Connecting different worlds: a study in professionals attitudes and Self-Efficay towards interprofessional collaboration in Dutch child centers

In the Netherlands there is a trend towards more integration between childcare, primary education and family support services (Van Grinten, 2019). In child centers offering integrated early childhood education and care (ECEC), professionals from different disciplines work together to provide a broad range of services for a diverse population of children and their families to reduce inequalities and to enhance the development of children in their early years (EU Council, 2019; Lazzari et al., 2020). This interprofessional collaboration (IPC) is new for Dutch child centers and their professionals, since they operate in a split system with few connections between these sectors at macro level. As a result, there is a significant diversity among individual child centers (i.e., from completely separate to working a one integrated interprofessional team). However, few studies have considered the experiences of individual professionals with interprofessional collaboration.
In a longitudinal project we aimed to investigate How in 46 Dutch child centers. At the start of the project the level of service integration was assessed for all child centers using the Index for Child Center Integration (ICCI, Kassenberg et al., 2024). To asses the experience of the professionals we used a mixed method approach. First, 1226 professionals were invited for an online survey to access their attitudes towards interprofessional collaboration (response rate 51%). Secondly, an interprofessional group of professionals was invited for a focus group at each participating child centers (on average 5 Professionals participated per child center).
The results of a multilevel analysis showed that professionals from a child center with a higher level of service integration have a more positive attitude towards interprofessional collaboration, specifically connectedness and have a higher Self-Efficacy. Additionally, the focus groups revealed more connecting language by professionals from child centers with a higher level of service integration.
In a dynamic Dutch context, child centers seek new ways to integrate services, which currently shape the interprofessional collaboration for professionals involved. Our findings underscore that higher levels of service integration at center level are associated with more positive attitudes towards interprofessional collaboration for the involved professionals.
Although, this study focused on professionals working in childcare, education and care, the professionals from care disciplines were underrepresented in this study. Therefore the main conclusion primarily holds for IPC between childcare and education.
The findings of this study offer a number of practical implications for the development of child centers in the Netherlands. Moreover, this study showed that enhancing the level of service integration in child centers resulted in professionals adopting a more positive attitude towards IPC. Consequently, the ICCI can be utilized as an evaluation or monitoring tool by child centers. However, the question still remains to what extent educational programs prepare new professionals to work in this changing integrated environment.