ABSTRACT
Since the late 1980s, several key reports have emphasized the urgency of establishing an integrated approach among different professional groups in the health and welfare sector (Leathard 1992). This came to a head in the wake of child abuse scandals covered in the national press (Cleveland, for example), where child victims were seen to fall through the professional net (Stevenson 1992). Before that, however, research evidence had begun to accumulate showing what professionals, if not their clients, had long since known from their own experience of the need to harmonize over-and underlapping practice areas (Astrachan and McKee 1965; Bond et al. 1987).
