Family Group Conferences in Child Welfare by P. Marsh and G. Crow, Blackwell Science, Oxford, 1998, 194pp. ISBN-0-632-04922-7 (Pbk).
✍ Scribed by Eileen Munro
- Book ID
- 101276076
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1999
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 75 KB
- Volume
- 8
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0952-9136
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Current policy in child welfare strives to redress the balance of power between families and professionals, and acknowledges that, for most children, the birth family plays an invaluable role in their development. This excellent book on family group conferences is, therefore, very timely, oering as it does a practice method that fosters partnership and builds on families' strengths. It provides a clear and thought-provoking account that will be of interest to practitioners and policy-makers involved in re-focusing child protection in the context of children in need.
There is a growing international body of research providing evidence of the eectiveness of family group conferences in promoting children's welfare and strengthening families. This book is a useful addition to the literature in that it oers a detailed study of their implementation in the British context.
Family group conferences bring together the extended family and professionals to see if they can ®nd a solution to the problems under discussion. In the ®rst stage of the conference, full information is given to the family concerning the problems as seen by the professionals. The family then have time alone to consider what could be done before meeting again with the professionals to see if all can agree on a plan to protect and care for the child. In some ways, the method looks very simple but, in practice, it involves a fundamental shift in the power balance and the experience for both family and professional participants.
The authors explain the historical development of such conferencesÐoriginally inspired by Maori family traditions in New ZealandÐand the theoretical underpinnings, before oering a detailed account of a research study examining their implementation in four very varied local authority settings. In all, 80 conferences were studied, involving 99 children from 69 families. Outcome 1 year later was measured by data collected from social workers and coordinators. The success of the approach is shown in the ®nding that, in 74 of the conferences, participants were able to reach full agreement, most plans combining elements of family help and some agency support services. Families found the meetings emotional and stressful but the majority would choose to deal with future issues in the same way. The sceptic might argue that only families with less serious problems were referred to the conference system, but the study reports that the cases were representative of social workers' caseloads.
The arguments for introducing family group conferences are persuasive, but the authors warn that there are reasons for caution.