Inter-Professional Practice in Macro Social Work

Since 2000, there have been more than 700 scholarly articles related to interprofessional development and practice in social work. The vast majority of this scholarship relates to clinical practice in health related settings; only four addressed macro or community practice, and these all were also related to health settings. Macro practitioners have distinct skills and perspectives that can be used to advance justice in a wide range of settings. The purpose of this roundtable is threefold: 1) to begin to catalogue the range of ways inter-professional practice is already taking place within macro social work, 2) to consider the distinct opportunities and challenges related to inter-professional practice in macro social work, and 3) to develop a line of inquiry that can produce best practices for social work programs to develop and/or strengthen macro-focussed inter-professional development.

We are interested in exploring research questions such as: How can research on inter-professional practice inform the current knowledge base in organizational and community theory? What practice settings/cross-disciplinary are you already engaging in macro-focussed inter-professional development and practice? What collaborations have been most and least effective, and why? Given the diversity of settings/fields (i.e., business, law, geography/planning, environmental science, policy, public administration), how do we best prepare students for macro inter-professional practice? What information and resources would assist faculty in incorporating inter-professional development into macro courses and concentrations? How can we begin to think about structuring course content in such a way to emphasize interprofessional macro practice in a way that is timely and relevant? How is interprofessional macro practice being addressed in the social work classroom? How is interprofessional macro practice being effectively integrated into field settings?

Social work courses are commonly delineated by concentration or area of specialist practice, with micro- and macro- areas of specialization often the most common division. This can complicate efforts to insert and retain macro-content in courses that are not labeled or defined as macro. However, the 2015 Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards (EPAS) of the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) have placed renewed emphasis on multiple dimensions of practice, moving beyond knowledge and skills to explicitly focus on values and cognitive-reflective processes such as reflection and critical thinking. Interprofessional macro practice offers a practical opportunity to expose all social work students, clinical as well as macro, to opportunities for policy practice and advocacy that take students beyond their specialization and deeper into the experience of real-life professional advocacy.The 2015 EPAS offer a powerful and timely opportunity to consider inter-professional macro practice as an arena for multidimensional practice and to structure course content accordingly.

The session will close with an invitation to join a collaborative research project investigating macro-focussed inter-professional development and practice.