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Family Group Conferencing (FGC) is an approach that aims to empower families involved with child protection services. FGC has its origins within Maori communities in New Zealand and was developed in response to the mainstream child-welfare system's inadequate support of Indigenous families. The central principles underpinning FGC are that: families have strengths and are the experts on their own children; that children need connection with their families to have a sense of belonging; and families are more likely to implement plans that they have devised themselves (Merkel-Holguin, u.d.). Conferencing is seen as a participatory mechanism for empowering marginalized families (Connolly & McKenzie, 1999). FGC therefore is a means of providing children and extended family a voice in how the child-welfare system responds to them. FGC is being considered increasingly as a viable alternative in Canada for working with families within a beleaguered childwelfare system that has been criticized for being unresponsive and ineffective. In this paper we provide a brief discussion of the child-welfare context and then explore the possibilities and challenges of FGC as a mechanism for the empowerment of families involved with child protection services.
The Child Welfare Context
FGC programs are dependent on referrals from the child-welfare system and indeed most programs are located within the child-welfare system. The interrelationship between FGC and the child-welfare system impacts how conferencing is delivered, making it important to have an understanding of the discourses and practices that dominate the child-protection system.
The child-welfare system is a bureaucratic, hierarchical system that is driven by classification and processing and that often relies upon individualistic understandings of abuse and neglect.' Notions of "risk" and "safety" are measured using an instrument-based approach to "risk assessment." Risk assessment tools focus on individual responsibility, leaving little room for alternate explanations, such as systemic factors (Krane & Davies, 2000). Although this approach does not rule out the use of worker reflection and compassion (Spratt & Houston, 1999), risk assessments allow less attention to be paid to context and meaning.
There are ideological processes that also bias child-welfare practices in regard to gender, class, and culture. For example, the notion that women are instinctively able to mother and are protective towards their children prevails (Krane & Davies 1995; Krane & Davies 2000; Swift,...