For anyone else wondering what this tweet was all about, here’s what we’ve made of it so far.
Family Group Conferences (FGCs) are family-led planning meetings. Their use is well established in child protection as a way of enabling families to make their own safe plans for children where possible, before plans are otherwise imposed on them (eg. in child protection conference or court care proceedings settings). Government guidance recommends councils offer them to children on the edge of care but stops short of saying they have to – Court Orders Guidance page 16. Practice varies from council to council. See Family Rights Group Advice Sheet.
The What Works Centre (WWC) is a government funded body working alongside (Cardiff University based) CASCADE on behalf of the DfE, to make children’s social work policy and practice decisions more evidence based. See here. They say they are reviewing existing evidence, (against high research standards), pulling it together accessibly, identifying gaps, and developing research (and research tools) to meet those gaps. (The Family Justice Observatory has a similar function for family court decision making).
The concerns – A group of academics with experience of FGCs have written an open letter to the WWC asking them to re-think aspects of new proposals with the DfE to develop and test a form of FGC for families on the edge of care. Specifically, they point out that it’s unethical to randomly allocate the families of vulnerable children on the edge of going into care to either getting the benefit of an FGC or going without one. They also say the narrow focus anyway on testing ‘what works’ in terms of the number of care proceedings avoided by an FGC misses, and sidelines, the intrinsic value of FGC’s as a fundamentally ethical way of working with families in its own right, regardless of outcome (or at the very least testable more by satisfaction of families).
The twitter dialogue – As so often a cross-silo dialogue was quickly lit at twitter. This helpfully distinguished between trialling FGCs as a tool to promote family-led decision making against other ways of involving families, and families who are effectively side-lined from decision making, depending on what is routine social work practice in the relevant councils taking part:
There were also questions on the ethics and viability of an RCT (randomised controlled trial) in respect of informed consent and legal duties at the point of pre- proceedings meetings and care proceedings, and the role of (automatic) legal aid solicitors on behalf of parents at both stages:
And, tangentially, as to the basis upon which some councils but not others will be privileged with large amounts of tax-payer/ government funding:
The actual proposals – Dove-tailing 22nd May WWC and DfE press releases, Announcing the Supporting Families: Investing in Practice programme‘ and ‘£15 million investment to help keep families safely together – Up to 40 new areas will benefit from £15 million to expand promising innovative approaches to keeping families safely together‘ explain that the
joint DfE and WWC initiative will test out the possibility of rolling out both FGCs and Family Drug and Alcohol Courts (FDAC’s) to up to 40 local authorities while conducting rigorous research into their effects.
The DfE release links to detailed information about the wider innovation programme and how councils can apply to take part. The WWC release links to their own 2nd April review of a Dutch randomised controlled trial of FGCs in child welfare, concluding it’s important but tells us little more than that we need to research ‘whether they work’ in the specific UK context. What the WWC don’t link to or mention, is their 10th May 2019 press release, An innovative and large scale evaluation, on their dilemmas about trying to use what are widely considered to be the gold evidential research standard (RCT’s) in these contexts, and their decision to compromise with a “pragmatic stepped wedge” trial instead, which we assume will apply here. [*UPDATE 07.06.19: See comment from Professor Kate Morris below for confirmation that the ‘pragmatic stepped wedge’ does not in fact apply to the WWC proposals for evaluating FGC’s as we speculated here (and that the WWC have been in touch)]. Whilst the focus isn’t the ethics, they do say:
The ‘gold standard’ way of doing this kind of thing is with a randomised controlled trial (RCT) in which families, or perhaps social workers, receive either the business as usual model, or the new one, in a way that isn’t biased, and where it’s chosen by the flip of a coin rather than by someone’s judgement. That’s clearly not appropriate here, where each of the three models requires whole system change, and buy-in from across children’s services – something that wouldn’t be possible if some social workers were still doing things the old way. This is not just a problem for colleagues trying to make the programme work, but for us as evaluators – we can’t make major changes to a programme, just to incorporate the evaluation of that programme.
