Core to this reform is embedding Family Group Decision-Making to support families across the spectrum of need. This aims to ensure the family network is at the centre of decisions about a child’s safety and wellbeing, and in some cases will be a legal requirement to support families. This is taking various forms, including following models like Family Group Conferencing and Family Network Meetings, or similar, and is offered in place of professionals working in isolation.

Family Group Decision-Making brings together parents, extended family members, and wider support networks to create shared plans for children and their families. In doing so, it helps families them reconnect around solutions, strengthen relationships, and take greater ownership over the support they need. Equally, this approach ensures that practitioners across Children’s Services including the Lead Practitioner role being implemented as part of England’s Children’s Social Care reforms, have the tools and resources at their disposal to support a family and achieve the best possible outcomes for children.

Whilst the Family Group Decision-Making model is used or being developed in services across England, Family Group Conferencing has been embedded in New Zealand’s child welfare system as a central tool for decades, where it is widely used alongside evidence-based parenting support, including Triple P. Embedding Triple P programmes in this system gives parents, carers and the wider family network the toolbox of strategies and support they need to respond positively, and is an approach that can benefit mild to some of the most challenging circumstances.

In New Zealand, practitioners have used Triple P as part of a Family Group Conferencing approach to support families affected by domestic violence, parental mental health difficulties, substance misuse, developmental delays, family conflict, social isolation, and challenging child behaviour. The Family Group Conferencing approach is valuable in a variety of contexts, where families are experiencing more moderate challenges, helping them identify and address difficulties before they escalate, and in supporting more critical cases which sit at the edge of care.

In one example, a single mother of two boys who had moved to New Zealand from Burma was referred for support because of concerns about her children’s behaviour at school and difficulties managing their behaviour at home. Cultural differences were an important factor here - the mother explained that expectations around parental authority and children’s behaviour were very different in Burma, and she had found it difficult to adapt her parenting approach to a new social and cultural context. In particular, her role as a mother required a shift, as in Burma, it was more common for the father figure to take on the authoritative parenting role.

Family Group Conferencing provided an opportunity to look beyond the presenting issue of the children’s behaviour and consider what the family needed to make things work better at home. Rather than professionals determining the solution for her, the process put the mother and her family circumstances at the centre of the response, with Triple P (our Triple P Standard 0-12 programme) providing practical parenting support that could help put that approach into practice. The mother, finding support through local community groups in the absence of immediate family, explored strategies for setting clearer boundaries, responding consistently to challenging behaviour and following through with consequences.

Following the intervention, the mother reported feeling calmer and more in control, with the boys listening more often and ultimately, wanted to continue living with their mother and felt family life was happier.

In an example of a more intensive case, separated parents were struggling to care for their two children following a breakdown in family relationships that had escalated into conflict, domestic violence, and significant pressure within the home. The mother had been convicted of physically assaulting her 12-year-old son and was no longer allowed to live in the family home, while the father had stopped working to care for the children full-time. The family also faced ongoing disagreements around parenting approaches, anger management difficulties, limited wider family support, and the additional pressures of caring for an eight-year-old with diabetes and challenging behaviour.

Rather than focusing solely on the immediate crisis, support centred on rebuilding communication and helping the wider family to work together more safely and consistently around the children, creating a real network. Through Family Group Conferencing, the family were able to identify where support existed around them and begin rebuilding relationships and shared responsibility for the children’s wellbeing. Both parents had 1:1 support in Triple P Standard Teen separately, helping them develop strategies to manage behaviour, regulate emotions while parenting, and involve the children more positively in family decision-making. Both parents then worked through Enhanced Triple P, an intervention focused on helping families who present with challenges around stress, poor coping, partner conflict or mental health issues, which focused on improving communication and helping the parents support one another more effectively despite the family breakdown. Alongside wider support services, the intervention helped create greater consistency, stability, and collaboration around the children’s care.

These examples demonstrates the value of Family Group Decision-Making across the spectrum of need, not only as a response to severe family breakdown, but as a way of bringing families into decisions earlier, identifying the support that will make their plan work and using targeted interventions such as Triple P to help them build the skills and confidence to sustain change.

Family Group Decision-Making is most effective when practitioners have access to a range of evidence-based tools and interventions that can support families beyond the initial meeting. In practice, this means Lead Practitioners (or social workers) can use their time overseeing the wider plan for the child and coordinating support, while trained practitioners deliver targeted interventions such as Triple P. This multidisciplinary approach helps ensure families are able to build, or rebuild, a wider family network, having receive structured, practical support while maintaining a consistent focus on the child’s wellbeing throughout. It also means families are more likely to become self-sufficient and not reply on longer-term support.

Flexibility is also key, maintaining fidelity to the programme content, but adapting delivery to meet family needs through additional sessions, home visits, virtual appointments, or longer-term follow-up support. This enables services to remain evidence-based while responding to the realities families face.

For local authorities, there is an opportunity to further integrate their Children’s Social Care and edge-of-care offer with evidence-based parenting programmes that can also be used to strengthen family help, early help, Family Hubs and SEND support, improve practitioner confidence, and alleviate pressure on statutory services. It is an approach already being delivered at scale elsewhere, demonstrating that family-led approaches and evidence-based parenting support can work hand in hand, even in the most complex circumstances. This means more children remain safely within their family networks where appropriate. As children’s social care reform continues across England, there is a clear opportunity to build services around what families need most: practical support, trusted relationships, and the ability to shape their own solutions.

We are aware of a number of sites which are starting to build out their plans, so if you are exploring how to strengthen your Family Group Decision-Making offer, get in touch to find out more about how Triple P could support families in your area. as part of a Family Led Decision-Making approach.