1: Clause 1, page 1, line 9, after “meeting” insert “, or family group conference,”
Member's explanatory statement
This is a probing amendment to understand why there is a difference in the terms used in the bill and the evaluation, and whether there is a different intent with the family group decision-making model.
My Lords, it is good to be back scrutinising the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill after what seems like a long break. But noble Lords will remember that, while I think all sides of the House supported the approach of family group conferencing or a family group decision-making meeting, as described in the Bill, a number of points required clarification. I think those are still outstanding and I hope the Minister will be able to cover them in her response today.
Amendment 1 seeks to clarify what the Government really intend to implement. We have been told that the introduction of family group decision-making is based on the success of the pilot sites in the Families First for Children pathfinders, but the evaluation published in July is clear that family group conferencing, not family group decision-making meetings, was used in the pilot sites when children were on the cusp of care proceedings. Which approach is it and if it is not family group conferencing, what is the evidence base?
I suppose I am concerned that the Government are not actually committed to following the evidence-based family group conferencing model, but a slimmer or stripped-down version that we might call “FGC light”. The evaluation published in July did not have any outcome data and was largely a process evaluation, because of the stage the pilots are at.
Amendment 2 aims to press the Government for a commitment to no dilution of the model. The Bill talks about a meeting while the evaluation talks about the importance of careful preparation, including pre-meetings, and that being followed by funded support through the family network support package. Again, can the Minister be clear that the Government are proposing that the evidence-informed model is followed?
Turning to Amendment 3, we questioned in Committee whether it was necessary to have a duty to offer family group decision-making in statute at all, and in particular at the point of care proceedings, when there is already an expectation set out in the statutory guidance to the Children Act that this should be offered. Our amendments in Committee included a focus on using family group conferencing at different points in the safeguarding process, and it seems that the evaluation published in July agrees with this. On page 58, it recommends that:
My Lords, we should be grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, for returning us to this important topic of family group conferences and for the refined amendments she has now presented, including Amendment 3, to which I have added my name. They would embed what is now established as good practice into legislation. I also welcome the noble Baroness’s request for clarification of what lies behind the differing terminology.
The Government, to their credit, recognise the important role of family group decision-making meetings. The arguments for such conferences are strong, enabling family members to be informed about local authorities’ concerns and proposals, including the wider family members, who may have been kept in the dark or given an incomplete version of the problems from just the parents’ perspective, perhaps coloured by a negative view of the local authority’s intentions. They are a good opportunity to maintain focus on the child or children while listening to and respecting the views of the family, particularly if the family has otherwise been marginalised.
As well as sharing information, conferences allow social workers to explore and assess what family members might have to offer, and what support might assist them to help divert cases away from legal proceedings. There is no doubt that family group conferences secure considerable financial savings for local authorities and for the courts. I emphasise the point that the noble Baroness has made: proper preparation for them is essential.
Ideally, such conferences should take place as early as possible, and at the pre-proceedings stage that we discussed in Committee. However, Amendment 3 would also require such a meeting to be offered when it is planned that the child will be returned to the care of family members. Again, that would be a good opportunity for informed discussion to clarify the expectations of the local authority for the future care of the child, and to discuss any difficulties that may have to be confronted. I hope, therefore, that the Government will use these amendments as an opportunity to build such points into the legal structure.
My Lords, while welcoming the Government’s amendment to ensure that the child’s voice is heard in family group decision-making, I add my support to the amendments in this group in the name of my noble friend Lady Barran.
As we discussed in Committee, family group decision-making is a broad, generic term—without clear principles and standards—about what families can expect. Indeed, the Explanatory Notes for the Bill themselves state that
“FGDM is an umbrella term”.
As a result, concern remains, unsupported by evidence, among charities and organisations supporting vulnerable families that FGDM approaches may proliferate at a local level as a result of the lack of specificity in the Bill. As my noble friend highlighted, that is despite clear evidence, both in the UK and internationally, that family group conferences in particular are a successful and effective model for diverting children from care and supporting them to remain in their family. If the Minister is unable to accept Amendment 2, I hope that in her response she will be able to provide strong reassurance that, in the regulations and statutory guidance, it will be made clear that local authorities will be expected to follow the principles and standards drawn from the robust national and international research findings on the efficacy of the group conference approach.
I turn to Amendment 3. As was highlighted during our discussions in Committee, reunification is the most common way for children to leave care but, sadly, too many reunifications break down due to lack of support. There is currently no strategy by which to support reunifying families, and 78% of local authorities admit that what they provide is inadequate. In winding up our previous debate on this issue, the Minister said that she had some sympathy with the objective of including this measure in the Bill, not least because of the challenges of reunification, and the need to ensure that it is supported. I hope, then, that even at this late stage, the Minister might look favourably on accepting this amendment, as it could make a real difference to the stability of a child’s return home.
My Lords, I will speak briefly in support of the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, and particularly Amendment 5, to which I added my name. I declare my interests as a teacher in a state school in Hackney and someone who has also been a kinship carer.