That’s why we’ve been working for the last five months with Leeds, Hertfordshire and North Yorkshire, as well as officials from the DfE, to develop a pragmatic alternative to an RCT which lets us maximise what we learn from the evaluation, while not getting in the way of delivery. What we’ve settled on is a “pragmatic stepped wedge” trial – one very much shaped by our LA partners – in which the order the 20 partner authorities receive the new model will be randomly selected – so one might start in September, another six months later, and so on, like in the diagram below. This isn’t as ‘pure’ as an RCT, but it better reflects the design of the programme itself.
It seems possible that that those posing the questions may (like us) not have seen this, [* UPDATE AS ABOVE] although they may now have seen it, since an innovation programme email update sent out to subscribers yesterday had a little extra bit within the usual updates on projects saying as follows:
The largest evaluation ever done in the world. Read about how the WWC will conduct the largest evaluation of its type ever conducted in children’s social care anywhere in the world here. The evaluation will involve 20 local authorities over several years, and involve a ‘pragmatic’ alternative to a randomised control trial.
This seems a bit of an odd way to reply to a call for dialogue (and again risks the possibility that those asking the question won’t see it). Particularly given WWC’s strong ethos of engaging with the sector from the outset. [* UPDATE AS ABOVE]. It would be interesting to hear views on the ‘pragmatic stepped wedge’. Also, to hear WWC’s views on the need for evaluations of FGCs in an edge of care context to keep sight of the value of FGCs in themselves to families and as an ethical way of practising. This might be lost in a rush to measure efficacy in terms of reducing care numbers. The former President has helpfully summarised the context of (broadly) rising care numbers, declared (then undeclared) a crisis and an apparent growing consensus that pre-proceedings practice may hold the key to resolution in A research based future, a speech given recently to NAGALRO, with links to some key research.
We think both the 22nd May press releases slightly mis-characterise FGCs. FGC’s don’t just involve families in decision making or even put them at the heart of it – families actually run their own conferences. Social services are not present and have no role, other than to make the referral, setting the key questions to be answered by the family in a written plan [eg. Can we support this mother to keep care of the child and how? And/or if not who might step in from the family network to care, with what support?]; and in setting any safeguarding bottom-line non-negotiables [eg. the plan can’t be one that allows the child to come into contact with X/ be left unsupervised with Y]; and in responding to a family’s written requests within the plan for statutory support to enable it to work [eg. to fund a rehab place or DV course /pay a kinship fostering allowance etc].
And while the programme and press releases are about both FGCs and Family Drug and Alcohol Courts (FDACs), there are no proposals to evaluate FDACs, citing 2018 research as high strength evidence showing a positive effect on family reunification. The menu in the ‘evidence store’ makes clear there is no plan to re evaluate FDAC efficacy or set up a randomized control study to see whether children of parents with substance misuse problems are removed more or less often than those not offered FDAC. Nor is there any plan to subsume it within other ways of promoting reunification generally or where substance misuse applies. They will be testing FDAC only to the extent of seeing if further improvements can be made. By contrast, we’ve not found a review of existing evidence on FGCs at WWC, and the menu in the WWC ‘evidence store’ makes clear that the intended review of FGCs starts from the premise that they are subsumed within a wider study of ways of involving families in decision making.
The DfE announcement specifically says that the new programme of funding for roll out across a further 40 councils will be modelled on [as opposed to rolling out and testing existing] Family Drug and Alcohol Courts (FDACs) and a programme known as Family Group Conferencing.
Given this, and recent WWC reviews of the ‘signs of safety’ approach to Initial Child Protection Conferences (ICPCs), we also speculate whether we might be heading for a trial of more family-led ICPCs and fusion of FGCs and ICPCs?:
The Transparency Project welcomes comments on this post and invites guest posts here as a public forum for furthering dialogue and exchange of views. (We don’t ourselves hold any particular view on this topic.)
