This is an overview of interprofessional and partnered practice and how these are connected to and further the purposes of social work practice. This brief summary locates several models of collaborative practice in social work and also delineates the ways in which partnered practice provides an overarching paradigm that includes and also extends these approaches, describing a philosophy of practice that speaks to today's imperatives for change in the world.
Article
Paula S. Nurius and Susan Kemp
This entry provides an overview of the nature of transdisciplinary and translational priorities in the context of changing forms of research and assessments of the relationship of research to societal impact. It first describes shifts away from single disciplinary to more integrative disciplinary approaches to science and discusses emerging forms of integrative research, distinguishing and illustrating multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary approaches. It then turns to describing the social forces behind the acceleration of science into service, illustrating what are referred to as translational gaps and efforts to bridge them. Within social work, methods attentive to adaptation for diverse settings, organizational dissemination and implementation, and community partnership models have become prominent. The entry concludes with attention to the development of an educational pipeline that prepares professionals as well as researchers for capable, confident participation into this environment of transdisciplinary and translational approaches.
Article
Jessica Greenawalt, Jan Ivery, Terry Mizrahi, and Beth B. Rosenthal
Coalitions are mechanisms to bring organizations and individuals together for collective efforts ranging from short-term crisis responses to longer-term problem-solving for social change. Coalitions create a specific type of collaboration that is dynamic and responsive to current events in the social, political, economic, and physical environments. In addition to addressing diverse issues, coalitions can be structured to position those most impacted by the issues to have greater influence in addressing them. This article frames an understanding of coalitions within the context of equity and power and suggests aligned language and approaches. Coalition-specific challenges and opportunities are presented to illustrate how coalition building is both a process and an outcome for developing equitable and inclusive practices in macro social work.
Article
George T. Patterson
Harvey Treger (1924–2016) was a pioneer in the social work profession, breaking new ground for social work practice in law enforcement agencies. Under Treger’s leadership, police social work was started as a new specialty area of social work practice. His groundbreaking vision for police social work practice continues to evolve to the present (2021), as progressively more law enforcement agencies either hire or establish collaborations with social workers, and community stakeholders recognize the need for a social work response to community social problems instead of law enforcement.
Article
Kelly McNally Koney and Darlyne Bailey
Polarizing conversations and “othering” are becoming norms in individual and organizational discourse, while social, political, economic, and cultural issues—and solutions to manage them—are recognized as increasingly interconnected. Interorganizational alliances (IAs) are one means through which social workers can leverage collective resources toward just and common ground. As systems, policies, and contexts continue to drive the coalescing of organizations into IAs, social workers have an important role to play.
All IAs fundamentally operate to address emergent issues. Understanding the ways organizations come together, the circumstances that drive them, and factors that contribute to their success is essential for maximizing results. IAs vary along a continuum, ranging from loosely connected to structurally unified, and can be broadly understood by the processes that underlie them. No position on the continuum is better (or worse) than another. Their evolution is dynamic, greatly shaped by relational factors such as leadership styles, organizational cultures, and the goals of those who will be affected.
Regardless of whether organizational participants align for internal, operational gain or to better address issues raised within their environment, IAs must clearly identify all who are intended to benefit. In so doing, they must consciously analyze historic interactions, recognizing patterns of discrimination and oppression and establishing systems and narratives that center previously marginalized voices. Only in this way can IAs advance a just and equitable future. Given appropriate preparation through macro education, social workers are well situated for this work.
Article
As environmental and organizational influences drive coalitions, shared service agreements, mergers, and other interorganizational alliances among health and human service organizations, social workers are frequently vital contributors. Interorganizational work is contextualized by reviewing its theoretical underpinnings, describing historical development, and discussing issues of language and definition. The wide range of relationships and corresponding structural options being implemented are explored. Sector-wide trends and their implications for interorganizational work are considered along with key factors for success and the growing role evaluation plays in promoting positive impact.
Article
Laura R. Bronstein
Teams maximize the coordinated expertise of various professionals within and across organizations, communities, and the globe. Social work skills used with groups, especially contracting, monitoring team processes, managing conflict, creating a climate of openness, and developing and supporting group cohesion and mutual aid need to be purposefully utilized in practice with teams. In addition to implementing these skills with clinical groups, social workers can and should apply them in their work as team leaders and team members with community-based and organizational committees and work groups. Additional outcome-based research is needed to better understand the efficacy and utility of teams. Emerging trends in this field include embedding the notion of teams in a wider web of mezzo and macro collaborative activities, including those mandated by policies such as the Affordable Care Act and the Every Student Succeeds Act, among others; maximizing the voices of diverse clients, families, constituents and communities; addressing the impact of technology and virtual teams; understanding the impact of variable membership on teams; and recognizing teams as a vital part of social policy development and social work education.
Article
Hal A. Lawson and Catherine S. Kramer
Social workers are prepared to benefit from and provide cross-boundary leadership for several kinds of collaborative, macro practice, all of which are structured to achieve a collective impact. Examples include teamwork, interorganizational partnerships, and community-wide coalitions. All are needed to respond to complicated practice problems, particularly ones characterized by co-occurring and interlocking needs.
