![]()
Part One
Introducing Family Group Conferences
![]()
ONE
Introduction
Deanna Edwards
This book presents a set of chapters which explore the application of Family Group Conferences (hereafter often referred to as FGCs) as a family-led decision-making model in the social care field. The first three chapters provide a context for FGCs. Chapter Two explores the legislative and policy context for FGCs within the UK. Chapter Three provides a detailed description of FGCs and emphasises the distinction between the model and other decision-making processes. Chapter Four examines the theoretical context of FGCs and locates the model within social work and sociological theory frameworks. Subsequent chapters explore the application of Family Group Conferences in particular areas of social care practice: child protection, youth justice, young people who display harmful sexual behaviour and adult social care. Other chapters discuss the relevance of Family Group Conferences as a culturally competent method of social work practice and demonstrate the cross-cultural application of the model, as a global model of decision making. The book aims to provide a detailed overview of FGCs for a wide audience of interested readers. These may include social workers and social work students, FGC practitioners and family members who have had, or are considering, an FGC. The book provides a multi-disciplinary approach with contributing authors from a range of backgrounds. This includes family members who have experienced an FGC, practitioners and academics. Inevitably this leads to a varied approach to chapters which aims to add to the wide appeal of the book. A glossary is provided for those not familiar with social work terminology. Since there are a range of authors this will encompass a range of views on the FGC process which encompasses both an enthusiastic endorsement and a more critical perspective.
History and development
Family Group Conferences are welfare decision-making meetings which originated in New Zealand in the 1980s. They emerged in response to concerns in New Zealand (Aotearoa) about the outcomes for Maori children and young people involved with social care services. This resulted in the 1988 Puao te ata tu report (Ministerial Advisory Committee, 1988) which was the result of extensive consultation with Maori communities. The report recommended the development of participatory decision making when working with the Maori community and a requirement to respect Maori culture and tradition. This was enshrined in legislation as part of the 1989 Children, Young Persons and their Families Act as a requirement to offer families a Family Group Conference. The CYPF Act remains the primary legislation in governing child welfare and youth justice in New Zealand and, as Maxwell and Morris (2006) have observed, the Act defends the rights and needs of the indigenous population and makes families central to decision making. This means that, wherever possible, the family should participate in decisions that affect the child or young person and consideration should be given to the wishes of that child or young person. The Act gives licence to use FGCs in both child welfare and youth justice cases.
FGCs were introduced to the UK in 1992 by Family Rights Group, a UK charity which focuses on supporting families involved with social care services. Family Rights Group assisted the development of six FGC pilot projects in England and Wales. Subsequently two of these services dropped out leaving three English and one Welsh project. These were in Hampshire, Wandsworth, Hereford and Worcester, and Gwynedd, North Wales. The first UK based FGC was held in Wales in 1993 coordinated by the Cwlwm project. An evaluation of the projects was conducted by the University of Sheffield (Crow and Marsh, 1997, Marsh and Crow, 1998) in tandem with local evaluation and research (Edwards, 2007). Since then there has been a growth of empirical research on FGCs in the UK, and this theme will be explored in later chapters.
The introduction of FGCs into the UK fitted the agenda drives for children's social care at that time, including the recent introduction of the 1989 Children Act, which places emphasis on partnership working and the growing understanding of the family as expert. The introduction of FGCs also coincided with an increasing belief that 'protection is best achieved by building on the existing strengths of the child's living environment rather than expecting miracles from isolated and spasmodic interventions' (Department of Health, 1995).
The current context
Since then FGCs have grown gradually in the UK and exist worldwide. They are used in all areas of child welfare. Family Rights Group (2015) state that 76% of local authorities across England and Wales had a child welfare-based FGC service. FGCs are also being increasingly used in adult social care services, particularly in mental healthcare, learning disability and the care of older people (see Chapter 12 for a detailed discussion of FGCs with adults). More recently child welfare FGCs have been influenced by the Public Law Outline (known as the PLO and since 2014 as Practice Direction 12A). The PLO recommends the use of FGCs in identifying and planning for family and friends' care and support in the pre-proceedings stage of public law proceedings. Statutory guidance (Children Act 1989, Court Orders 2014 and Children Act 1989, Department for Education, 2011a) recommends the use of FGCs if there is a possibility that a child or children may not be able to remain with parents. The majority of FGCs in England and Wales use FGCs in pre-proceedings and proceedings cases. The PLO does not apply to Scotland and Northern Ireland, where FGCs are being used across the spectrum of child welfare services and not just at the pre-care stage.
