Youth social skills groups: A training platform for promoting graduate clinician interprofessional competence

Abstract

Despite growing recognition of the benefits of interprofessional (IP) education and practice, many graduate programs in allied health fields still do not target such skills directly in their training programs, nor assess students' IP competence. We describe a social skills group program that involves collaboration between graduate students and faculty in clinical psychology and speech-language pathology to deliver patient-centered care designed to improve children's social communication. Groups consist of 6–8 children who meet weekly for a 50-min session for 8–10 weeks; graduate student clinicians co-lead the groups following an evidence-based curriculum and meet weekly with faculty for group supervision. Qualitative feedback from graduate student clinicians indicates that the social skills program fosters their IP competence in the four key areas identified by the Interprofessional Education Collaboration Expert Panel (2011) – values and ethics, roles and responsibilities, communication, and teams and teamwork – while addressing a significant clinical need.