum education, and assistant director of the University of New England’s (UNE, Maine, USA) master’s in social work program. A longtime champion for interprofessional education and practice, Kelli was instrumental in integrating interprofessional education and practice into UNE’s social work curriculum. As an active contributor to UNE’s Center to Advance Interprofessional Education and Practice (CAIEP) she served as a trainer, facilitator, mentor, researcher, and designer of IPCP learning experiences.
Kelli earned her doctoral degree in May 2023 from Millersville University (Pennsylvania, USA). Her research focused on the importance of supporting the uniprofessional identity of social workers as preparation for interprofessional team learning. Kelli’s work in this arena is novel and she has presented at local, national, and international conferences
Author email: kelli.fox@stonybrookmedicine.edu