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In the foreword of this book, Olive Stevenson addresses the issue of how role affects the interactions of professionals: ‘I have always regretted the intellectual intolerance of each to the other. … I am more than ever convinced that we must take heed of the hidden forces which pull us apart, or inappropriately together, when confronted with behaviour which disturbs us at deep levels’.
It is good to find a book which takes a step forward into the fray of interdisciplinary collaboration. The need for such experiential programmes to be established and written about is great. With more and more demand placed on the caring professions there is a need to expose realistically the benefits and considerable dilemmas and frustrations of crossing agency boundaries. The project described by Woodhouse and Pengelly does just this. The five front line services: Marriage Guidance (now Relate), General Practice, Health Visitors, Social Services and Probation were selected. (I wonder if there is the chance to do another run with others: Community Paediatric teams, the Police, Teachers, Community Project workers, Age Concern, Citizens Advice.) The authors stressed how much they made use of their colleagues at the