Abstract

Increasingly, human service professionals require knowledge from other disciplines to develop, and implement comprehensive treatment/intervention plans. Collaborative decision-making and information sharing among the helping professions ensures that consideration is given to all of the factors affecting intervention and outcome and is a skill that is most effectively learned during pre-professional training. The Student Interdisciplinary Day project is a series of didactic and group learning experiences designed to promote the pre-requisite skills for effective collaboration. The purpose of this study was to qualitatively examine student perspectives on the benefits of participating in this interdisciplinary learning experience. Graduate students (n=16) from clinical psychology, education, social work and physical therapy were selected to participate in a focus group. From the data, the following themes emerged: (1) increased understanding of the professional roles of other disciplines; (2) better awareness of professional role overlap; (3) an appreciation for the importance of collaboration; (4) understanding that conflict can arise within interdisciplinary teams; (5) realizing the importance of leadership; and (6) the development of increased confidence in one’s ability to collaborate. The findings reveal the importance of including opportunities for interdisciplinary interaction and collaboration in graduate school curriculums.