Image of family tree thanks to Pixabay.
Hi – just a quick note to say that you have two programmes here – and we are raising questions about the use of RCTs in the £15m FDAC / FGC programme – not the wider one which uses the ‘pragmatic stepped wedge’. They are not the same – and the proposal in the EOI for the FDAC / FGC funding makes clear the intention to use RCTs. The relevant quote is:
The WWC will appoint independent evaluators to conduct a randomised controlled trial to test the effectiveness of each of these models further. We envisage these evaluations lasting for 2 years. Participation in the evaluation is a requirement of involvement in this programme.
Participation in the evaluation will involve:
• Complying with random assignment as specified by the evaluator. For FGCs, eligible families will be randomly allocated to either be offered FGCs, or not. For FDACs, eligible families will be allocated to receive either the standard FDAC model, or variations of it.
We are waiting to hear back from the WWC, who have said they will be in touch. I hope this helps in making the concerns clearer.
Family group confrance s in my experience have been a pile of hot steamy ….. Mainly because if the confrance social workers say a family has an issue, say like in my family’s case, The goal was to support my mental health. I do not and have not had mental health issues, as proven by gp. Court psychological and psychiatric evaluation. And of course backed up by FAMILY and FRIENDS.
The confrance is designed round the social workers beliefs on my family, I was being taken to court, I disagreed with the things being said by the social worker, hence family couldn’t support a fictional goal, hence confrance fail. Social services then have grounds to deem confrance a fail.
In the confrance admiting to contested Infomation will and can errode a family’s case against social services.
You are right to point out that FGC’s are not a forum for resolving disputed allegations of fact. Where those legally responsible for the child don’t consent to an FGC going ahead (based on the SW referral ‘facts’) it shouldn’t go ahead. (Though someone with legal responsibility for the child can’t stop it going ahead if others with legal responsibility do want it to.)
FGC is ltd in its scope in that its effectiveness is dictated by the LA dealing with the family involved.
i know of a case where the lady from FGC was very keen to look at ways to re-establish contact with two of the 3 children in care that had been cut off from their family by the Foster Carer.
She did a number of home Visits and clearly expressed her Concern that it was wrong that there was no contact with the two younger Siblings who are on a SGO.
she stated she was going to do everything she could to get Contact back on track even if it meant going to Court. she was soon derailed from that idea by the LA and very quickly she dropped off the Radar with no further activity taking place with FGC. it just stopped abruptly.
this was a clear example of LA control which is without doubt unlawful.
Complaints to this council are hopeless as they have it rigged in their favor.
This was our family’s experience of FGCs run by a large northern city council:
I am the grandmother of two children who were taken into foster care in 2018. I was surprised to find out that a review of the Family Group Conference project has taken place because after taking part in some FGCs relating to my grandchildren in July 2017, I specifically asked various social workers and managers who was evaluating the project. My requests for this information were completely ignored. I don’t think that the Council wanted our comments to be heard.
Ten family and friends took part in the FGCs. The guidelines were not followed, the social workers had a poor understanding of the principles, our views were not valued, the chair/coordinator was not impartial and we were not allowed to know who was evaluating the project or regulating activities:
• We were not allowed to choose the venue. We wanted the FGC in my home but were told that this was not allowed and a church hall was arranged instead. The coordinator said my home was OK but then the social worker intervened and said no. At first the reason given was that a separate room was needed then when we said several rooms were available it was still not allowed. This was the first way to disempower us.
• The coordinator failed to go and see eight of the ten relatives and friends to prepare them for the FGCS.
• The coordinator and social worker minimised the central role of the children being at the meetings.
• The social worker said that we could not write on the family plan that we wanted the children to have an advocate. We wanted an advocate for them because we felt she was not representing their view accurately or even at all. She told us it was not a suitable point to record and she also refused to record it herself anywhere else, as did her manager.
