When prerequisites are met and clinical and medicolegal practice is sound and thorough, taking short-term risk, as part of a comprehensive treatment, is a legitimate professional consideration in working with some adults with borderline personality disorder.

This paper describes a consumer-clinician co-taught borderline personality disorder training programme for clinicians, of whom the largest group were nurses, working in mental health and substance use fields. A pilot evaluation of 73 participants attending the training rated the training as superior to evaluations of an earlier clinician-only-taught training. This study of a novel co-taught training programme found that the consumer input added substantial value. Findings indicate that consumer input into education programmes can make a significant positive contribution to the delivery of mental health services training with likely impacts on mental health service delivery. The potential importance of the findings warrants a comprehensive multicentre study. Confirming the findings would have implications for future borderline personality disorder training programmes.

Data confirm preliminary findings that adding a consumer-presenter to training adds considerable value.

A collaborative decision-making process with an emphasis, wherever possible, on the decision-making of the adult diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, provides a relationship structure promoting effective medication decision-making.