Connecting Professionals and their Centers: Level of Service Integration at Organizational Level is Associated with Professionals’ Individual Experiences with Interprofessional Collaboration

Integrating services within early childhood education and care (ECEC) is recommended to address inequalities and to promote inclusive education. Nevertheless, interprofessional collaboration is challenging, particularly in split systems like the Netherlands with little alignment between childcare, school and care. In this study, we analyzed survey data from a national sample of 626 professionals from 46 Dutch centers to investigate whether the level of service integration at organizational level was related to professionals’ attitudes towards interprofessional collaboration (IPC), self-efficacy and perceived team effectiveness regarding IPC. Results showed that a higher level of service integration at the organizational level was positively associated with professionals’ reflection on process and perceived team effectiveness at the individual level. Our findings support the hypothesis that the organizational context is associated with professionals' interprofessional beliefs. Furthermore, senior professionals had a stronger sense of interdependence and belonging, were more positive about involvement in newly developed activities and experienced a greater sense of self-efficacy, compared to their junior colleagues.