Challenges of Interdisciplinary Collaboration

Abstract

The realities of the 1990s, which include reduced funding and resources, the public's impatience with bureaucratic rigidity, and the empowerment of families who want timely and appropriate services, have created a favorable climate for collaborative, interdisciplinary practice. Collaborative, family-centered practice models are being promoted by family/child advocates and professionals. Yet child and family services, for the most part, continue to be provided in traditional ways using individual treatment and categorical services. However, federal child mental health funding is supporting community-wide, collaborative practice in twenty-one sites scattered across the United States. One site, in rural northeastern North Carolina, is unique as it includes a graduate-level, interdisciplinary academic component [East Carolina University's (ECU) Social Sciences Training Consortium (SSTC)] to train and support service providers and families, and to prepare master's level graduates to work in such innovative programs. Called PEN-PAL [an acronym for Pitt-Edgecombe-Nash (three NC counties) Public Academic Liaison] this university/interagency collaborative effort works in partnership with families to coordinate public and community services into a seamless system of care for children with severe emotional disturbances. This article is based upon a qualitative study of SSTC faculty members, and it chronicles the successes and difficulties encountered by faculty in the first year of a five-year collaborative process.