AOTA

Authors:

Jayne Shepherd, MS, OTR/L, FAOTA

Barbara Hanft, MA, OTR, FAOTA

Jo Smith Read, PhD

Earn: .1 AOTA CEU (1.25 NBCOT PDU; 1 contact hour)

Overview:

When a set of interdependent individuals with unique skills and perspectives interact to achieve their mutual goal of providing students with effective education programs and services, they are considered to function as a team. Collaboration, an interactive team process including the student, family, school, and community partners, incorporates the best practices identified in this chapter to provide effective, contextual-based service and supports by doing the following:

·         Building relationships with all stakeholders; evaluating and promoting interpersonal skills; and managing disagreements and conflict with trust, respect, and joint accountability;

·         Conducting personal self-assessment and reflection on collaborative and contextual practice, that is, analyzing strengths, needs, and interests in learning along with planning and developing measurable goals for improvement;

·         Sharing knowledge and learning with the team by using evidence-based readings, observations, and practices along with engaging in self-reviews and team peer reviews, mentorship, coaching, CoPs, PLCs, and virtual supports;

·         Evaluating team operations and asking questions: Are operations defined, mutually agreed on, and reevaluated periodically? What works at each stage of team development? and

·         Advocating to administration for collaboration time, a workload model, collaborative practice and professional development supports, and standards of practice.

This chapter provides the occupational therapy practitioner with the knowledge of best practice when collaborating on school and community teams.

Learning Objectives:

1.      Discuss the collaboration process in school settings

2.      Identify 6 core characteristics that help build an effective team structure.

3.      Describe 3 collaborative roles that occupational therapy can contribute to education teams.

4.      Identify typical roles within teams and common challenges to collaborative and contextual services.

5.      Discuss conflict resolution methods.

Key Terms and Concepts:

·         Coach

·         Collaboration

·         Collaborative team

·         Communities of practice

·         Conflict

·         Conflict resolution

·         Knowledge translation

·         Mentor

·         Professional learning communities

·         Social media

·         Stand-alone team supports

·         System-level supports

·         Team operations

·         Team supports