The UK Government's response to the Family Justice Review highlights FGCs and their use at the pre-proceedings stage, arguing that 'the benefits of Family Group Conferences should be more widely recognised and their use should be considered before proceedings' (Ministry of Justice, 2012: 58).
In terms of cost effectiveness, it can be argued that FGCs are cost effective if they prevent proceedings, prevent children and young people entering the care system or enable children and young people to return home. Of course, as with any social care intervention it is difficult to prove beyond doubt a cause and effect relationship between the FGC and the outcome. Nevertheless a number of Local Authorities have attempted to evidence where FGCs have contributed to a significant cost saving. One example of this is Coventry FGC service, who in 2013 estimated savings of between £477,000 and £879,000 in fostering, contact, daycare and respite costs and an additional saving of £53,231 in family support worker hours (Coventry Council, 2013).
Key principles and values of the model
A detailed account of the FGC model will be presented in Chapter Three with a guide to preparing and convening an FGC, so for the purposes of this introductory chapter a brief guide to the model will be presented alongside a summary of the underlying principles. Several of these principles make FGCs distinctive from other social care interventions. The first of these is the use of an independent coordinator or facilitator to convene the meeting. This person, although often employed directly by the local authority, is not a decision maker for the family in question, and is there only to convene the FGC. As Chapter Three highlights, there is often an attempt to 'match' this person to the family in terms of ethnicity, culture and language although for smaller projects this may be an unachievable ideal. The second distinctive key principle is the provision of 'private family time'. This is an unlimited amount of time during the meeting when the family are left alone without the presence of any social care professionals to formulate a family plan. Careful preparation to enable the family to effectively and safely make use of this planning time is essential to the success of FGCs and private planning time ensures that the family are the architects of the plan. FGCs therefore begin with the appointment of an FGC coordinator who facilitates the process. He or she will meet with the family and prepare them for their FGC. The FGC will take place at a time and place convenient for all those attending and a key principle of the process is that the family decide who to invite to the meeting and can define 'family' as widely as they choose. This means that families will often choose to invite friends and other supporters to their FGC. They may choose to invite people who work with them such as family support workers, teachers etc., although those who attend the meeting in a professional capacity will not be invited to participate in private family time.
A further key principle is that the family children's services social worker (or referrer if the referral doesn't come from a social worker) will attend the meeting and will be the person who approves the plan. They will provide a report for the meeting which will include strengths of the family, key concerns, questions that need addressing and the 'bottom line'.
The central principle of FGCs is that the family devise and agree a plan during private family time. This plan will be agreed by the referrer if it addresses concerns and the bottom line and it is safe and legal. The difference between this and other decision-making meetings is that in an FGC the family decide the plan in consultation with social care professionals, while in other social care decision-making meetings social care professionals make decisions in consultation with the family.
The value base of FGCs is one of empowerment and it comes from the strengths-based tradition (Saleebey, 2002) of social work interventions which holds the core belief that all individuals have strengths and resources (Laursen, 2003) and therefore focuses on a person's skills and support systems (Nissen et al., 2005). An FGC should therefore seek to build upon family strengths and minimise concerns. This is discussed further in Chapter Two.
The FGC model begins with a referral. Reasons for referral will depend upon the criteria of the agency but the referral question or questions should be clear and direct. Once a referral is accepted an FGC coordinator is appointed. As we have seen the coordinator needs to be independent and is the person who will prepare and convene the meeting. The FGC coordinator will work with the family to decide who attends the meeting and when and where the meeting will take place. Once preparation is complete the FGC will take place. Meetings take place in neutral venues chosen by the family – often community and family centres. Coordinators will help the family to decide a suitable venue.
The meeting takes place in three distinct stages – information sharing; private family time; and agreeing a plan. Information sharing involves those at the meeting in a professional capacity outlining the information they have, what needs addressing at the meeting and what the 'bottom line' is – that is, what won't be agreed to in a family plan. Once this is established the family can go into private family time, where they discuss and agree a plan. Once this is done they will call the coordinator and others back into the meeting to discuss their plan and to determine if it has addressed concerns and is safe and legal. If so, the plan will be agreed. Once the plan is clarified and agreed the coordinator will set a date for it to be reviewed and the meeting will be closed. A full and detailed discussion of the stages and process of an FGC will be presented in Chapter Three.
