Working Together
The Children’s Aid Society offers an alternative dispute resolution program called "Family Group Decision Making" that encourages collaboration between child welfare workers and the family group. It is a culturally sensitive decision making process that brings together the family group to develop a plan that meets the needs for the child’s safety and well-being as well as the family’s as a whole. It aims to better enable family groups to have a voice in developing and implementing plans that ensure the emotional and physical safety and well-being of children through increasing the creative use, integration and mobilization of formal and informal resources.
Family Group Conferencing Principles Include:
- Every child has the right to be raised in an environment of safety and well-being
- The safety and well-being of the child can be assured through family participation in planning and decision making
- Families, being the experts on themselves, are central to all planning and decision making
- Families have under-used strengths and resources to solve problems for their children
- The FGC Coordinator stays in an independent role, distinct and not aligned with the family group or service providers.
Expected Outcomes and Benefits
- Shifts in relationships and improved connections; within the family group; between family members and service providers; between service providers
- Increased follow through on plans and/or involvement in changing plans
- More children returned to or remaining in care of the kinship system
- More effective and tailored use of resources within the family group and formal community resources
- Fewer family secrets
- Increased safety for all children and adults in the family
- Responsive to the family group’s unique culture
