Making team working work--a real life experience

Southern Derbyshire Speech and Language Therapy Department has a team of six specialist speech and language therapists who support children with Specific Language Impairment in their mainstream schools via joint commissioning with education. As the team expanded in October 1995 this coincided with health trust and education changes and produced great instability and insecurity within the team. This paper outlines the implementation of a formal team working package using a facilitator provided by the trust's quality team and shows how it is possible to problem solve and develop within a framework of group rules, such as honesty and openness. Following its success its principles have allowed us to co-operate more effectively with both school staff and the community team and to support colleagues through a re-organisation of their service.