Educating for interprofessional collaboration: teaching about values

Effective interprofessional collaboration depends upon establishing understanding that respects differences in values and beliefs, and thus differences in response to the multiplicity of patient/client/user needs. To facilitate the latter, this article suggests that health and social care students need a formal knowledge of the meaning of values and the varieties of systems within which values are expressed. Students need especially to understand the genesis of their own professional value system and to recognize the gap that inevitably develops between the values of the professional and those of the society within which a professional may function. The conceptual framework that underpins the approach to teaching values to health and social care professionals advocated here is derived from key concepts identified from the literature relating to education for, and participation in, a democratic, multicultural, multifaith society. These are: tolerance, compromise and education for dialogue. Finally, it is suggested that professional educators must take seriously the tasks of educating for professional pluralism.