I can speak from personal experience that kinship caring is usually undertaken at a time of high stress. It is vital that everybody is clear about the expectations of the arrangement, and what support is available when it is needed, as it most probably will be. According to the Family Rights Group, a clear set of principles is needed to ensure that there is careful preparation, and that the meetings are independently co-ordinated and genuinely family-led, and that the voice of the children is heard.
The charity Kinship adds that when the independent review of children’s social care recommended the introduction of a new legal duty to offer FGDM, crucially, this was accompanied by complementary recommendations to deliver much-needed support to kinship families and all family networks afterwards. These very simple amendments have the potential to make the lives of future kinship carers considerably less stressful, and we must be very clear that we desperately need kinship carers.
My Lords, anecdotal evidence often does not help, but Margaret and I adopted a brother and sister because their mother had died of cancer. The boy was eight and his sister was three. They came to live with us. After quite a considerable period of time, we consulted their family in Uganda, who were very happy that we could adopt these children. The social workers who were working with us, particularly a lady called Ruth, were supportive of that arrangement.
We then had to meet the local council—Lambeth. That meeting was very harrowing. The people from the council did not understand where we were coming from and asked, “Why is a family living in Britain wishing to adopt Ugandan children?”, to which I answered, “But I am Ugandan. We have been in touch with the family. They know what has gone on and about the years of trying to help these children integrate into our family”. It was not a very easy meeting. With the family meetings that are being suggested, are the Government confident that those involved will do a lot of homework before the meeting takes place? Eventually we had to go to the family court, where the judge took a decision purely in favour of the children and where they wanted to be placed, and continued to be responsible for ensuring that this happened.
If a child has been put into care away from their family and the intention is to reunite them, I suggest that it is not always very easy to assess the interests of a child. Those who have been with the child, particularly the social worker who has been working with the family over a considerable period of time, have greater knowledge. They should be brought into the picture much earlier than what happened with us.
I know it is anecdotal but, reading the original clause of the Bill—I am glad the Minister has tabled an amendment that may improve it—I feel that the amendments tabled to it, particularly Amendments 1 to 4, may go some way towards allaying my fears and concerns. I ask noble Lords to forgive me for being personal about this matter, but I have lived with these children. Thank God they have now gone on to do wonderful things and take responsibility for their own lives, but there was a harrowing meeting. I hope others will not find that these family meetings knock the spirit out of those who are wanting to do the best for children who have had a very troublesome childhood.
I look forward to the Minister’s response on this issue, which is important. It is important that families understand exactly what is happening. I think the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, used the phrase “kept in the dark”. On far too many occasions people do not know what is going on, and I think that can lead, sadly, to mistrust and concern. Throughout the process, the opportunity to feed back, understand and talk is hugely important. If models have been tried and have been successful, we should be learning from them and rolling them out as carefully as possible.
Finally, the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, used a term that we always forget and which is hugely important: the voice of the child. Far too often the voice of the child is not heard, but what they have to say is hugely important at all stages.
My Lords, I turn to the first group of amendments to this important Bill on Report. I thank noble Lords for their contributions. I start with a message of reassurance that this Government are committed to hearing from and listening to children about what matters to them most. It is for this very reason that we have laid government Amendment 4 to Clause 1, on family group decision-making. The amendment requires local authorities to seek the wishes and feelings of the child, as opposed to their views, as was in the original drafting, and to give due consideration to those wishes and feelings in exercising their functions under this clause.
The noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu, is absolutely right about the importance of the child in these proceedings and the need to make sure that they are included wherever it is appropriate. That includes ascertaining the wishes and feelings of very young children, non-verbal children, and children who may lack capacity and are not able to express their views. This is a complex area that requires the expertise that we have referred to. In making this requirement, the amendment strengthens the requirement on local authorities to hear and give weight to children’s voices, without changing the overall effect of the clause.
The noble Lord, Lord Storey, is absolutely right. From experience, these situations often come out of a state of crisis, where extended family members might not have been expecting the difficulties that were going to come up. It is crucial that there is clarity. As we all know, relationships and families are complex, and we need to do everything that we can. Evidence shows that engaging family networks through the use of family group decision-making meetings can reduce applications for court proceedings and divert children from entering the care system, improving the outcomes for children and their families. It is important to keep that at the front of our deliberations.
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It is a key principle that the creation of a family plan through the family group decision-making process should be family led. The Families First Partnership (FFP) Programme Guide tells local authorities that, once the plan is agreed, safeguarding partnerships should commit to providing the support contained within it to the family network and it should be integrated into, and given sufficient weight within, family help and child protection plans.
Through the development of best practice support and resources on family group decision-making, families were clear that when children and their families’ voices are heard and plans are co-created and owned by families, the results are not just better plans but stronger, more resilient families. Requiring the creation of a separate kinship support plan risks distracting from or diluting the weight given to the family-led plan. Having responded to the comments made, I hope I have addressed the noble Baroness’s concerns and she feels able to withdraw her amendment.
