Abstract :
Collaboration is widely adopted across professional practice and academic disciplines as a strategy to achieve common goals. In expanded school mental health (ESMH) collaboration between educators and community mental health (CMH) professionals is necessary to increase access to mental health services in schools, particularly in high-need communities where barriers to services are common. It is believed that collaboration leads to integration of knowledge and resources that are typically siloed, creating new opportunities and approaches to solve complex problems such as the impact of mental health problems on learning and other developmental outcomes for young people. Although it is assumed that collaboration results in improved outcomes, little research supports this claim. Critics of collaboration cite unclear definitions, lack of measures that capture real collaborative teamwork, and rhetoric that appears inclusive yet may uphold existing hierarchies of power. To address these issues, this three-paper dissertation aimed to: (1) clarify the meaning of collaboration and provide a conceptual framework grounded in social capital theory for interpreting research in ESMH, (2) demonstrate the utility of social network analysis (SNA) for measuring collaboration, and (3) explore the experiences of CMH professionals involved in ESMH collaboration where power structures likely impact practice. The findings make three contributions to research on collaboration in ESMH. First, the proposed definition distinguishes collaboration from related practice strategies iv and describes how these relationships may manifest among individuals of different social and professional standing. Second, SNA was introduced as a method for measuring collaboration in interdisciplinary or interprofessional groups involved with ESMH, highlighting and applying key concepts and terms through a case study. Findings of this study indicated discrepancy between actual and perceived interdisciplinary collaboration and that much of the work was achieved with bonding and bridging social capital. Lastly, findings from the third study indicated that CMH professionals involved with ESMH perceived they collaborated most with families, possibly building linking social capital and that relationships with school colleagues and administrator support may influences collaboration. Collectively, these papers give insight into how collaboration works from multiple perspectives in ESMH and highlight a promising approach for measurement and analysis.
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