Promoting the participation rights of children and young people in family group conferences

Abstract

Family Group Conferences are being used in a range of decision making forums around the world. They operate with an empowering methodology that enables service users to participate in decision making. For children and young people however the empowering potential may be minimised by the fact that it is an adult decision making forum. The need for advocates to support children and young people in these meetings has been recognised and this paper uses the experiences of a Barnardos Family Group Conference Project in Wiltshire to identify the benefit of advocacy support. It argues that all children and young people involved in Conferences should have the right of access to an independent advocate to enable them to participate.