FGC research: a brief overview
FGC research in the UK began with an evaluation of the original pilot projects started by Family Rights Group in 1992. This evaluation was conducted by Crow and Marsh and was published in 1997. Future chapters will present more detailed analysis of some of the FGC research. It is worth noting, though, that Marsh (2009) has argued that FGCs have been more widely researched than any other areas of social work practice, which makes comparisons difficult. Research in the UK has tended to focus on outcomes for children involved in child protection processes. Research has been mixed in terms of the efficacy of FGCs but there is some consensus (Ashley (ed.), 2006; Ashley and Nixon (eds), 2007; Huntsman, 2006) that FGCs can result in:
•significantly fewer children entering state care/significantly more children remaining in the care of their families;
•improved contact arrangements between children in care and their families;
•families developing safe plans for their children;
•children and families being more engaged than in traditional child protection processes.
It is important to note that much of the research on the efficacy of FGCs has tended to be small scale in nature, focusing on small geographical areas (Fox, 2008). Furthermore, there have been no comparative studies undertaken in the UK of any significance that have compared the outcomes from FGCs with traditional approaches to child protection decision-making (Frost, Abram and Burgess, 2014b). Much of the UK research on FGCs also dates back to the 1990s and there is clear need for up-to-date and larger scale UK-based research to be conducted. There does, however, exist some more recent UK-based research which substantiates the success of FGCs. For example, Morris (2007), in her evaluation of the Camden FGC service, found a significant reduction in the use of formal child protection proceedings and an increase in the number of children being looked after by their family following an FGC. Frost and Elmer (2008) also concluded in his evaluation of the South Leeds FGC service that acceptable plans were agreed at all of the FGCs in the evaluation. Furthermore a good deal of the UK research has focused upon the participation and engagement of families in the FGC process and suggests that families feel increasingly empowered by FGCs and are positive about them, and children and young people felt they had more say over decision making about their lives (Bell and Wilson, 2006: Holland et al., 2005; Holland and O'Neill, 2006; Marsh and Walsh, 2007; Frost and Elmer, 2008; Percy-Smith and Thomas, 2010).
Current developments in FGCs
We have seen earlier in the chapter how FGCs have developed as a recommendation in current legislative practice and how their growth has steadily increased from their UK inception in the 1990s. A consequence of the growth of FGCs is that Family Rights Group has emerged as the UK champion of FGCs and is seen by many as both the originator and guardian of FGC practice nationally. It has developed both a national and international reputation for FGC expertise and offers training in a range of FGC related fields, including coordinator training and FGC consultancy. Family Rights Group has for many years provided the National FGC Network, a network that UK-based FGC projects, practitioners and family members can join to keep up-to-date with current FGC practice, policy and legislation. Alongside their members, Family Rights Group has lobbied continuously for a voice for families involved with social care services, as part of which it has advocated passionately for FGC practice. For many years it has provided guidance for projects and practitioners and produced its first set of practice guidance in 2002, written in partnership with Barnardos and NCH (National Children's Home [now known as Action for Children]). Family Rights Group provides quarterly FGC Network meetings for FGC practitioners and projects, and has been among the first UK organisations to provide accreditation for both FGC practitioners and FGC projects and services. The process of accreditation for both is still voluntary – neither coordinators nor services are required to have an accredited qualification or kitemark. An increasing number of coordinators are becoming accredited, however, either through the Family Rights Group/University of Chester (and latterly University of Salford) Post-Graduate Certificate in FGCs, or through Netcare, who also provide an FGC qualification. A number of FGC services are now asking for coordinators to have an FGC qualification, or at least to have completed accredited training.
In 2011, Family Rights Group was commissioned by the Department for Education to pilot an accreditation scheme for projects. Individual coordinator accreditation was already underway and a growing number of FGC services with an increased FGC profile and a potential for variation in standards has led to pressure to both provide guidance for good practice and to measure minimum standards that projects should reach. This pressure has not only come from projects, but also from judges seeking to recommend FGCs, from successive governments recommending them as good practice and from families demanding an equitable service.
The pilot accreditation scheme w...
