Interprofessional Education Committee

Chair/Co-chairs: Audrey Conn & Tracy Schroepfer

Our committee had several discussions as to our DEI efforts.  We chose to focus on the following school goal:

#3 Equip our students, staff, faculty, alumni, and social work community partners to be social justice leaders who can address diversity, equity, and inclusion in their lives and careers. 

Objectives:

• Advocate for IPE education modules’ content addressing social justice issues
• Ensure that social work faculty participating in development of module content or facilitating modules be intentional about addressing diversity, equity, and inclusion
• Continue increasing exposure of School of Social Work students to IPE education so they learn how to work effectively on diverse interprofessional teams

Action Steps

We will begin to meet our objectives beginning the summer of 2022 and into the fall academic year. Our action steps will include:

• We (Audrey and Tracy) will begin to advocate for social justice issues within our meetings with CIPE representatives.
• Jaime Goldberg will work with the UW Health Simulation Center to create/implement a module which includes a social justice issue as part of the scenario
• Work on developing a method and process for social work faculty who participate in IPE module development to intentionally include issues of DEI
• Create and implement a plan for increasing exposure to and participation of (via announcements of some sort) School of Social Work students in IPE education.

Chair/Co-chairs: Tracy Schroepfer & Audrey Conn

Fall 2023 Committee Members: Lynette Studer, Tim Latimer, Jake Dunn, Kelly Forman, Jaime Goldberg, Anna Walther & Gerald Eggleston

Our committee had several discussions as to our DEI efforts and chose to focus on the following goal:

#3 Equip our students, staff, faculty, alumni, and social work community partners to be social justice leaders who can address diversity, equity, and inclusion in their lives and careers. 

Objectives:

• Advocate for IPE education modules’ content addressing social justice issues.
• Ensure that social work faculty participating in development of module content or facilitating modules be intentional about addressing diversity, equity, and inclusion.
• Continue increasing exposure of School of Social Work students to IPE education so they learn how to work effectively on diverse interprofessional teams.

Action Steps

• Audrey and Tracy will continue to advocate for social justice issues within our meetings with CIPE representatives.
• Jaime Goldberg worked with the UW Health Simulation Center and created and implemented a module with a social justice issue as part of the scenario.
• Scheduled Lunch and Learns for September and October 2023 focused on IPE practice with community partners.

• In the fall, Jacob Dunn assigned his students enrolled in SW821 SW Practice in Aging and Mental Health to participate in the Advanced Dementia Interprofessional Clinical Simulation (ADICS) Mini-Course. The overall goals of the ADICS Mini-Course include helping students to improve their interprofessional team-based care competencies (IPEC, 2016), to promote a client/patient-centered approach to working with this vulnerable population, and to apply professional knowledge. The course included four units (two online and two simulation units).
• Unit 1 (asynchronous) – Introduction to 3Ds (depression, delirium, and dementia).
• Unit 2 (Live Simulation with SPs) – Applying interprofessional collaborative skills to a complex discharge situation where knowledge of a condition, along with the roles and responsibilities of the members of the healthcare team, are required.
• Unit 3 (asynchronous) – Reviewing cognitive and functional tests and measures, along with interpretation of scores.
• Unit 4 (Live Simulation with SPs) – Interprofessional knowledge integration in developing a collaborative care plan for the client and the caregiver.

In Unit 2 and Unit 4, the team performance was video-taped, and students had the opportunity to review their video and self-reflect on their skills along with their peers during the debriefing session at the end of each of these two Units. Students also received feedback from the standardized patient, peers, and faculty.

• Advance Practice MSW students voluntarily participated in a one-semester capstone project, the Interprofessional Practice Learning (IPL) Dementia Caregiving Badge. This is a telehealth community placement in which interprofessional (IP) teams of 3-5 students work collaboratively with dementia care specialists (DCS), caregivers of people living with dementia (care partners), and facilitators to develop a customized Caregiver Health and Wellness Resource Packet. The main purpose of this IPE Telehealth placement is to help students to improve their interprofessional competencies, including: interprofessional communication, teamwork, collaboration, roles and responsibilities, and client-centeredness in order to engage in interprofessional care of caregivers of people living with dementia. IP student teams were required to complete 12 hours of virtual placement over three months from February to April 2023. During this 12-hour virtual placement, the student teams were required to complete the Pre-Work, participate in the required meeting sessions (the Orientation Session, the two Virtual Home Visits, the Meeting with ADRC, and a Debrief Session), and develop and submit a customized Caregiver Health and Wellness Resource Packet as their Capstone Project.
• Twenty-one MSW students participated in an interprofessional education activity through the UW-Health Simulation Center. Social work students had the opportunity to meet with a simulated patient to do a psychosocial screening and then collaborate with medical, nursing, and pharmacy students on a plan of care. Social work students were able to model the role of a social worker in the healthcare setting and model leadership, collaboration, and communication skills to their fellow students. The social work representative from the SRSSW IPE Committee (Jaime Goldberg) assisted with writing the patient narrative to focus on social determinants of health. The simulated patient was laid off from their job, lost their health insurance, and could not afford the medications being prescribed. They also had unstable housing, transportation, and food resources. Of the 336 learners across disciplines who participated in this activity in Fall 2022, 29.4% strongly agreed and 52.4% agreed that “after completion of the simulation, [they] can approach the health of patients with a better understanding of social determinants of health.”
• In April, thirty-six MSW students from the advanced generalist mental health field area participated in an interdisciplinary training with School of Nursing and School of Pharmacy students. The synchronous didactic class met twice, 4/3/23 & 4/10/23 on Zoom. Angela Willits, clinical associate professor at the Sandra Rosenbaum School of Social Work, provided didactic instruction with small group discussions on the first day. The second day, students were assigned groups to role play a clinician interviewing a client/patient to explore trauma history, followed by feedback from group members, followed by a large group debrief.

The objectives for the two classes were to:

1. Understand the prevalence of exposure to trauma and common trauma responses a practitioner might encounter in clinical practice.
2. Understand the principles of trauma-informed care and their application to clinical interviewing, including use of self and use of technology during the clinical interview.
3. Understand how we can be affected by secondary traumatization and moral injury and learn about protective measures to reduce risk.
4. Engage in interprofessional conversations to increase understanding of similarities and differences in approaches to trauma work and self-care across disciplines.
5. Demonstrate a trauma-informed approach in clinical interviewing, including exploring a client’s trauma history and responding in a person-centered, trauma-informed manner.
6. Identify pros & cons of a structured versus unstructured approach to exploring trauma history.
7. Provide timely, sensitive, constructive feedback to fellow practitioners about their use of self, interviewing and response skills, and respond respectfully as a team member to feedback.
8. Respect the unique cultures, values, roles/responsibilities, and expertise of other health professions and the impact these factors can have on trauma informed approaches to care.