Professionals don't play: Challenges for early childhood educators working in a transdisciplinary early intervention team

Abstract

Early intervention literature strongly advocates transdisciplinary approaches as the 'best practice' model for inter-professional teamwork, and, along with benefits for families and teams, identifies factors that can make transdisciplinary approaches more or less effective. One of these factors is the challenge posed to team effectiveness by perceptions of professional 'status' differences among transdisciplinary team members. However, there has been very little focus upon the issues that may face early childhood staff (trained or untrained) working in transdisciplinary teams, although they are playing an increasingly critical role in these teams. Our paper presents findings from a small descriptive research project exploring professionals' experiences of transdisciplinary teamwork in a play-based early childhood early intervention program in Australia. While our study findings support some existing knowledge regarding effective transdisciplinary teamwork, we also indicate some new issues relating to professional status issues concerning early childhood staff, and the role of play itself in early childhood early intervention settings.