Fall 2026 SOWK 587 Week 05 - Collaboration in School Social Work

Fall 2026 SOWK 587 Week 05 - Collaboration in School Social Work

Effective collaboration is a vital skill in school social work. Week five of SOWK 587 is a synchronous week, with in-person class on Saturday (09/26/26). Students will read about collaboration in their textbook (Jarolmen & Bautista-Thomas, 2023) and have opportunities to engage with other sources exploring how we work together in schools. In discussion forums, students will share real-world examples of collaboration and engage critically with the material. During class, we will build on these discussions by practicing key collaboration techniques in simulated team settings.

The agenda for class is as follows:

• Multi-disciplinary team meetings
• Best practices and strategies for effective collaboration
• MTDM Role-Play Scenarios
• Intersectionality and working with diverse team members

The Learning Objectives for the week include

• Critically reflect on the experiences of effective collaboration to draw out common elements
• Analyze the topic of collaboration from a number of different perspectives and focuses
• Identify practices that are effective working in teams and strategies for implementing them
• Assess methods to develop rapport and work with diverse team members
• Implement a collaborative meeting using active listening, shared decision-making, and conflict resolution skills

Plan for Week Five

Agenda

• Multi-disciplinary team meetings
• Best practices and strategies for effective collaboration
• MTDM Role-Play Scenarios
• Intersectionality and working with diverse team members

Learning Objectives

• Identify practices that are effective working in teams and strategies for implementing them
• Assess methods to develop rapport and work with diverse team members
• Implement a collaborative meeting using active listening, shared decision-making, and conflict resolution skills

Disciplinary Perspectives (1 of 2): What is an MDTM?

I want to provide definitions to help us discuss collaborative work.

[Whole Group Activity] Reflective Questions

• What does multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary mean?
• Why is the work done in these settings potentially different than in single discipline-focused meetings (e.g., just social workers)?
• What kind of multidisciplinary meetings happen in schools?

Disciplinary Perspectives (2 of 2) A Type of Progression

The terms you might find in the literature around different integrations of disciplines are multi-, inter-, and trans-. Transdisciplinary work is a hallmark of my Ph.D. program that I got my degree from. Choi and Pak (2006) provide some concise definitions of what each of these is:

• Multidisciplinary: Multidisciplinarity draws on knowledge from different disciplines but stays within their boundaries.
• Interdisciplinary: Interdisciplinarity analyzes, synthesizes, and harmonizes links between disciplines into a coordinated and coherent whole.
• Transdisciplinary: Transdisciplinarity integrates the natural, social, and health sciences in a humanities context and transcends their traditional boundaries.

I’m going to present you with a model for interdisciplinary work. While scholarship defines these concepts differently, in practice, terms like multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary are sometimes used interchangeably. In a school setting, these meetings are often referred to as MDTM, and they don’t engage in this higher level of thinking about collaborative processes. 

Model for Interdisciplinary Model

So, how can we conceptualize working together in teams? Bronstein (2003) provides a model for interdisciplinary collaboration. This model comes from and is helpful for us to understand what we should be thinking about when working together and in teams from different disciplines.

She describes five components of the Interdisciplinary Model that we should consider.

• Interdependence: Reliance on interactions among professionals, where each depends on the other to accomplish their tasks, requiring a clear understanding of roles and mutual respect.
• Newly Created Professional Activities: Collaborative actions, programs, or structures that achieve more than what individual professionals could accomplish separately, fostering innovative service delivery.
• Flexibility: The ability to adapt roles and responsibilities based on the needs of the collaboration, allowing professionals to respond creatively and reach productive compromises.
• Collective Ownership of Goals: Shared responsibility for goal-setting, development, and achievement, ensuring all professionals, clients, and families are actively engaged.
• Reflection on Process: The practice of discussing and evaluating the collaborative process to improve teamwork, address challenges, and enhance effectiveness.

We can think about some factors that influence our interdisciplinary collaboration.

