Facilitating Multidisciplinary Team Functioning in Child and Youth Advocacy Centres using Shared Mental Models

Child Advocacy Centres/Child and Youth Advocacy Centres (CAC/CYAC) are places where children who have experienced abuse can go and receive the support they need in one location. CAC/CYACs use a multidisciplinary team (MDT) to respond to cases of child abuse by offering coordinated and collaborative investigations, forensic interviewing, medical evaluation, mental health and therapeutic supports, and victim support (National Children’s Alliance, 2022). The MDT includes professionals from law enforcement, child protection services, prosecutors, medical and mental health professionals, victim advocates, and CAC/CYAC staff. The underlying premise of CAC/CYACs is that the inter-professional response and diverse expertise results in better decision making and improved outcomes for children and families (Jackson, 2012). While these diverse professions are a hallmark of effective CAC/CYACs, merging to provide integrated, inter-professional services continues to be an obstacle to achieving the desired outcomes (McGuier et al., 2022). There is a significant body of literature which describes various organizational capabilities that influence effectiveness of integrated and inter-professional service delivery initiatives like CAC/CYACs. However, there is also a noted lack of specificity about how these broad factors can be used to improve team functioning (Evans et al., 2016; Li et al., 2018; Seaton et al., 2018). Evans and Baker (2012) introduced the idea of shared mental models as a theory to examine the operational effectiveness of an integrated service delivery environment and as a facilitator to inter-professional service delivery. Shared mental models could serve as a framework to understand the collaborative operational processes necessary for individuals from across sectors and with diverse expertise to work together for better decision making and improved outcomes for children and families. There is, however, insufficient empirical assessment of the relationship between shared mental models and the quality of integrated and inter-professional service delivery (Evans et al., 2014). The aim of this research was to explore how shared mental models could be used to improve MDT functioning in CAC/CYACs. Four methodological approaches were used in this exploratory sequential mixed methods research: individual interviews and document review to understand the operating context and relevant background of each participating CAC/CYAC; facilitated card sorting (Gisick et al., 2018) to inform the development of a survey and provide initial insights into the use of shared mental models as a framework to improve MDT functioning; a survey to identify and understand the extent to which shared mental models are evident in MDTs; and finally, focus groups to support the interpretation and contextualization of the results. This research presents preliminary findings that show that a shared mental model framework can be an important facilitator for MDT functioning in CYACs. The concept alone, however, is not enough to improve MDT functioning. The effectiveness of the overall approach is rooted in a contextual understanding of CYAC operating environments and their organizational capabilities. In this research, the methodological approaches described above were specifically designed to deepen contextual understanding (i.e., engaging CYAC staff through data collection and analysis, mapping specific attributes of each CYAC to statements that describe shared mental models).

Author dc:creator

• Parker, Naomi, Jay

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Scott, Catherine

• Faculty of management

Language dc:language.iso

en_US

Identifier URI

https://doi.org/10.25316/ir-19754

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:null:10613/28130