Social workers are important members of multidisciplinary care teams, as the complexity of a person’s needs often requires an integrative approach. While this type of collaboration provides clients with the benefits of holistic treatment planning, it presents benefits and challenges for social workers employed in non-traditional social work settings.
What Are Multidisciplinary Teams and Where Are They Found?
A multidisciplinary team is a group of two or more professionals from different disciplines working together toward the same goal – specialized, integrated care targeted toward alleviating a patient’s presenting needs while identifying their unique strengths and the underlying social issues impacting treatment outcomes. Social workers are trained in providing holistic care from a bio-psycho-social perspective, making our skill set a valuable resource for team members used to addressing issues in isolation.
Pediatric practices are just one example of this as well as law enforcement, with many police departments partnering with social workers when responding to mental health emergencies. Schools, nursing homes, child welfare agencies, community centers, specialty medical clinics, early intervention and other community resource programs are all examples of non-traditional social work settings that rely on social workers to support them in their mission of helping others.
Benefits and Challenges of Being the Only Social Worker
Integrated care offers a valuable opportunity to learn and develop new approaches to the work while honing our collaborative and educational skills. My role as a social worker in a Failure to Thrive clinic reinforced the importance of ruling out medical concerns before focusing on the social/emotional/behavioral elements of this diagnosis while putting me in a position to advocate on behalf of families when medical staff became frustrated with lack of progress in clients.
While gaining a different perspective is a benefit, offering a different perspective is challenging. As the only social worker embedded in a preschool setting, teaching trauma-informed behavior management, the importance of relationships, and the impact of developmental trauma on students was initially exciting but after years of taking on this challenge, it became disheartening.
Not every team member buys into what we have to offer, no matter how the information is presented and I found myself avoiding classrooms where it was obvious the social work perspective wasn’t a welcome addition. It can become exhausting to maintain your integrity when a team member representing a different discipline wants you to stray from best practices and what is developmentally appropriate while maintaining a collegial relationship with them.
Strategies for Effective Collaboration
Over the course of my career, several strategies have been effective in navigating multidisciplinary collaboration with other disciplines, allowing me to provide good care while remaining collegial with the rest of the team.
- Learn the functions of each role. There are reasons why certain disciplines come together to provide a specific type of service and each role is integral to meeting the varied needs of clients. Taking time to learn how each role functions, why it functions the way it does and how each role intersects will shape how you approach the work and demonstrates your ability to collaborate effectively.
- Explain your role to the rest of the team. When I began working at the preschool, teachers weren’t prepared for a social worker to be a new team member. Teachers appeared suspicious of what I was doing in their classrooms until I explained what I was there to do. Once they understood what I was doing, why I was doing it and that I wasn’t going to “tattle” on them to our director, they were willing to collaborate with me.
Using case management software like Casebook makes it easier to demonstrate our contributions to multidisciplinary teams through shared case notes, progress tracking, and reporting. In other words, it gives us, and others, the ability to quantify our hard work and reinforces the importance of social work’s role on multidisciplinary teams.
- Use your social work skills to connect with your team. In using the bio-psycho-social framework to better understand my colleagues’ perspective on things, I could validate their experiences and observe the carry over into our work. I was also mindful of individual learning styles and packaged information in a way that best suited their needs.
- Manage information appropriately. With tools like Casebook, social workers can securely document client progress, share updates with relevant team members, and ensure no critical details fall through the cracks—improving coordination and continuity of care work.
When multidisciplinary teams collaborate effectively, patients and providers reap the benefits of integrated care. Collaboration as the only social worker presents unique challenges, using effective strategies and technology like Casebook can make navigating this easier.
