ABSTRACT
Development Consultants was approached by Tom James, manager of the Community Mental Health Team (CMHT) for a consultation to help to improve morale and functioning in the team. He felt under particular pressure for the CMHT to have a high profile at this time because the local mayor had a special interest in the problems of people with mental handicap. The next part of the consultation could then be designed to take into account the feedback from the first meeting, about which ideas have been most/least helpful and whether any changes in behaviour have occurred. In this chapter, the authors expect to get some reaction to that from other members of the team, but provided we are able to acknowledge and use such feedback constructively during the consultation, they feel that this justifies the apparent risks and potentially adds another dimension to our work.
