The Warrington Community Mental Handicap Team has been functioning for 2 1/2 years, and is the only Community Team in Cheshire actually based in the community. As core members, we have close links with the Psychology Department of the local mental handicap hospital.We describe the implementation of a toileting programme with a severely mentally handicapped 17‐year‐old girl. Several attempts to solve the problem had been made previously and we were trying to eliminate a well‐established pattern of behaviour. We were especially anxious to succeed where others had failed. The whole process took 18 months of fairly intensive