Frequently Asked Questions

• It is helpful to have the Head of Safeguarding, the Head of Practice and the Head of Family Group Conferences involved at an early stage.
• It is also key to involve social work team managers and partner agencies early in the planning process.

• You can use the pathway that the Bi-Borough (Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster City Council) and the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham created as a starting point and adapt it to your local context. Please see the flowchart of the SFGC Alternative Pathways here.
• You can access more resources on the study website.
• The monthly drop-in sessions (practitioners’ forums) are also a helpful opportunity to ask questions and learn from others. If you are interested, please contact us via fgcstudy@exeter.ac.uk.
• It may be helpful to start the process of pathway planning by gathering key individuals (i.e. partner agencies, Child Protection Chairs, FGC Coordinators) to agree on why you are introducing the Safeguarding FGC. For example, it may be so to work more collaboratively with families. Clarifying the vision early on will help get everyone on the same page.

• You can name the pathway whatever you think is appropriate in your setting. Other Local Authorities may want to name their pathway with input from families or partner agencies.
• The Bi-Borough (Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster City Council) and the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham named their pathway the ‘Safeguarding Family Group Conferencing’ based on conversations with partner agencies who felt the word ‘safeguarding’ was important to include.

The key point is that Safeguarding FGC is an alternative pathway for families who reach the threshold for an Initial Child Protection Conference. The name should reflect that to families, internal staff, and external agencies.

• Invite Team Managers to get involved from an early stage (i.e. include them in a steering group). This can be a development opportunity for team managers who are keen to be involved in service design.
• Be clear about roles and responsibilities in delivering Safeguarding FGCs so that Team Managers are able to plan resources and allocation.

• Provide training so Child Protection chairs are clear about any changes in their role.
• Create space to share practice and reflect. The Bi-Borough (Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster City Council) used to work and the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, clinicians and the FGC Leadwork closely with Chairs to support systemic practice and are available to discuss concerns.

There is a long history of using Child Protection conferences in social work. The idea of changing that system is anxiety-producing for many.

To address this, it may be helpful to:

• Secure support from leadership at an early stage.
• Meaningfully include partner agencies early on in planning.
• Make a clear plan outlining who will be responsible for tracking cases, recording decision-making, maintaining oversight, and following up after the Safeguarding FGC and how this will be done.
• Communicate the purpose of the Safeguarding FGC pathway clearly and frequently and reiterate the ‘why’ behind it.
• In the Bi-Borough (Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster City Council) and in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, when explaining the Safeguarding FGC to professionals, they found it helpful to explain that Safeguarding FGC is a collaborative way of working with families and not a replacement for the important work that practitioners do, or the oversight that is needed.

In Bi-Borough (Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster City Council) and in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, they embedded a prompt about Safeguarding FGC into their IT system. This reassures professionals that the case is recorded and has there is a clear system for oversight.

• Clearly communicate with team managers and partner agencies early in the planning process about what the Safeguarding FGC is and where it sits in relation to the wider system.
• Embed the pathway into monitoring and recording processes.

• FGC Coordinators have the expertise around engaging families in a process of making a family plan. However, not all FGC Coordinators are trained social workers and not all have worked at CP level.
• It may be useful to provide some additional training for FGC Coordinators (i.e. around CP thresholds, timescales, etc).

• It is helpful to involve partner agencies from the point of planning the Safeguarding FGC pathway.
• Continued communication will also help ensure partner agencies understand the Safeguarding FGC pathway. It may be helpful to attend partnership meetings to present the particulars of your adapted Safeguarding FGC pathway and invite questions.
• Families who are offered a Safeguarding FGC meet the threshold for ICPC and there is a duty of care to share information with partner agencies for all families who meet this threshold.
• In the pathway created by the Bi-Borough (Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster City Council) and the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, Safeguarding FGCs are considered at strategy meetings and/or Multiagency Partner Meetings. Partner agencies are involved at this early stage and understand that their contribution is important. After the Safeguarding FGC, at the Safeguarding Network Meeting, partner agencies are invited to consider how they can enhance the family’s plan in terms of resources and support. The Chair helps facilitate the partner agency’s involvement.

In the pathway that the Bi-Borough (Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster City Council) and the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham have created, every family who is considered for an Initial Child Protection Conference is considered for a Safeguarding FGC as an alternative. The following factors are also considered:

• The family’s previous history and an understanding of the current risks.
• The family’s willingness to work with agencies.
• If the identified risks can be managed in the short term by a social work safety plan.

• In the Bi-Borough (Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster City Council) and the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham pathway, no one ‘type’ of family is offered a Safeguarding FGC. The child’s age, family size and other family characteristics are not deciding factors. Instead, all families that meet the threshold for Initial Child Protection Conference are considered for a Safeguarding FGC.
• It is up to each local authority to agree on how they are going to decide which families to offer a Safeguarding FGC. It is likely approaches will vary from local authority to local authority. Also, approaches may change over time as you learn what works in your setting.

