School psychologists' perceptions of primary care partnerships: Implications for building the collaborative bridge

Abstract

There is a critical need to increase communication and collaboration across the educational and medical systems on behalf of students with paediatric health issues. The purpose of the current study was to investigate school psychologists' perceptions of their communication and collaboration practices with paediatric professionals (e.g. paediatricians). Three hundred and forty school psychologists completed a survey that assessed their communication and collaboration practices with paediatric professionals, professional development in paediatric health issues and use of e-Health technology on behalf of students with medical problems. School psychologists reported communicating with paediatric professionals a few times per year (60.6%), collaborating a few times per year (34%) and receiving between one and five hours of professional development on paediatric health issues per year (50.8%). Only a small number of school psychologists used e-Health. Of those respondents, all indicated that it was beneficial to some extent to their practice. The major finding of this study was that interdisciplinary communication and collaboration practices were relatively infrequent. Results from this study can help inform strategies for increased collaboration, pre-service and ongoing training, and future research.