Chapter 11: Preparing Educators to Build Interprofessional Relationships Through Case Stories

Relationships between educators and families are the cornerstone of family and community engagement, but students' educational success is also highly related to the joint efforts of school and community practitioners who work with students and their families (Epstein et al., 2018). Indeed,family-facing professionals, such as educators, school mental health professionals, and other service providers must enter the field with knowledge, skills, and dispositions to partner with one another (Miller et al., 2014). This is often referred to as interprofessional partnerships and relationships.

As a corollary, in the medical field, patients receive the best care when doctors, nurses, and other medical providers partner and communicate seamlessly (Barr, 2002). This interprofessional teamwork requires an understanding of each discipline's roles, expectations, and presumptions abouthow to communicate and work together to ensure effective and cost-effective treatment (Thistlethwaite & Moran, 2010). Health practitioners who have received interprofessional education and training have patients who engage more fully in medical decision-making and who experience enhanced recovery and fewer relapses (Choi & Pak, 2008; Dacey et al., 2010; D'Amour et al., 2005). Similarly, effective and sustainable student focused interventions are achieved when teams of general and special educators and school and community mental health and health profession als work seamlessly together and with families (Gilbert, 2013; Littlechild & Smith, 2013).