In the Bi-Borough (Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster City Council) and the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham pathway, thresholds and risk are considered in the same way as Initial Child Protection Conference  and the decision to invite a family to consider a Safeguarding FGC is made by a social worker Team Manager.

In the Bi-Borough (Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster City Council) and the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham pathway, this decision is usually made at the Strategy or decision‐making meeting, but a Safeguarding Family Group Conference can be considered at any point.

• In the Bi-Borough (Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster City Council), 24 families have been referred to the Safeguarding FGC pathway. Of the 24 families referred, 20 families went through with their Safeguarding .
• LAs planning to pilot the Safeguarding FGC pathway may want to consider at an early stage how they will monitor and record which families are referred and what the outcomes are.

Rather than being split, the Safeguarding FGC is an integral part of the pathway. The family meets with the independent co-ordinator and the social worker and they go through the risks. The social worker leaves for their to be family time to make a plan to address the risks. We have designed the family plan to have similar headings to the Child In Need/Child Protection Plan. The family then attends a Safeguarding Network meeting and shares their plan; professionals/partners agree and enhance the plan which is transferred by the Chair to a SFGC CIN Plan.

The Safeguarding FGC plan follows the same headings as a Child In Need/Child Protection Plan.

• The family network will ideally support the family with the tasks they agree to do in the plan, but there is still professional oversight.
• In the Bi-Borough (Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster City Council and the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham pathway, a Child Protection Advisor has oversight of the Safeguarding FGC process.

Most LAs are designing their Safeguarding FGC pathway to mirror that of the Initial Child Protection Conference. As such, they will be working within tight statutory timescales (15 working days). Do you have any advice on how to manage this?

• Getting buy-in from the safeguarding service and ensuring that they sign off on the proposed Safeguarding FGC pathway from the start is a key first step because keeping with these timescales will require quick and efficient communication between the social work and FGC teams.
• For example, you may want to establish a process where the FGC manager types up the referral form and share it with FGC Coordinator within 24 hours after a strategy meeting, so they have a document to go out to confirm consent with the family.
• In the Bi-Borough, they send the FGC Coordinator with the social worker to visit the family when they share the outcome of the Sec 47 inquiry. The FGC Coordinator then provide information about Safeguarding FGC and discusses what would work best for the family. Professionals provide clear information to the family about the model and reasons for the offer, including the possibility of reverting back to ICPC if family members do not engage. They secure consent and obtain other necessary information from the family to commence the work. All details are gathered from the family at that point. A joint visit may help to save time and streamline the offer of an SFGC.

• This is a key part of the pathway design, and each Local Authority may choose to do this differently.
• In the Bi-Borough (Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster City Council) and the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham pathway, the Child Protection Advisor has oversight of the Safeguarding FGC plan because the case has met the threshold for an Initial Child Protection Conference.
• Other Local Authorities might consider the independent Reviewing Officer or Child Protection Chair.

• The Safeguarding FGC pathway is in line with the features of service that are highly rated by OFSTED.
• Bi-Borough, Hammersmith and Fulham are rated ‘outstanding/good with outstanding features’ and partly attribute this rating to their willingness to try new collaborative and empowering ways of working with families.

• In the Bi-Borough (Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster City Council) and the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham pathway, a Family safeguarding network meetings is held after the Safeguarding FGC. A Child Protection Chair may chair this meeting to provide experienced child protection oversight.
• The risk of this is that it can look like a child protection conference, so it is important to work with the Chairs to ensure there is a shared understanding that this is a different type of meeting and aim to enhance and resource the family plan.

• In the Bi-Borough (Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster City Council) and the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham pathway, the FGC Coordinator doesn’t attend the network meeting. Once the plan is distributed, the FGC Coordinator’s involvement ends.
• This may be different in different Local Authorities depending on resources and decisions made in the pathway design about oversight.

In the Bi-Borough (Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster City Council) and the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, if it goes down the Safeguarding FGC pathway then it is held within the Childre in Need (CiN) process. The chair has oversight throughout the pathway. The team manager has the authority to revert or escalate the family if they do not engage or if risk remains unchanged or increases.

It depends on the case.

• In the Bi-Borough (Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster City Council), the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham pathway, after a Safeguarding FGC, they record how long the family was on the plan and when they step down. They then gain feedback from families and professionals involved.
• It is up to each Local Authority to decide how they want to capture and record feedback.
• The University of Exeter Safeguarding FGC study is looking at how Safeguarding FGC work for families and professionals. Updates from the study will be posted on the website.

• Some families who are offered Safeguarding FGC, like FGC, are concerned about sharing what they are going through with their extended family network.
• In the Bi-Borough (Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster City Council) and London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, they have found that a joint visit between social workers and FGC Coordinators (or the FGC Lead) helps families to understand the offer of the Safeguarding FGC.