Since 1979 collaborative activities in continuing education for human services workers in Montana have shown that combining training efforts among agencies and higher education units provides better instruction at a considerable savings in cost and particularly suits rural agencies with small training budgets and small, widely dispersed staffs. Planning efforts should first consider needs and resources of the target area. Any cooperating agency or working group must commit itself to share in the planning and costs (in-kind contributions constitute suitable cost sharing), and to provide a specific number of training participants for each activity. Planning is done by developing three menus ranging from A Menu (all possible training topics and needs) to C Menu (refined, final training needs lists). It is best to decide against shared training when courses are so specialized that only employees in a given job specialty can benefit. Problems are sometimes caused by philosophical differences in professional practice orientations of various agencies; if differences can be handled, greater understanding of diverse practices can result. Adequate planning can eliminate or reduce some agencies' tendency to protect their professional "turf." Montana now needs a human services training consortium to coordinate efforts and disseminate information about training events. (BRR)