TPC-Journal-V5-Issue4

458 Jane E. Atieno Okech, NCC, and Anne M. Geroski are Associate Professors at the University of Vermont. Correspondence can be addressed to Jane Okech, Mann Hall 101B, 208 Colchester Avenue, Burlington, VT 05405, jokech@uvm.edu. Jane E. Atieno Okech, Anne M. Geroski Interdisciplinary Training: Preparing Counselors for Collaborative Practice This article utilizes one counselor education program’s experience as a framework for exploring how to prepare counselors to work in interdisciplinary teams. Based on an interdisciplinary training program that involves faculty and graduate students from counseling, social work, nursing, internal medicine and family medicine, the article explores the role discipline-specific orientations play in the outcome of interdisciplinary training programs. Using practical examples grounded by the program’s experiences and literature on interdisciplinary training, understanding of the dynamics of interdisciplinary training programs is explored. Implications for preparing counselors for interdisciplinary work and future research are provided. Keywords : counselor education, interdisciplinary training, interdisciplinary teams, collaborative practice, medicine Counselors typically work in interdisciplinary settings, requiring them to navigate the complex dynamics of collaboration while maintaining a clear focus on the best interests of their clients. Interdisciplinary settings can be described as contexts that require collaboration and consultation between professionals and non-professionals from multiple disciplines in the process of providing service (Nancarrow et al., 2013). Collin (2009) clarified that interdisciplinary collaboration differs from multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary collaboration as it refers to the work of professionals grounded in their own separate disciplines coming together to work on a project that represents a “coordinated and coherent whole” (p. 103). Collin pointed out that this is different from professionals working independently on separate aspects of a project (multidisciplinary) or the coming together of multiple and varied professionals to conceptualize a problem or work on a project that transcends any of the various disciplines (transdisciplinary). Counselor educators have argued that interdisciplinary collaboration is “a best practice strategy for addressing some of the nation’s critical social problems” (Mellin, Hunt, & Nichols, 2011, p. 140). In fact, collaboration between disciplines has been described as being key to the effective delivery of services (McNair, 2005; Morphet et al., 2014) across a broad-spectrum of community mental health services, hospitals, institutions of higher learning and school contexts. In the field of counseling, the ACA Code of Ethics (American Counseling Association [ACA], 2014) and the standards established by the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP, 2009) reflect this emphasis on the importance of counselors being able to work with interdisciplinary teams. The ACA Code of Ethics (ACA, 2014), for example, encourages counselors to recognize the value of interdisciplinary teamwork in meeting clients’ best interests, even when certain professional values are not shared: The Professional Counselor Volume 5, Issue 4, Pages 458–472 http://tpcjournal.nbcc.org © 2015 NBCC, Inc. and Affiliates doi:10.15241/jeo.5.4.458