A Multidisciplinary Approach to Solving Global Problems: The Case of Psychologists Collaborating on a Girls Empowerment Program in Africa

Abstract

It is often said that “It takes a village,” meaning that many partners are necessary to get a project done. This principle applies when it comes to developing and implementing large-scale programs and evaluations in the field of psychology, with several psychologists collaborating on such projects. Consistent with this, the present chapter describes how a nongovernmental organization (NGO) accredited to the United Nations assisted in the development and evaluation of a camp program in Lesotho, Africa, to help orphans and vulnerable young girls living in poverty and at risk for HIV/AIDS. The emphasis in this chapter is on the collaboration of the NGO team members trained in different psychological disciplines, combining their skills to work together. This approach, called by the authors a Multidisciplinary Psychology Team (MDPT), is deemed important since various perspectives are often needed in order to develop, implement, and also evaluate programs on local, national, and, certainly, international levels. A multidisciplinary team is often necessary to effectively address the mission of the program, and to design the elements that will best achieve the intended goals (Housley, 2003; Kuriansky and Corsini, 2009). The multidisciplinary team model has often been used in medical care, referring to different fields of medical and social service (Patkar et al., 2011); this paper is one of the first of its kind to focus on the team cooperation from professionals in different specialties within the same field, psychology.