A family of “c-words” (e.g., consultation, coordination) is employed in many macro-level initiatives. Collaboration is the most difficult to develop, institutionalize, and sustain because it requires explicit recognition of, and new provisions for, interdependent relationships among participants. Notwithstanding the attendant challenges, collaborative practice increasingly is a requirement in multiple sectors of social work practice, including mental health, substance abuse, school social work, complex, anti-poverty initiatives, international social work, and workforce development. Beyond interprofessional collaboration, new working relationships with service users connect collaborative practice with empowerment theory and are a distinctive feature of social work practice.
Article
Terry Mizrahi and Yossi Korazim-Kőrösy
Social workers have had a major role in participating in and promoting work with those in different disciplines and professions. Collaboration between social workers and those in other disciplines is essential given the complexity of sectors and settings in which the profession operates. Various terms have been used that have different meanings: multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinarity. Moreover, social work as well as other professions and applied disciplines also use the term interprofessional for cross-boundary collaborations. In multidisciplinary practice, social workers practice with those in other disciplines and professions but for the most part continue to pursue their own intervention aims. Interdisciplinarity links social work to other disciplines within complex domains of practice. It includes a blending and combining of those practices distinctive within each of the disciplines in pursuit of a common set of outcomes about an agreed upon social problem. It also requires the integration of knowledge and action, and the formation of a common agenda of practice, guided by compatible if not identical goals. Transdisciplinarity is the newest of the three terms. It connotes transformative outcomes that go beyond professional boundaries and include other stakeholders to effect particular change with real-world consequences. The lines among the three are blurred, mutable, and, at times, inconsistent, overlapping, and changing. Challenges and barriers remain, although opportunities have increased to move beyond monodisciplinary practice in all practice domains.
Article
Heather Larkin, Catherine LaBrenz, Stephen Oby, Beth Gerlach, Eunju Lee, Katharine Briar-Lawson, and Lisa Good
The adverse childhood experiences (ACE) study, including long-term health implications, is reviewed, followed by an overview of community approaches to addressing ACEs by building resilience in programs and communities. The restorative integral support (RIS) model embodies social work’s person-in-environment perspective and offers a framework to understand and respond to ACEs and their consequences. Social work’s role in addressing ACEs includes the importance of cross-disciplinary, interprofessional, and community-engaged strategies to enact community and system-wide change. Policy and practice implications to foster a culture of health and well-being are emphasized.
Article
Mo Yee Lee, Cathy Grover Ely, Ray Eads, and Xiafei Wang
Single-parent families have emerged as a common family structure, with one in four U.S. children living in single-parent households. Research on single parents has traditionally adopted a deficit-based perspective, and the challenges and barriers faced by single-parent families are well documented. In particular, students from single-parent families often struggle in school settings, with increased rates of behavior problems, lower academic achievement, and less parental engagement in the child’s education. Despite these challenges, an emerging body of literature supports focusing on resilience and strengths, rather than deficits and problems, when working with children and families. Adopting a strengths-based perspective also facilitates collaborative alliances among single parents and various service systems and helping professionals, including social workers and school personnel. This article provides an overview of single-parent families, outlines strengths-based and collaborative interventions for working with children and families, and then presents pragmatic guidelines and a case illustration to demonstrate the practical application of such interventions.
Article
Rosemary Alamo and Rick Ornelas
Police social workers are professionally trained social workers or individuals with related academic degrees employed within police departments or social service agencies who receive referrals primarily from police officers. Their primary functions are to provide direct services such as crisis counseling and mediation to individuals and families experiencing social problems such as mental illness, alcohol and substance use and abuse, domestic violence, and child abuse, among others. Additional functions of police social workers are mezzo and macro related and include training police officers in stress management, mental illness, substance abuse, domestic violence, and child abuse; providing consultation and counseling to police officers and their families; program planning, development, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation; grant writing; legislative advocacy; and community and organizational needs assessment. Essentially, police social workers influence laws, legislation, policies, and practices that impact individuals, families, groups, law enforcement, organizations, and communities.
Article
Tracy M. Soska
Social work is among the most engaged fields in both education and practice, but it is important to recognize university-community engagement through the historical development of higher education and the university as a reflection of society and community development. Universities have been shaped by and, reciprocally, have helped shape society and community. Social work as an engaged and applied profession reflects this vital connectivity from its earliest roots in the settlement house and charitable organization movements to its current posture of community engagement in education and practice. Higher education in the community context has evolved from a relationship of co-location and codependence to one of increasing intentionality toward engagement and partnership for interdependence and mutual benefit, including addressing racial and socioeconomic tensions. It is useful to explore this evolution from “university in the community” to “university of the community” as well as the implications this holds for social work, especially macro social work.
Article
Catherine Alter
Social welfare organizations must often work with one another to accomplish goals unattainable by going it alone. This article on interorganizational relationships (IORs) examines the need for IORs today, the costs and benefits of collaboration across organizational boundaries, the prerequisites of IOR formation, and a normative developmental model that hypothesizes an association between the purposes of an IOR and the most effective form to achieve the given goal. The focus of the article is on the concepts, principles, skills, and attributes managers and other macro practitioners need to manage a complex interorganizational task environment.
