Three ways to stop family separations — and keep kids out of care

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Keeping families safely together, and children in their communities, bypasses the need for institutional care and reduces marginalisation.

But the best way to do this varies between contexts. In this article, Apolitical will examine three methods used to prevent family separations.

Family Group Conferencing — Middle ground between family and state

Family Group Conferences bring families together when a child is at risk, and make decisions about their future. They are voluntary and the state is not involved in the decision-making process.

“It was built on Maori principles — but also human principles — of getting the relevant people together to discuss the matter and to take as long as it takes to solve it"

The practice originated by following advocacy from indigenous communities in 1980s New Zealand, where Maori children were overrepresented in the care system.

“It was built on Maori principles — but also human principles — of getting the relevant people together to discuss the matter and to take as long as it takes to solve it,” said Peter Marsh, Emeritus Professor of Child and Family Welfare at the University of Sheffield.

Family Group Conferences (FGCs) are now legally required in the country for family cases involving children. They have been introduced to many developed countries with minimal adaptation and great success, particularly in First Nation communities, where family and community are closely interlinked.

The conferences meet regularly and can include people close to the family who contribute ideas for a strategy. They should be run in the family’s first language, and are overseen by an independent coordinator who does not work for the state and is not necessarily a specialist.

Prior to a conference, the coordinator will work with the child and meets other family members to preempt and work around any potential problems that could arise from a meeting.

On the day, information on the child’s situation and potential resources are shared among the group, before the family is given private time to deliberate and create a plan, which is later reviewed.

"The process has “a special magic,” said Burgund, which can’t be replicated by the state care system or official figures."

While not explicitly designed to keep children out of care, Marsh said: “It's a way of making a decision that is directly relevant, appropriate and humane for a child, involving the people that are most important to them.”

FGCs have also been implemented in middle-income countries. Serbia experienced “great success” when FGCs were supported by the government, according to Zeljka Burgund, the executive director of In the Family Circle, the group that introduced FGCs to the country.

The process has “a special magic,” said Burgund, which can’t be replicated by the state care system or official figures.

It also had better results, with the group’s evaluations reporting 70 per cent of conferences resulted in delivering a plan, and at a lower cost than other models in the social care system, she added.

According to Marsh, part of the power of FGCs is that they intersect family life and the state. “The kids’ world will always be in family life,” he said.

Distancing the decision-making process away from social workers – while respecting their red lines – can help ease tensions.

Implementing FGCs in Serbia did not require changes to the model, said Burgund, but families were sometimes surprised at the autonomy they were given – likely a product of the country’s post-communist culture.

"Poverty is a key driver of children being separated from their parents, but providing economic opportunities – through education or work - reduces the burden on young mothers."

Wherever they take place, there are sometimes difficulties in the lengthy time commitments required by FGCs, and ensuring long term commitment to negotiations.

But Serbia’s case also demonstrates the importance of political support: FGCs are now in “hibernation” because of a lack of funding, said Burgund.

Shaita Women of Faith — Communities taking initiative

This grassroots group began as a community initiative following Liberia’s civil war, which left numerous orphans and vulnerable young mothers. “We needed to do something,” said Miatta Togbah, the group’s chair.

The women provide childcare for teenage mothers so they can attend school. Poverty is a key driver of children being separated from their parents, but providing economic opportunities – through education or work - reduces the burden on young mothers.

Forming in 2009 in the town of Careysburg, near Liberia's capital Monrovia, its “community ownership” model, where all aspects of the group’s work are their own, has been developed and replicated across the country with the help of international NGOs.

St John York, general secretary of the Inter-Religious Council of Liberia, credited the group with being a “model of practice” for the country’s deinstitutionalisation program and reducing the need for adoptions in Careysburg.

The women advocate for the education of vulnerable girls aged between 8 and 15, negotiating with schools for manageable fee payments. The group’s finances rely heavily on Susu, a type of community money lending scheme used across Sub Saharan Africa, to help girls pay for school fees.

Since their inception, the Shaita Women’s work has broadened to include vocational training, such as soap making, and educating girls about hygiene and accessing family planning services. There are around 40 girls being helped now, but up to 70 were being helped between 2015-16.

“Having no resources is a great way to be creative in your thinking"

Based in a community centre, the group also mentors vulnerable girls provides sense of stability to their lives. Its grassroots nature means the group can continue without the support of external partners, said Togbah.

Family Mediation in the Community — Creativity from scarcity

In Ireland, there are no dedicated family courts or judges. But Dr Roisin O’ Shea, founder of Arc Mediation in Waterford, believes that family disputes should not be negotiated in a civil court.

Along with Dr Sinéad Conneely of the Waterford Institute of Technology, O’Shea drew on her international research experience to develop an innovative, low-cost mediation strategy for settling disputes of the poorest families within the community.

“Having no resources is a great way to be creative in your thinking,” said O’ Shea.

After self-referral or from a judge, the mediations leveraged pre-existing state resources, taking place in community Family Resource Centres, a non-threatening environment where family members could also be directed to other services such as counselling.

Unlike FGCs, a timeline is adhered to and professional mediators run the negotiations. Agreements between parties are broken into small chunks until their commitments can become long term. “We prioritised parenting agreements over any other consideration,” said O’ Shea.

Parents who are in dispute often need a legally binding outcome because they need certainty, according to O’ Shea. “We gave parents the choice to have that,” she said, through a judge’s consent at the end of the mediation process, costing the state nothing.

Participants, while means-tested, also paid for mediation, as O’ Shea said research showed a service is valued more if it costs money. The sessions cost 25 euros an hour but could be done for free if clients could provide proof that the amount was unaffordable.

Thirty per cent of the project’s 60 mediations were with families who had already been “red flagged” by social services and whose children were on the verge of being taken into care. All but one of the cases succeeded in coming to a resolution.

Collaboration with social services meant that agreements reached through O’Shea’s model became the state-approved protection plan for the child, to try to keep them out of care.

Among the innovations conceived for the model is parallel mediation for domestic violence cases, where the parties were engaged simultaneously but were never in the same space.

This “worked really effectively,” said O’ Shea, and avoided the revictimisation of domestic violence victims by denying them a say in their futures.

Another was including youngsters who wanted to be involved in the process. “What they said didn’t go back to their parents, it was to help mediators understand what the child needed,” she added.

Having mediators of both genders, another innovation, was also "huge,” said O’ Shea, as it combatted the common male perception that the system was female-dominated therapy. — Will Worley

(Picture credit: Pixabay)