New research into family group conferences: uneven access for families

A family group conference is a family-led meeting in which the family and friends network come together to make a plan for the child. This might mean extra support for the parents to continue safely raising their child or identifying relatives or friends who can step in as the child’s kinship carer.

Family group conferences are proven to help families resolve concerns and keep children safely within their family network and avert children from entering the care system. Resulting in significant cost savings to the Treasury. Their strength is that they enable plans for the child to be built upon the insights, support and commitment of the family network, alongside that of the local authority and other agencies and services within the community.

New research

New research published today by Foundations, in partnership with Family Rights Group and Coram, reveals that despite the seismic difference family group conferences can make to the lives of children and families, the provision and access to family group conferences for families, varies widely across England. With many children and families missing out.

92 local authorities (60%) responded to a questionnaire and provided information on the number of referrals to the family group conference service, consent to referral and number of family group conferences which took place during 2023/24.

Key findings

Although 80% of local authorities in England had an FGC service, with a further 5% developing one, referral levels were low as a proportion of the number of children in contact with children’s social care services. Across the local authorities that took part, 33,128 children were referred for an FGC in 2023/24, compared to the number of Children in Need (399,500) and children subject to a Child Protection Plan (49,900) in the same local authorities that year.

The evidence also pointed to unequal experiences among families, including:

• Lower referral rates for older children, despite being the fastest growing age group entering care
• Some disparity in referrals, consent and take up for children from different minorities ethnic groups
• Data gaps for children and parents with disabilities – for almost a quarter of children with an FGC referral it was not known whether a child had a disability.

Key recommendations

• Establish a local authority-wide culture of promoting the value of family group conferences, with senior leadership buy-in.
• Strengthen workforce understanding and confidence through enhanced training and information, including policies on when and how FGCs are offered to families.
• Improve equity monitoring, with stronger, standardised national data on referrals, consent, and take up.
• Embed culturally responsive and accessible practice, particularly for minoritised ethnic groups, disabled children and parents, and families experiencing multiple disadvantages.
• Build strong relationships between families, referrers and FGC coordinators and improve ways to ensure consent is informed and ongoing.
• Increase children’s participation, including co designed approaches to capturing children’s voices.

The research report is accompanied by a practice briefing for professionals referring families to family group conference services, FGC coordinators, FGC managers and senior leaders. The briefing uses the findings of the research to provide practice considerations for practitioners and senior leaders in order to increase the likelihood of families being offered an FGC, address inequities in access and promote high quality practice.

March 2026