15 May 2025
As the Children’s Wellbeing & Schools Bill moves through the House of Lords – including a proposal to mandate Family Group Decision-Making (FGDM) – Foundations’ new report reinforces that Family Group Conferences (FGCs) are an effective, evidenced-based model of family-led decision-making that is proven to divert children from care (1).
The report recommends five practical steps that local authorities can take to ensure that FGCs deliver for children and families, drawing on recent evidence, best practice examples and insights from local authority case studies across the country.
It underlines the importance of following the evidence on family decision-making to improve outcomes for children and young people, including helping more children stay safely out of care.
Family Group Conferences in Practice: How local leaders can harness the strength of family networks to keep children safe builds on the first and largest trial of FGCs, which found:
- Preventing care placements: FGCs can prevent over 2000 children a year from entering care
- Economic savings: Rolling out FGCs across England could save over £150m within 2 years, reducing pressure on an already overstretched system
- Quality matters: Evidence shows that the success of FGCs depends on how they’re delivered: Foundations’ new report sets out five practical steps for local authorities to ensure the best results
- Need for additional family support: FGCs are most effective when part of a wider support system, including evidence-based support for parents
The new report is designed to help local leaders get the most out of family-led decision making, making sure their approach is as effective as possible and firmly grounded in evidence. It includes success stories from FGCs across the country:
- Tower Hamlets has developed an innovative model for training FGC coordinators. Coordinators can work within their local authority or swap with others to meet the needs of diverse communities, which has helped ensure that Somali families, for example, are well supported.
- In Leeds, FGCs have saved an estimated £755 per family as children have spent less time in care
- In Milton Keynes, the FGC team works closely with social workers to clarify why a family has been offered an FGC, helping the wider family to hear the child’s voice. They also use creative approaches to involve fathers who do not live at home
Foundations’ report collects the learnings from local authorities who have implemented FGCs and recommends five practical steps that local authorities can take to maximise their potential:
- Set out a clear local vision for FGCs
- Ensure workforce capability for family-led approaches
- Get partners on board with the case for FGCs, including elected members, Integrated Care Boards and headteachers
- Reinforce high quality delivery of FGCs by delivering them with fidelity to UK standards
- Review arrangements for monitoring and evaluating FGCs
Dr Jo Casebourne, Chief Executive of Foundations, said:
“Mandating family-led decision making when plans are made for children at risk of care is welcome and provides an opportunity to scale up use of Family Group Conferences (FGCs), an evidence-based model. Our landmark trial showed that FGCs can divert children from care, help families stay safely together and save local authorities money.
“As the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill progresses, our new report is a timely reminder of the importance of following the evidence when it comes to supporting families whose children are at risk of going into care but who, with the right plan in place, may be able to stay safely with their families. Today’s report shows that many local authorities are already seeing the benefits of Family Group Conferences in their areas.
“The five practical steps in our report are designed to help local authorities put Family Group Conferences into practice in their local areas, and to make a success of a family-led approach to decision-making for families facing challenges.”
Jane Towey, Manager, Family Participation Service, Tower Hamlets, said:
“In Tower Hamlets our extensive FGC offer is at the heart of our Better Together way of working respectfully with families to keep children within their family network wherever it is safe and feasible to do so. FGCs enable families to lead on planning so that children can remain safely cared for within a loving family network, with support. In Tower Hamlets we think of FGCs as the way we do things round here, rather than a separate approach. Families can access FGC from an early point right through to care proceedings and beyond.
“Foundations’ new evidence-based resource on FGCs is timely given the emphasis on family-led decision-making in the proposed legislation. It will prove helpful for all local authorities – but more importantly, it will give more families across the UK the opportunity to lead on decision making through their own FGCs.”
Pam Ledward, Principal Social Work Adviser at Family Rights Group:
“All families can experience challenging times. If something goes wrong, affecting a child who we love and care about in our family or friends’ network, most of us would want to be in the driving seat in finding a solution. Family group conferences do just that – bringing together everyone who cares about a child, to combine their strengths and come up with a safe plan.
“Family-led decision making will soon be a national mandate under new legislation. It has the potential to transform how we support children and families to thrive. Some local authorities are already ahead of the curve, and we hope more will now follow. This new guide from Foundations distils the key learning about why family group conferences are so transformative.”
For further information, please contact Charlotte Kelsted, Senior Press Officer: 07922 147 222 / charlotte.kelsted@foundations.org.uk
Notes to editors
About Foundations
Foundations is the What Works Centre for Children & Families. We believe all children should have the foundational relationships they need to thrive in life. We’re researching, generating, and translating evidence into practical solutions that shape better policy and practice and lead to more effective family support services. Foundations was formed through the merger of What Works for Children’s Social Care (WWCSC) and the Early Intervention Foundation (EIF) in December 2022.
For more information, please visit: https://foundations.org.uk/
- FGCs are a family-led approach that brings the wider family, friends and community network together to agree on how best to support a child at risk. Family Group Conferences in Practice: How local leaders can harness the strength of family networks to keep children safe can be found here. Earlier this year, Foundations published a report with partners Coram, Family Rights Group, Daybreak and Data to Insight, highlighting how differently local authorities report on FGCs. That research recommended a national voluntary data collection of local authority-level FGC activity to build a clearer national picture of how FGCs are being used. The next phase of this work – a national data collection on families’ access to FGCs – is currently underway.
