BACKGROUND: A multiplicity of government initiatives advocate increasing shared working between services to ensure that holistic and co-ordinated assessment of need and related shared intervention is available to children and families. Concurrently, there is an increasing demand upon services to provide a wide range of support for children with complex difficulties. METHODS: On the Isle of Wight, joint services have been developing shared practice. The inter-agency service was initiated in 2001 through a 3-year project funded jointly between all services on the Island and the government through the 'Invest to Save' initiative. The project initially focused upon developing a combined process of diagnosis of autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) and the co-ordination of intervention at schools, within families and in the child's community. Gradually, the service extended to include children with a much wider range of difficulties, including those of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), developmental co-ordination disorder and co-morbid diagnoses. RESULTS: There are 19 000 school-aged children on the Isle of Wight. A total of 1101 referrals have been accepted between June 2001 and May 2007. In total, 201 children have been given a diagnosis of ASD. Overall, 392 children have been given a diagnosis of ADHD or ADHD/Co-morbid. Seventy were co-morbid for ASD and ADHD. The current service is rated as 85 satisfactory by its users, in contrast to the high level of complaint which resulted in the bid for the project initially. CONCLUSION: Following the successful conclusion of the 3-year government-funded project Education Services, Social Care and The Health Authority shared the ongoing funding of the current service. This has been operating effectively for over 6 years and has highlighted a wide variety of issues around this style of service delivery.
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