Publications from ODSW Social Insights: Letters by DSW (Vol 2) | Page 27

Fundamentals of Social Work
New or experienced social workers alike will increasingly be asked to
develop their collaborative practice with service users and carers and
with other professionals in order to improve services for patients, clients
and users as well as to improve the outcomes from intervention. The call
is for practitioners in social care, health and related sectors to work more
effectively together in line with current developments in policy and practice.
But what is collaborative work or inter-professional practice? It is about
building genuine partnerships between professionals, and with service users
and carers in planning and service development and providing care. And
what are the groups where professionals working together make a marked
difference to the well-being of the client than each working singularly?
Invariably, we will say that it is particularly important when we work with
older people, people with mental health needs, children and families in
distress and people with learning disabilities.

Coordination of Services, Joint Solution and Interprofessional Learning
Collaborative practice can occur within and between professions or
occupations, in uni-professional and multi-professional teams, within and
between agencies, and when working in partnership with service users,
carers and even communities. In good social work practice, we know that
the need for personalised services and the responses to the circumstances,
strengths and aspirations of particular children, adults and families will
require professionals to work in partnership. It is about working with people
to find the solutions and to achieve the desired outcomes and to work
collaboratively with other agencies and disciplines to ensure coordination
of services and support. However, this does not happen intuitively. Having
systems and processes will facilitate this but is in itself not sufficient.
These outcomes require that collaborative working be grounded in interprofessional learning. It is about working across professional, organisational
and agency boundaries. Social workers and other professionals need to
understand and be prepared for collaborative practice.

Extent to Which Students are Prepared for Interprofessional Collaborative Practice
Generally, social work students will share that they are not prepared for
the range, nature of and approaches to inter-professional practice learning
although they may recognise its importance. Most lecturers may mention
it but students will say that they do not have exposure to modules that
26