ABSTRACT

This chapter examines collaborative practice as a way to address the challenges women and families face when trying to access appropriate services within a fragmented system of health and social care. It draws on exemplars from the Child Health: Researching Universal Services (CHoRUS) study, an Australian study investigating the feasibility of implementing a national approach to child and family health (CFH) services in Australia. Reported advantages of interprofessional collaboration include improved planning and policy development, more clinically effective services, enhanced problem solving, reduced duplication and service fragmentation, as well as increased job satisfaction for health care professionals. The chapter draws on case examples and the experience of professionals to illustrate how services and professionals worked collaboratively to design and implement new models of service delivery. It addresses the implications for practice by applying D'Amour's model of collaboration. Collaboration at the micro level refers to the interactional/relational factors or conditions required to achieve interprofessional collaboration.