Family Group Conference Provision in UK Local Authorities and Associations with Children Looked after Rates

Family group conferences (FGCs) in child welfare share decision-making with family members by bringing the immediate and wider family together to make a plan to meet a child's needs. This paper reports survey findings on FGC provision in the UK in 2022 and explores whether in England the presence of an FGC service and the rate of FGC provision is associated with the rate of children in care, entering care, in kinship foster care and leaving care. Seventy-nine per cent (n = 167) of local authorities in the UK provided FGCs to families, and 14 per cent (n = 29) did not. Services that were more established offered a more diverse range of FGCs. The introduction of FGCs in English local authorities was associated with a higher rate of children in care, but also higher rates of kinship foster care, a key goal of FGCs where it is not possible for children to stay with their parents. Higher rates of FGCs were associated with more children leaving care, possibly due to reunification with birth families. To understand in more detail, the circumstances of children in and leaving care in local authorities with FGCs, individual data linkage studies are needed. Family group conferences share decision-making with families to meet the needs of a child. A key aim of family group conferences is to prevent out-of-home care. If it is not possible for a child to stay with their parents, family group conferences try to keep the child within the extended family, where possible. This study explored the provision of family group conferences in the UK and how this is related to the rates of children in care, kinship foster care, children entering care and children leaving care. The study found higher rates of children in care and kinship foster care two years after the family group conference service was introduced compared to two years before, but further testing is needed to understand if this was due to the family group conference or other events. It also found that the more family group conferences a local authority holds each year, the more children leave care. This could be due to reunification with birth families.