Posted by fgcstudy
20 October 2022
From 3 – 6 October the Kempe Center hosted the 2022 International Virtual Conference: A Call to Action to Change Child Welfare. Over the 4-days, academics, practitioners, and people with lived experience came together to discuss how to improve social care systems and structures for children and families. Many of the themes that emerged from the conference resonate with our study’s aims and evolving programme theory. The following reflections highlight some of these synergies.
From the first session on day one it was clear that interest in Family Group Conferencing (FGC) is both global and enduring. Researchers from NEVET Greenhouse, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem,presented their study on FGC in Israel. FGC was introduced in Israel in 2018, and their qualitative research considers how FGC Coordinators understand and translate the principles of FGC into practice, including their perspectives on bolstering families’ agency in meetings. While our research focuses on the English context, we too are exploring the complex and nuanced ways that FGCs influence traditional power dynamics between families and practitioners on the child protection pathway.
In a later session, Camden Council shared their creative approach to FGCs with adults through a debut film produced by artist-in-residence, Trevor Appleson. The 45-minute film centred on Lindiwe, a Camden resident. The film is a compilation of clips of Lindiwe’s Family Group Conference, images of her home, and snippets of her life story. Appleson said he sought to reflect the voice of the service user and portray the social worker’s practice in the film. The importance of including and involving the voices of children and families in decision-making was a cross-cutting theme throughout the conference, and is a key area of interest in our study.
In fact, Professor Tamar Morag, in her presentation on children’s participation and family violence, reminded the audience that according to Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, children have the right to express their views freely and to have their views given due weight. Speakers throughout the week gave examples of children’s meaningful, effective, and varied participation in decision-making. For example, children participated in FGCs in Israel by decorating invitations and choosing the food for the meeting. In the UK, some children wrote poetry and performed raps to express their views and feelings at their FGC. Through our study, we aim to better understand the varied ways children participate in Safeguarding FGCs, and what they hope the outcomes will be from these meetings. Additionally, the conference highlighted a continued international interest in finding ways to disrupt traditional power dynamics engrained in social care systems by more intentionally and creatively including children and families in decision-making. The stories, experiences and research shared during the conference show that family group conferences for many are a step toward achieving these larger aims.
