The issue of collaboration both within and beyond the health professions has arisen throughout this book, in relation to specific interactions, as well as to wider inter-agency collaborations between groups with different professional statuses. The following chapters address these issues, as it is imperative that any approach to tackling domestic violence in relation to health occurs in a context where a range of professions are involved. For example, the discrepancy between the relative power of general practitioners and health visitors has already arisen, and is, it could be suggested, a barrier to more effective interventions with women who present with domestic violence-related injuries. The concept of inter-agency work and the impact it has on the professional identities, and clinical practice, of a range of professional groups also has massive implications for training. The concept of training has therefore been included in this section, as it represents where professional identities are learned, as well as an area where examples of good practice and information can be disseminated.

Part Three will begin by examining the collaboration and communication which exists between healthcare professionals. Second, it will look at inter-agency work beyond the medical professions, and finally, it will examine training in relation to community training models, which represent a shift away from biomedical/wound-led models of health and embody changing concepts of learning and of interventions in domestic violence. This final section will also introduce a number of training tools which would be useful for training healthcare professionals about domestic violence. An inter-agency focus is assumed, as the extracts included in Part One illustrated how the participating women from stage one considered their interactions with health professionals in the context of their wider help-seeking activities. Any training tools adopted for health professionals must ensure, therefore, that they do not perpetuate concepts of professionalism which preclude inter-agency collaboration.