A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

Center for the Collaborative Advancement of the Teaching Profession

What types of interprofessional activities occur?

In the community:

Professionals from a number of disciplines: education, social work, law, and medicine coordinate services for K - 12th grade students at three urban schools.

In the degree program:

Cross-professional experiences are offered to graduate students from the Schools of Social Work, Education, Nursing, Medicine, and Business.

How is the community served?

The program enhances services available to the school community by creating opportunities for inter-disciplinary service planning and delivery. The goal is to shift from crisis intervention to prevention.

How do schools participate?

Schools serve as sites for integrated services. School personnel serve as members of the inter-disciplinary teams that serve the school population.

How long has the interprofessional development program been operating?

This program has been in existence since January, 1993.

What clinical experiences are offered?

Opportunities are provided for pre-professionals to participate on interdisciplinary teams providing direct services to youth.

How is the program evaluated?

An evaluation subcommittee of the Advisory Committee establishes the research/evaluation agenda and procedures. Each initiative has an evaluation component. In addition, a qualitative study of the process of the project (interdisciplinary collaboration) is being conducted. The results to date are tentative but indicate that the individual initiatives have achieved some success in addressing needs from a preventative perspective. For example, while school district wide immunization remain problematic, the middle school in our project had 100% compliance. Results related to the overall project and interdisciplinary collaboration indicate three factors as key components to any success we have realized. Those factors include the development of multiple leadership roles, the impact of sponsorship in facilitating collaboration, and the importance of fulfilling boundary-spanning roles between agencies.

Contact person:

Ric Hovda, Project Director
School of Education
Center for the Collaborative Advancement of the Teaching Profession
University of Louisville
Louisville, KY 40292
(502) 852-0582 (Phone)
(502) 852-0726 (Fax)

[University of Pittsburgh Child Welfare: Interdisciplinary Studies Program: Office of Child Development: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania]

[California State University, Fullerton: Center for Collaboration for Children]