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“The timing of the offer of”
family group conferences
“needs to be explored in greater detail to establish clarity around the pros and cons of offering it at different phases in the family’s journey”.
Amendment 3 would require family group decision-making or family group conferencing to be offered at the point when a child who has been in care returns to their original family, something that occurs in over a quarter of cases. This is an obvious point at which additional support would be helpful and could avoid a second care placement, as happens all too frequently—in about a third of those cases. It does not take much imagination to appreciate how traumatic and damaging it is for children and their parents for that to happen.
Finally, Amendment 5, in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, who brings great personal experience to this topic, introduces the idea of a kinship support plan. As we will come to in a later group, we believe that the Government need to take action to increase the number of foster and kinship carers beyond what is already proposed. The idea of a kinship support plan is to increase the resilience of a kinship care placement by offering additional support, either from the local authority directly or from wider community resources. I wonder whether the Government are considering anything of this type, which would increase the chances of successful kinship placements.
These are cases where the threshold of significant harm will have been met, and therefore it is reasonable to offer additional support to carers and right-touch oversight of the safety and well-being of the child in their care. I beg to move.
I turn to Amendments 1 and 2, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran. I completely appreciate the noble Baroness’s desire to ensure that the term “family group decision-making” is well understood and that families are offered evidence-based support. However, given that the family group conference model is one of family group decision-making, we believe that including both as distinct terms in legislation risks creating confusion and undermining the clarity that the noble Baroness is seeking. We do not believe that prescribing a particular model in primary legislation is necessary. Likewise, the term “evidence-based approach” could be interpreted differently and including it could create confusion for local authorities if it is not defined in the clause.
Instead, as my honourable friend the Minister for Children and Families set out to Peers in a round table on this issue on 11 November, we will set out clear principles in statutory guidance that are informed—this is the crucial bit—by the evidence-based family group conference model. The latest estimates we have are that 80% of authorities already use this model. We will make it clear in national statutory guidance that we expect local authorities to consider using this model, and we will direct local authorities towards the strong evidence base for it. The noble Baroness, Lady Evans, talked about evidence repeatedly, so I hope that this addresses her concern.
I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, that there is no attempt at dilution here. We want to make sure that we stick to the evidence-informed model all the way through the process. It is an incredibly powerful means of bringing people together and we want to make sure that we use every skill that exists out there to get the very best outcomes for children and their families.
Our intention is to avoid tying local authorities to a single model in legislation, as mandating one approach risks stifling innovation and limiting professional judgment. Local authorities have been clear that flexibility in primary legislation is essential to design services that meet local needs and family circumstances. We have already published the Families First Partnership (FFP) Programme Guide, which sets out clear principles informed by the evidence-based family group conference model. We will continue to embed these principles in updated statutory guidance on pre-proceedings and in the working together guidance, both of which we will publish later this year. Statutory guidance rather than primary legislation is the right place for this. Key organisations and proponents of the family group conference model have contributed to the development of best practice support and resources for local authorities, which we shall also publish later this year.
I turn to Amendment 3, also tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, and supported by the noble Lord, Lord Meston. I share their determination to ensure that children returning home after a period in care receive the right support. Continued breakdowns are heartbreaking and do so much to damage the future life chances of the young people involved, undermining confidence and causing enormous disruption. The noble Lord, Lord Meston, spoke eloquently about the importance of reaching all family, and indeed not just family. Sometimes, extended members of the family circle may be the appropriate people to be involved in this process. Of course, proper preparation is essential. The statutory guidance, Working Together to Safeguard Children, already provides that local authorities should consider family group decision-making when planning for reunification to support the transition from care to home, and we will continue to support this approach. The care planning regulations make it clear that wider family members should be consulted where appropriate, as I have outlined.
Through this Bill, the Government are introducing a range of measures to ensure that children leaving care receive the necessary support to improve their outcomes. Although we agree that family group decision-making can be an important part of the reunification process, and are mandating measures to ensure young people get the support they need, we are concerned that introducing a second statutory trigger point to offer family group decision-making risks delaying the reunification process for some families. I re-emphasise that we have commissioned the production of best practice support and resource for local authorities on family group decision-making, which makes clear that family group decision-making should be championed as a tool to support reunification. I am happy to share an embargoed copy with noble Lords to demonstrate our commitment to this approach.
Turning to Amendment 5, I recognise that the intention behind the noble Baroness’s amendment is to ensure that children’s welfare needs are prioritised following family group decision-making. I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, that we need more carers across the piece—kinship carers and foster carers. We know how vital this is for so many young people across the country.
I re-emphasise that local authorities have existing statutory duties to ensure the safety and welfare of children. In addition, Clause 5 will place a duty on local authorities to publish a kinship local offer, setting out the support available to children living in kinship care in the area, cementing the expectation already set out in statutory guidance. This transparency will reduce barriers to obtaining help and ensure that kinship carers receive the practical support they need.