Effective social work curriculum design needs to open up dialogue between professionals at the earliest stage of their professional development and employ creative and innovative approaches to facilitate this. The ten creative pointers presented here emerged from research into social work practitioners' views of the implementation of Children's Integrated Services (within the context of the Every Child Matters agenda and passage of the 2004 Children's Act). The research set out to identify current practice related pre-occupations amongst child care social work practitioners and to identify the key obstacles to and opportunities for effective inter-professional working. Throughout eight interactive sessions participants highlighted the tensions which they experience in interprofessional working. These include the defensive dynamics between professionals and the impact on working relations of professional status and power hierarchies. The data point to the importance of the curriculum engaging directly and head–on with such entrenched interprofessional issues. It also raised particular questions for curriculum design and delivery including: What is interprofessional working understood to be "on the ground" and how is it best delivered in the curriculum? How can we help students understand the issues they will face in interprofessional working? How can we make interprofessional working more alive in the curriculum?
