The Partnered Learning Project

Project Handbook

A Guide to Early Planning for the Development of an Interprofessional Collaboration and Education Program in a Healthcare Setting

6.0 Facilitation and Faculty Development

Questions to Consider

1. IPC Workshop Facilitation: Does the facilitator(s) have a clear sense of the purpose of the exercise and the necessary skills to facilitate the process? Click here for more questions...

Has forethought been given to the approach so as to avoid causing unintended strain or expectations within the participating team? Will the chosen facilitators be credible to the participants? Are the facilitators sensitive to the cultural context of the team and its work environment?

2. Process Integrity: Were the facilitators involved in or consulted during the curriculum planning to ensure sufficient attention has been paid to process as well as content? Click here for more questions...

Has the facilitator been given clear information about the project parameters or boundaries that should be respected? Will feedback and /or a debrief session with the facilitator be a part of the process to ensure this particular perspective is reflected in the monitoring / evaluation data?

3. Identifying Facilitators for IPE Activities: Are there individuals interested in interprofessional education in the organization? Click here for more questions...

Is there a network of interprofessional educators? Are there individuals mandated to provide hospital-wide educational activities and events? Is there an IPE lead in the organization?

4. IPE Faculty Development: Are there existing faculty development programs/strategies available in the community (e.g. other organizations, academic institutions)? Click here for more questions...

Is there a relationship between organizations for networking and faculty development? Will faculty who will be working together have appropriate opportunities to get to know each other before they begin working together?

Our Story

PLP Challenges and Strategies

Our faculty development for PLP included IPE facilitation training. A network of educators from across professions was a key stakeholder group to engage. Their role as “educators” suggests that they value education and they are likely the coordinators of student placements. Ultimately they will be a group of people who support the process and will likely engage in and benefit from faculty development strategies. Additionally, staff who had expressed an interest in IPE or were involved in student placements were invited to the workshop. Our workshops were relatively well attended. The ability to implement the learning by facilitating a student placement was limited to only a few participants. Lack of time was a barrier for others. Those who did become IPE facilitators did so on their own time (or altered their schedules accordingly) and prioritized IPE themselves or worked in a profession that highly values IPE and IPC. Even with profession specific educators, it can be difficult to ensure that there will be a group of facilitators for IPE placements. Individuals who have broad or hospital wide education as part of their role will likely be able to take on project work including IPE placement components. They may be able to assist with faculty development strategies and can also act as facilitators as needed.

Adding IPE concepts to existing educator meeting agendas is useful as they are already an engaged and available audience. To increase attendance at an IPE facilitator workshop, SickKids and Toronto Rehab joined forces and provided an inter-organizational workshop. This was a useful strategy for our organizations and allowed for additional networking. If you do not have staff allotted to education events such as IPE you might network with other organizations or academia.

IPE faculty development initiatives were discussed at Educator meetings and invitations were sent to groups over email to ensure that no one was missed.

As stated above, our faculty development strategies included IPE facilitation workshops. Building on existing relationships was effective as we did not have to re-invent the wheel. Instead we adapted the IPE facilitation workshop from the Office of IPE at University of Toronto to meet our needs (refer to section 4 in the toolkit).

Consideration should be given to building on relationships and communication strategies that are already effective and to those that are needed to promote the IPE placements. Becoming part of a network of IPE leads can be an effective strategy to promote your own professional development in IPE. Other IPE leaders may be including faculty development strategies that may be useful for your own organization.

We included some hospital educators in our faculty development strategies and were able to count on them to fulfill the facilitator role on several occasions. Their roles with projects allowed them more flexibility than those who carried a clinical case load.

The Centre for Faculty Development, University of Toronto hosts IPE facilitation workshops throughout the year (http://www.cfd.med.utoronto.ca/).

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