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8 Collaborative Relationship-Building

Learning about the six competency domains equips you to know how you can contribute to building collaborative relationships within a team. Relationships are foundational to collaboration as illustrated below in the Interprofessional Collaborative Relationship-Building (ICRB) model.

The Interprofessional Collaborative Relationship-Building (ICRB) Model

The ICRB model (Figure 1) focuses on how collaborative relationships develop over time between health professionals and persons such as patients and families. The model is intended to help people locate, situate and set direction for teams to work on their relationships.

 

Figure 1. The Interprofessional Collaborative Relationship-Building (ICRB) Model

Collaborative relationships develop through four stages: looking for help, coming together, fitting in, and growing reciprocity. Time and context are influencing factors. Teams often cycle through these stages several times before reaching deeper trust-based collaboration.

Wener & Woodgate, 2016; Wener et al., 2022.

 

Collaborative relationship-building and the CIHC competencies

Figure 2 illustrates how at all stages of relationship development, being focused on the relationships and the communication strategies is critical. However, other competency domains while always important, are anticipated to be prioritized at certain stages. For example, at the beginning of the relationship, once providers recognize they need help/collaboration with others, role clarification and negotiation will be important as well as collaborative leadership.

 

Figure 2. The Interprofessional Collaborative Relationship-Building Model and the CIHC Competency Framework

The six collaboration competencies facilitate team development across all four stages. Team communication strategies and relationship-focused care are foundational to all developmental stages. Particular attention is required for role clarification and negotiation in stages 2 and 3; team functioning in stages 3 and 4; team differences processing in stage 3; and collaborative leadership across stages 1 to 4.

Wener & Woodgate, 2016; Wener et al., 2022.

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Introduction to Collaborative Team-Based Care Copyright © 2025 by Office of Interprofessional Collaboration, Rady Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Manitoba is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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