The Mental Health Foundation funded a project to improve working relations between voluntary and statutory agencies in the field of community care, focussing primarily on people with long term mental health problems. This paper is laid out as a series of chapters covering aspects of collaborative work. Each is followed by a section of guideposts or principles, which are probably best studied by individuals. The principle questions are collected in an action checklist at the end of the paper so that they can be used by collaborative groups to discuss the issues raised in the paper. It is hoped that collaborative groups will find their work enhanced through consideration of the ideas and guidelines presented.