Kinship Care Week: Building the evidence of what works to support kinship families

To coincide with this year’s Kinship Care Week, our Deputy Chief Executive Donna Molloy shares more about our work to improve the evidence base around support for kinship families, and reflects on opportunities for further evaluation and policy development. This year’s Kinship Care Week falls at an exciting time, as we all eagerly await the […]

Keeping children out of care: In conversation about where next for Family Group Conferences

This week, we welcomed colleagues from across the sector to an event exploring the next steps in ensuring that all families can access a high-quality Family Group Conference at pre-proceedings. In this blog, our Chief Executive Dr Jo Casebourne shares her reflections on the event. We now have compelling evidence that Family Group Conferences (FGCs) […]

What does the evidence say about Family Drug and Alcohol Courts?

Today we published the results of our large-scale evaluation into the use of Family Drug and Alcohol Courts (FDAC) as a problem-solving alternative to standard care proceedings.  The findings of our study point in a positive direction, with children being more likely to be reunified and a higher proportion of parents ceasing to misuse drugs of alcohol […]

Improving outcomes for children experiencing domestic abuse at home

Today, we are taking the first step on our mission at Foundations to generate and champion actionable evidence to improve the quality and availability of domestic abuse services to support families and improve outcomes for children. We are launching a funding call for domestic abuse programmes. We are looking to fund the delivery and evaluation of up […]

Practice Guides: supporting evidence-based practice in children’s social care

The commitment to developing new national Practice Guides in line with the “Stable Homes, Built on Love” vision marks a significant policy shift by the Department for Education (DfE).   A new Children’s Social Care National Framework (CSCNF) is being created to provide clarity about the outcomes Children’s Social Care should achieve. This will be supported […]

Family group conferencing: Following the evidence can keep children with their families

This week, Foundations published findings from the first randomised control trial (RCT) of family group conferences (FGCs) in the UK and the largest RCT of FGCs in the world. A family group conference (FGC) is a family-led meeting in which the family and friends network come together to make a plan for the child. This […]

Foundations, the new national What Works Centre for Children & Families

Today is an exciting day: the day we launch as a fully merged, newly branded organisation – Foundations, the national What Works Centre for Children & Families. We’ve brought together two sister organisations with a shared aim, and today marks the start of a new vision, mission and strategy through which we will support vulnerable […]

Family Group Conferencing findings: reflections and insights from Coram & Daybreak

Following the publication of the results from the largest randomised control trial (RCT) of family group conferences (FGCs) in the world, Foundations’ evaluation partner Coram reflects on the experience of doing the research. Practice Lead, Daybreak, gives insight into how and why FGCs are a critical tool for working with children and families to make a difference. […]