Negotiating and building SLT–teacher trust relationships for effective interprofessional collaboration when delivering a tier-1 interactive reading program

Collaboration between teachers and school-based speech-language therapists (SLTs) is essential to high-quality universal tier-1 practices that support children's language and literacy skills in inclusive settings. Trust is central to interprofessional collaboration and successful implementation of new practices. This exploratory qualitative study used a secondary data analysis from two studies, each offering a complementary perspective on how teachers and SLTs negotiate and build trust when they collaborate to implement a universal tier-1 interactive reading program. In the first study, 10 kindergarten teachers were interviewed by the SLT with whom they would be collaborating, prior to the implementation of the program, representing the early stages of collaboration. In the second study, seven SLTs were individually interviewed after they had implemented the program, representing a retrospective look on their interprofessional collaboration with teachers. Both datasets were coded deductively using the Theoretical Model for Trusting Relationships and Implementation. Then, the two coded datasets were analyzed together and inductively, to identify patterns expressing similarities, differences or unique insights on collaboration at pre- and post-implementation. The findings positioned trust relationships at the heart of transforming practices, illustrating the model's strategies in action, sometimes in a consistent manner across both phases, sometimes with evolving shifts between the early stages of collaboration to post-collaboration. A new strategy, developing a common language , is suggested as an addition to the model, as the interprofessional nature of collaboration required bridging the terminologies of both disciplines. This study provides concrete examples of how the Metz et al. model can be applied in real-world settings and offers practical implications for SLTs and teachers who collaborate in classroom activities to improve universal practices during literacy activities.