Evaluation of Family Group Conference Practice and Outcomes: Scoping Phase

Child, Youth and Family have partnered with Te Awatea Violence Research Centre at the University of Canterbury to provide independent evaluation of Family Group Conference practices and outcomes. Evaluation input is across a number of priority areas and initiatives from the Children's Action Plan and Child, Youth and Family Strategic plan 2012-2015, Ma Matou Ma Tatou, that impact on outcomes for Vulnerable children including · Introduce a new set of Family Group Conference practice standards and an enriched training curriculum for social workers, coordinators and other agencies. · Working together with other Government agencies and NGOs to be collectively responsible for giving children or young people the same chance in life as all other Kiwi kids. · Sharing the Responsibility which is a shift to cross-agency joint accountability for outcomes for vulnerable children. The evaluation approach reflects the priorities outlined in Ma Matou Ma Tatou in regards to seeking the views of children and young people and being child focused working together Maori focusing on practice improvement and measuring outcomes for children and young people and connecting with communities. This Study was intended as a scoping phase to provide a foundation for future phases of evaluation and describes preliminary finding which cannot be extrapolated without further stages of evaluation. The scoping phase focused on care and protection FGCs as relatively recent evaluations have been conducted in the youth justice area.