Evaluation of family group conferences (Family VOICE) work package 2
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Family VOICE: Family group conferencing for children and families: Evaluation of implementation, context and effectiveness
IRAS ID
325725
Contact name
Jonathan Scourfield
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Cardiff University
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
researchregistry7432, Registration with the Research Registry
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
A Family Group Conference (FGC) is a meeting where the wider family discuss children who need support and protection and decide on a plan for looking after them. This is very different from a conventional child protection case conference, which is led by, and numerically dominated by, professionals. There is variability in people’s experience of FGCs, according to such things as how well they are run, the stage of child welfare concern, the extent of family problems, and how supportive the local authority social services are of FGCs. Little is known about how this variability is connected to outcomes. The Family VOICE study’s overall study aim is to increase understanding of quality and effectiveness in family group conferencing. We are seeking ethical approval here for one specific work package - WP2. The research question for WP2 is “How does the quality of FGCs and variation in how they are used affect families’ experience and what happens to the family over the next six months?”
In the first phase of the Family VOICE study (WP1, already approved by ethics committee), we worked with a group of families who had experience of FGCs, and with FGC practitioners, to design evaluation questionnaires for measuring FGC quality and what influences outcomes. WP2 involves working with a group of FGC services across the UK to invite family members and FGC co-ordinators to fill in these questionnaires at three time points – before the FGC, two weeks post FGC, and six months post FGC. Semi-structured interviews will be conducted with a sub-sample of participants who volunteer to take part in additional data collection.
The results will be presented in events for families and practitioners and also published online, including videos. Papers will be written for academic journals. We hope our questionnaires will become routinely used by FGC projects in future.
REC name
Social Care REC
REC reference
23/IEC08/0029
Date of REC Opinion
24 Aug 2023
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion