Anyone working in social work, teaching, nursing, or other allied health roles will be familiar with the challenges of collaborating with people from other disciplines. Interprofessional working can go wrong and communication breakdowns can have serious consequences for vulnerable people and others in their care. 

Academics teaching on professional courses often seek to provide opportunities for interprofessional learning (IPL) so that working with others becomes a habitual part of students’ practice. This can happen through shared lectures, seminars and workshops. However, being in the same space or discussing the same topic from different professional perspectives does not necessarily promote deep learning.

Classroom-based simulations are designed to replicate real-world scenarios that students on professional courses will experience when they qualify. Often, these simulations are discipline-specific, so social workers might conduct a simulated home visit, whereas nurses might conduct a simulated examination of a patient. But, given that professionals often work together in practice, there are opportunities to use simulations to provide rich interprofessional learning activities.

The design of these learning opportunities is no small undertaking. It involves lining up timetables for courses that combine university-based and placement learning, creating realistic learning materials, and curating activities to enhance interprofessional learning. All this takes time and planning.

The first step is to have a clear idea of what presents a useful learning opportunity. As a social work academic with a background in child and family practice, running a simulated child protection conference – where a range of professionals supporting the family come together to discuss their worries and put together a plan of support – seemed like a natural choice. There are numerous other situations in which professionals come together that would work just as well, such as mental health tribunals, hospital discharge planning meetings and looked after children reviews.

Find your people

Buy-in from colleagues in other professional disciplines is essential to the success of these kinds of learning events. But there are other ways to improve the quality of learning, including looking outside academia. To make our simulated child protection conferences as realistic as possible, we invited child protection conference chairs from neighbouring local authorities to lead them. Ultimately, realistic classroom-based learning helps better prepare professionals for the field, so busy practitioners are willing to give up their time to support learning. Having professional actors role-play non-professional roles (such as parents or patients) can also heighten the realism.  

Support from people working in the field has other benefits, such as the sharing of report templates and skeleton plans that bring simulated learning activities to life. Meanwhile, pull together a team of academic colleagues to share the workload; each discipline takes responsibility for preparing materials for their students based on a shared case study and simulated learning activity.

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Scaffold learning

These learning events are not without risk; students may feel anxious about engaging in simulations and may worry about working with unfamiliar peers. To mitigate some of these worries, prepare them for the event through clear briefings outlining what to expect.

Build in other learning activities that support skills development. Pre-event, you could consider asking students to write sections of the report they will present, or to rehearse verbal information-sharing with peers. This can boost confidence.

Time to work together outside the simulated learning activity can help students collaborate more meaningfully with those from other disciplines. We provided two activities for before and after the simulated child protection conference, one on resolving professional disagreements and one on drafting a plan to support the family in the case study used for the event. 

Evaluate and iterate

Gather qualitative and quantitative feedback to evidence student learning and find ways to develop learning opportunities. We have used pre- and post-event surveys to evaluate changes in students’ knowledge, skills and confidence. But formal and informal feedback on the event has been just as valuable. Each year, we have tweaked the case study, the simulation itself and the additional learning activities in response to student and colleague feedback.

The main benefits of this type of learning event are:

• It promotes the development of key skills for students on professional programmes
• It provides safe opportunities to engage in realistic practice settings
• It breaks down barriers that can prevent effective interprofessional learning and working.

With thought, planning, and effective collaboration, interprofessional simulations can deepen learning in several ways for students on professional courses.   

Mark Gregory is a lecturer in social work at the University of East Anglia.

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