• Professional Role: A strong professional identity, respect for colleagues, and a perspective that aligns or complements other disciplines’ approaches.
• Structural Characteristics: Organizational factors such as manageable caseloads, supportive agency culture, administrative backing, and sufficient time and space for collaboration.
• History of Collaboration: Previous positive experiences with interdisciplinary teamwork, which foster familiarity and ease of collaboration in future settings.
• Personal Characteristics: Traits such as trust, respect, openness, and effective communication, which facilitate strong interpersonal relationships among collaborators.

A-Z Skills Needed for Collaboration

We need many best practices and skills to be effective collaborators.

[Small Group Activity] Working in groups of 3 or 4. Use the form to come up with an example for each letter. Creativity is encouraged. Have groups call out when they are done, like a race. The following is the prompt:

What are the Skills We Need to Be Effective Collaborators

• Print A-Z Skills for Facilitators Handout for SOWK 587
  Bring 7 or 8 copies of the following: W-05 Handout Skills We Need to Be Effective Collaborators - A-Z.pdf

Go through each letter and hear what other groups used.

Building Connection and Work

One crucial tool that is vital as a part of being able to collaborate is rapport

[Small Group Activity] Small Group Discussion

How do we develop rapport with…

• Students
• Parents
• Teachers
• School staff
• Community workers

[Whole Group Activity] Share back with the group

• What are some of the things you came up with?
• What are some particularly helpful strategies for building rapport with team members with diverse needs, beliefs, experiences, identifying factors, etc?

Obstacles to Teamwork: What Makes it Not Work

Bronstein later wrote with her colleague Abramson in 2017 a chapter about group processes and dynamics in interdisciplinary teamwork. They compiled many common problems that get in the way of teams working collaboratively.

Interpersonal and Communication Difficulties

• Lack of shared professional language and technologies
• Personality conflicts among team members
• Lack of experience or training in teamwork

Commitment and Leadership Issues

• Divided or conflicted commitment between the team and individual affiliations
• Unclear or unskilled team leadership
• Difficulties resolving conflict

Structural and Organizational Barriers

• Inadequate organizational/administrative support and resources
• Limited physical space for team meetings
• Time constraints

Power and Role-Related Challenges

• Continued dominance of higher-status professionals
• Role competition or “turf” issues
• Excessive role blurring or lack of role clarity
• Differential professional socialization processes
• Emphasis on autonomy rather than teamwork in professional education

[Small Group Activity] Combine your groups from the A-Z activity (e.g., now groups of 6-8 members). Reflect on how your proposed skills and practices impact these obstacles.

==The categories are not from the source and are my grouping.==

MTDM Role Play Scenarios

• Scenario 1: Behavior-Focused Conference (BFC) - Addressing Chronic Disruptive Behavior
• Scenario 2: Tier 1 Team Meeting – Addressing Classroom Disruptions
• Scenario 3: IEP Meeting Follow-Up - Reviewing Accommodations & Progress

• Scenario 4: Threat Assessment Team Meeting - Addressing Concerns About Student Well-Being

• Print copies of MTDM Role-Play Scenarios Bring 6 copies of W-05 Handout MTDM Role-Play Scenarios.pdf

[Small Group Activity] MTDM Role Play Scenarios (About 15 Minutes Per Scenario)

Working in groups of five or six, you will role-play various scenarios. We will set a timer and for the experience and give you an opportunity to swap scenarios and change roles.

• Read the scenario and discuss who is going to do what
• Try to follow the situation, and stay in character assigned by your role.
• When it is time to switch scenarios, spend a couple of minutes debriefing
• As a facilitator and social worker be working to collaborate effectively and bring the group to consensus.

[Whole Group Activity] Debrief Experience

• How was it to lead a team meeting or be a part of it. Did it feel similar to meetings you have been in?
• What were things you were trying to do as a facilitator and how did that go?
• I developed this activity using ChatGPT. Thoughts or reflections about that?

