Thinking Family? The Complexities for Family Engagement in Care and Protection

Abstract

Recent child welfare policy developments in the UK have foregrounded consideration of the family as either the subject of intervention or the partner for change. Such developments have an international heritage, with countries such as New Zealand, Australia and the USA actively seeking out strategies for including families in safeguarding practice. But, in England and Wales, policy and practice developments concerned with engaging families in care and protection planning are set within complex and, at times, contradictory policy drivers. Using reviews of the practice evidence and the literature concerned with family inclusion and whole family approaches, emerging issues in researching and delivering family-minded policy and practice are considered. Family decision making is used as an illustrative policy and practice example, and the article sets out some of the questions for future developments in family engagement in care and protection.

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