At a meeting room in a Cornwall community centre, a sign on the door says: “Welcome to Megan’s family group conference.” Inside are seated a group of Megan’s immediate family, extended family and family friends – as well as 11-year-old Megan* herself. The facilitator (or “conferencer”) begins by saying: “This is Megan’s meeting.”
This is an example of a family group conference – an approach that helps families work together to solve their problems and avoid a child being taken into care. When a child comes to the attention of children’s services, the conference enables families to create their own network of support, with everyone working together in the interests of the child.
The parents decide who to invite, and, unless they’re too young, the child attends too. (An advocate talks to the child beforehand to find out their views.) At the conference, the family members work out a plan for supporting the child, which may involve, for example, allocating responsibilities for school drop-off or pick-up, or deciding who can take care of a child on a day a parent is unavailable. Throughout the meeting the conferencer brings the focus back to the child.
That focus on the child is central to the model’s success. One referring social worker describes how the co-ordinator “ worked hard to include all family members and took time to include the young person’s views and include the young person in the meeting. As the referrer, I felt it was so beneficial for the young person to see the extended family come together to make a supportive plan.” The co-ordinator, the social worker adds, “has an engaging way about him that enabled the family to create a plan and made everyone feel included.”
Helen Salmon, who manages the service, says the model results in good outcomes for families and children: “It’s much better for the child if the people around them are caring and wanting to do it, rather than have professionals do it.” Social workers benefit too because the conference results in a plan that is sustained beyond their involvement. “Hopefully we’re involved with the family for the shortest amount of time we need to be.”
This child-centred, family-centred approach is also at the heart of the family plus service, which supports special guardians – close relatives or family friends who have been given parental responsibility for a child. Children who have been placed with a special guardian, says Alex Halsey, the family plus team manager, have often experienced “significant adversity”. The service supports guardians “to best help the child grow and thrive in the context of that early adversity”.
That might include offering specialist therapy and assessment from practitioners trained to deliver therapeutic story work or theraplay (a type of play therapy that can improve a child’s behaviour) or matching them with a clinical psychologist, who can help the guardians develop practical skills, such as coping with a child’s outbursts. The child might be offered additional one-to-one support, such as music therapy or creative therapy. “What we try to do is allow that child to build a trusting relationship with someone – but you don’t want that trusting relationship to remain with the professional. You need to use that as the vehicle to pass the baton back to the parent or carer,” says Halsey.
The gweres teyluyow (helping families) service, set up three years ago, works intensively with families to prevent primary-aged children – five to 11 years – being placed into care. Each of the three teams (covering east, west and mid Cornwall) has two social workers, two family workers and two family functional therapists.
Based on the functional family therapy child welfare model, the service helps improve relationships and communication within the family and supports parents to meet their children’s needs. For an average of a year, the whole family benefits from the services of a family social worker and, if appropriate, a therapist. “It is time-intensive, and it is a multi-agency plan of work – we’ve always got the health service alongside us and work closely with schools or education professionals,” says Lyn Dempster, manager of the team covering the east of the county.
Dempster says that for the social workers, the experience is “very rewarding” because they have time to work with families and see good outcomes. “You’re there at the beginning, when families are often at crisis point, and you see it through to the end.” Families often maintain contact once the intervention has ended if they need advice or want to share family achievements. Not only has the service been praised in an independent report from Oxford Brookes University, the parents and children themselves are “very complimentary”, with some sending thank you cards.
At the heart of Cornwall’s approach is a recognition, in Halsey’s words, that “quality takes time”. After an intervention has ended, social workers are still available to offer support. One mother described a family worker as “absolutely amazing to work with. I can ring J up when I need something, and I know he is there for me”.
The county itself, in the most south-westerly part of the UK, has a unique charm – it’s blessed with some of the most beautiful beaches in the UK, and the wide range of outdoor activities is particularly appealing to those with their own families. Halsey, a keen surfer, adds: “There’s a magic about it that keeps you here – not just the landscape but the people, the culture, the creativity.”
For social workers, the biggest satisfaction comes from knowing they have helped a family resolve its difficulties and stay together. As Halsey says: “They don’t want us to be involved in their lives for ever, and neither do we – we want to equip them with the skills that enable them to navigate the ups and downs of life as they come.”
*Name has been changed
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