Inter-Professional Collaboration: Perceptions and Practices with Youth with Complex Problems

Youth with complex problems are frequently served by multiple public systems, including mental health, child welfare, juvenile justice, and education. Effective inter-professional collaboration is necessary to meet the needs of these youth, yet relationships among individual characteristics of service providers and their collaborative activities have not been examined. This study explores inter-professional beliefs, perceived competencies, and practices of licensed social workers serving youth with complex problems, using data from the National Association of Social Workers Workforce Study. Our analyses suggest that perceived importance of collaboration may contribute to and predict collaborative activities (B = 1.05, SE = .13,β = .30, p < .001) and this relationship remained positive and significant after controlling for gender, race/ethnicity, years of practice experience, and sector of employment. Better understanding of these inter-professional beliefs, competencies, and practices may help identify training, workforce development, and supervision needs for forensic social work with this vulnerable population.