About:

These scenarios were adapted from a collaborative process with OpenAI’s (2025). Prompts were focused on developing scenarios, providing explanations problem summaries, identifying roles and team members, and potential agendas. I reviewed the outputs and changed parts that did not fit as well, removing extraneous information, and requesting adaptions based on experiences.

Intersectionality and working with diverse team members

You will talk about intersectionality in Miguel’s class this semester. I want to spend some time framing it for school

[Small Group Activity] Small Group Discussion

• How can diverse perspectives strengthen a team’s ability to support students?
• What challenges can arise when team members have different cultural backgrounds or communication styles?
• How can school teams ensure all voices are valued, especially those from marginalized groups?
• How can social workers promote inclusive policies in schools?

Assignment 02: Ethical Decision-Making Video Presentation

Meta: Points 75 pts (15% of final grade); Deadline Monday 10/05/26 at 8:00 AM; Completion via a forum post on MyHeritage; Locations Assignment Handout with Rubric, forum were assignment submitted W-07 Discussion Forum and Ethical Decision-Making Video Presentations, and Assignment Page linked to PanOpt (you can use to the create your video to post in the forum, afterwards this is where your final score will be assigned)

Purpose: The purpose of this assignment is to provide students with an opportunity to apply an ethical decision-making framework to a school social work setting. Students will demonstrate skills in analyzing client needs, identifying ethical dilemmas, and making informed decisions in accordance with professional and legal guidelines.

Task: Students are encouraged to select a youth on their caseload that they have worked with if they are engaged in a school-based placement, but they may also develop a fictional case if needed. They are to deliver a 10–15-minute video presentation detailing an ethical decision-making framework as it is applied to a client situation. The selected client should have intersectional needs, at a minimum, including eligibility for special education services. Presentations should include the following:

• Setting Background Information: Provide context regarding the client’s school placement (e.g., district/school mission, population, special education setting, etc.).
• Client Case Review: Describe an overview of the client and their needs. Every client is different, and the review of their case you provide should provide the context needed to understand their needs and the support you are offering. The case review will include some of the following: presenting problem, background information (age, gender, demographics, special considerations, supportive services, medications, person-in-environment), assessment, strengths/resiliency factors, planning/goals, intervention strategies, engagement/implementation, practice evaluation, intervention alternatives considered, termination, follow-up. The overall case review should give a comprehensive picture of your identified client. There are a couple of components that must be included:
  • Evidence-Based Practices: In reviewing the case, students will discuss completed or proposed interventions. Some of the examples that are discussed must include scientifically based practices. Provide a brief description of the intervention along with the sources.
  • Special Education: Discuss the connection your client’s case review has to special education services, policy, or laws.
• Ethical Dilemma: Identify and describe an ethical dilemma you have encountered (or could encounter) in working with this client. Clearly outline what the dilemma is.
• Ethical Decision-Making Framework: Describe and apply an example of an ethical framework to the ethical dilemma. Chapter six of Jarolmen and Bautista-Thomas (2023) presents several frameworks for ethical decision-making that could serve as a basis for students’ presentations. Provide the rationale for the decision made with your client.

Success: Grades for this assignment are evaluated using the Ethical Decision-Making Video Presentation Rubric. Students will follow the assignment guidelines to submit a final professional presentation that provides context about the client situation, describes their case, and relates an ethical dilemma to a decision-making framework. The discussion of the case should include evidence-based practice discussion and application to special education law or policy. A visual aid (e.g., presentation slides or a document) is not required for the presentation. Still, it is often helpful in clearly connecting the points discussed to the assignment expectations and terminology.

Appendix A. Ethical Decision-Making Video Presentation Rubric

The Ethical Decision-Making Video Presentation Rubric is used for the assignment with the same name. It evaluates students by providing a detailed description of the client’s context and setting, a thorough and organized review of their case that describes their needs, identifying an ethical dilemma, and applying a decision-making framework to provide an appropriate rationale for social worker actions. The presentation is to be professionally completed, following strong facilitation strategies, and to include content on evidence-based practices and special education law or policies.