As executive director of Disability Rights Tennessee, social worker Lisa Primm manages lawyers and relies on information from researchers, analysts, community leaders and other social workers to do her job.

“There’s no way that I could do this job in a vacuum,” Primm said. “I rely constantly on others who are in other professions, who have other types of knowledge in order to inform the work that I do.”

The ability to work on a team and collaborate effectively is a necessary skill to succeed in the field of social work. Whether they are working at a macro level to pass legislation to improve public health or providing direct client care, social workers at all levels often find themselves collaborating with different stakeholders.

Those stakeholders can include:

For social workers, there are a number of advantages to working collaboratively:

As Primm explained, social workers often can’t solve problems alone.

Take, for example, the delivery of health care. While a more traditional model may have been physician-centered, practitioners in the field are increasingly recognizing the need for interprofessional collaborators to perform different functions to improve a client’s health. A physician may be better equipped to provide treatment for a client, but a social worker plays an important role serving as an advocate for the client and bringing attention to social justice issues that may be overlooked by others on the team.

With the help of a team, social workers can take a more holistic approach to solving problems for clients. Indeed, many social workers believe teamwork results in the best outcomes for clients.

Social workers have many specialties and collaborate with a host of professionals.

Many in the field also benefit from professional collaborations and affiliations that allow them to interact with their peers. They find support from organizations such as the American Council for School Social Work, Association of Oncology Social Work, Clinical Social Work Association, National Association of Social Workers, School Social Work Association of America, Rural Social Work Caucus, Society for Social Work Leadership in Health Care and the International Federation of Social Workers.

While social workers play important roles connecting clients to appropriate resources to address challenges in their lives, they are still limited in their perspective. There are likely many people in a client’s life who have pertinent information about their circumstances that will help a social worker deliver the services needed.

For example, child welfare social workers are charged with keeping children safe (PDF, 144 KB). They often make life-changing decisions informed by family history, behavioral concerns and environmental conditions. To do so, they may need to engage other family members, teachers and local authorities who can help them determine what is going on in a home.

“There’s so much going on behind the scenes before you even see a child being taken from a home,” said Cornell Davis III, a child welfare social worker in Pennsylvania.

The collaboration does not end there. If it is determined that a home situation is dangerous, social workers need to provide the resources to ensure that a child moves to a safe situation. That can require working with local agencies to find temporary housing or reuniting the child with a parent who may need help finding a stable job or housing.

Cooperation and collaboration aren’t just recommended for social workers; they are, in many cases, a routine part of the job.

Interdisciplinary collaboration is also an important aspect of social work. This occurs when a team of specialists from different helping disciplines, such as psychiatry, psychology, counseling, medicine and public health, join the social worker to provide services to a client. Specialists may have the authority to perform tasks outside the social worker’s qualifications.

Social workers perform a variety of functions; some serve as advocates, while others are licensed to provide mental health treatment. However, there are specialists in other helping disciplines who have the authority to perform tasks beyond the social worker’s qualifications that are necessary to improve outcomes for clients.

A physician may be able to provide medical treatment for a client, but that client and their family may still struggle with the financial costs related to treatment. Social workers can advocate for families, inform them of their options and connect them to financial assistance.

Ultimately, the client needs both perspectives to receive the care to address their challenges.

“Interdisciplinary collaborations are important because systems and people are vast and complex, so it’s almost arrogant to think that you can see everything that your client needs from just your perspective,” Davis said.

Because their training and education varies, each partner in an interdisciplinary collaboration may have different approaches and expectations, which can lead to a number of challenges, including:

When social work collaboration produces positive results for the client, everyone wins.

Here are some ways to improve social work collaboration, adapted from the experts interviewed and National Association of Social Work’s guide to making interdisciplinary collaboration work (PDF, 517 KB):

Create guidelines for how to work together.

Understand what the other disciplines can contribute.

Be transparent.

Be fair.

Maintain collegial rapport.

“We have to be able to work together to do better work and do greater work,” said Davis, “but we have to be humble enough to say, ‘Hey, somebody else might have a better perspective than I do.’”

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