Abstract
Domestic violence continues to be a primary reason for referrals to state child welfare services in advanced industrialised countries. There is growing concern in many state child welfare services to develop responses to it that are both more effective and more humane. The use of restorative approaches, in particular Family Group Conferences (FGCs), has been suggested as one such response. This article draws from data gathered from an evaluation of a UK Government funded “Innovation Project” part of which extended the use of FGCs in an urban local authority area which was already making extensive use of them. This paper presents and explores a typology of FGCs used in situations of domestic violence: pragmatic, resolution-focussed and restorative FGCs, developed from the evaluation data and augmented by relevant literature. The study data revealed pragmatic FGCs to be the most used, restorative the least. It is suggested that each type of FGC brings potential benefits but only restorative FGCs offer the possibility of full restoration in the traditionally understood sense. It is argued that the present mother-centric, risk-adverse, child protection systems which currently operate in many countries provide a powerful resistor to the greater implementation of this restorative way of working.
Highlights
Domestic violence continues to be one of the primary reasons for referrals to state child welfare services in post-industrial countries
This article draws from data gathered from an evaluation of a UK Government funded “Innovation Project” part of which extended the use of Family Group Conferences (FGCs) in an urban local authority area which was already making extensive use of them
This paper presents and explores a typology of FGCs used in situations of domestic violence: pragmatic, resolution-focussed and restorative FGCs, developed from the evaluation data and augmented by relevant literature
Summary
Domestic violence continues to be one of the primary reasons for referrals to state child welfare services in post-industrial countries. The most obvious thread that binds them is attempts to establish dialogue between victims, perpetrators and communities affected by a crime in a way that balances the, often conflicting, aims of safety, accountability, empowerment and restoration (Ptacek, 2010) As this description may suggest, the relationship between FGCs in child welfare and RJ is not straight forward: the acknowledgement of an offending harm and the attempt to restore personhood to victim and offender are less obviously applicable to child welfare than criminal justice contexts. Though the importation of FGCs to the UK reflected some of the social justice and rights based principles which accompanied their introduction in New Zealand, their use has sometimes been more pragmatically framed as a mechanism for reducing the use of state care for children and, even, as a mechanism by which to ration services to families (Morris & Connolly, 2012). They offer the potential for victims' voices and experiences to be heard in a way that formalised court processes do not; for appropriate redress for the harm done to be given to victims; and, for perpetrators to take responsibility for their violence in a way that facilitates their reintegration into the community and reduces the likelihood of recidivism (Braithwaite & Strang, 2002)
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