• We were not allowed to decide who attended. We wanted the CAFCASS Guardian to attend but the social worker told us she had invited her but she could not come. It was important to have the Guardian there so we could ask her to go and listen to what the kids wanted. There were several social workers there who turned up uninvited. Some we had not met before.
• When we started to discuss possible living arrangements for the children the social worker shook her head and told us to stop because ‘It is not what they want’. We were not sure who she meant by ‘they’ but we had to stop discussing it. This was not ‘our’ meeting at all. The ‘professionals’ did not take our knowledge of the children or our views seriously.
• When we complained later about the FGCs the coordinator said she had been to speak to the children. She did not mention it when we asked in a FGC who was consulting them. She only said it later and it is not true. In any case this was not her role at all. She could have spoken to them to prepare them for the meetings but she was not right the person to ask their views. We were wrongly told that she was an independent social worker but she does not have social work qualifications.
• The coordinator did not understand her role in other ways. She was not neutral in the process. She went and discussed the case and family members three weeks before the first FGC meeting. She had no supervisory meetings as her manager had left.
• Rather than using this as a genuine opportunity to share ideas, the FGCs were in fact a data gathering exercise about the family with the aim of opposing the application of four sets of relatives to care for the children.
• The social worker did not carry out the actions agreed in the family plan. She asked the family to help my daughter, the children’s mother, to attend appointments so we came up with ideas. We wrote in the plan that we would set up a Facebook group about it, which we did. The social worker also agreed in the plan to give me the contact details of ‘all professionals involved’ so I could liaise in case of difficulties in attending. But then she would not give me them so it made it more difficult to remind my daughter of appointments and for her to attend, get lifts etc.
• We asked the social worker to help us speak to the head of the children’s school to try to arrange some input from a male teacher or assistant for my grandson. She refused and said we had to do it. We wanted her to see it was important and to back us up.
• The social worker told us that she did not show the family plan to the Judge in FDAC meetings.
• We asked for a second FGC to continue to discuss solutions for the care of the children. It was written into the family plan and the social worker agreed. Two weeks later I asked for it to be arranged but the social worker said that it was ‘too soon’ and then she put it off for weeks. We finally met again for the second time 14 weeks later and the family believed that this was a continuation of our first meeting in which we could continue to work out what would be best for the children. However we never got time to discuss it again. The social worker just came, led the meeting and said that she was going to have the children taken away from their mother.
• We asked about the foster carers. The social worker clearly had not met them but pretended that she had.
• A friend who was part of the FGC asked for babysitting money so she could attend the next meeting. We were told that nothing was available.
• The social workers and coordinator made false promises that family members would be invited to CLA reviews and allowed to meet and work with the foster carers.
• We were insulted verbally in the meetings. We came in a cooperative spirit but were met with hostility and suspicion. The first remark the coordinator made to us was ‘I have already discussed this [with the social worker] and we don’t want any brawling.’ We were astounded to hear this. There were other examples of disrespect and outright rudeness to us. These FGC meetings were not run professionally.
• We were unhappy with the process and made a complaint. We were first told there was no regulator or reviewer of the FGC project then we were wrongly told it was the Family Rights Group. I asked the Children’s Social Work Services Area Manager but he only replied that he was charge. I wrote to him again to clarify that I meant external to the Council but I received no response. Nobody mentioned this review that was taking place although we had asked.
• It came to light later that the lead social worker did not report fairly and objectively but she was able to discuss us in 12 FDAC meetings. Family members however were not allowed into FDAC meetings to give their own accounts. The lead social worker was later found by the Council to have written false allegations in a viability assessment report (that a family member had a criminal record). An apology was issued, the report was destroyed and a fresh full assessment as a kinship carer was rearranged which was successful.
• Her manager signed off the discredited report. The checks and balances were not working.
• We feel that the Council was simply paying lip service to consulting with families; that they used the FGC project to show how ‘forward thinking’ they were; and that they were only going through the motions for the publicity value.