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Through Family Group Conferences and Circles of Support, parents, their extended families, their communities, and Child Protective Services partner with each other, in order to develop a plan for children who have been removed from their parents due to abuse/neglect and placed in foster care. This process focuses on the family’s strengths and their desires to protect their children within their family by sharing the responsibility for the child(ren)’s safety.

The state of Texas in conjunction with the Casey Foundation began the practice of FGDM in March 2004. Since that time, over 4100 Family Group Conferences have taken place state-wide. Within Region 7 (30 county area - including Austin and the surrounding area), over 600 conferences have taken place to date. Each month, 40 to 50 conferences are held within Region 7. Because of the amount of information shared and the complexity of each family, the conferences last, on average, from 4 to 8 hours.

As part of the Family Group Decision-Making process, we aim to honor familial culture/traditions and encourage open and honest communication among all participants. We, therefore, try to hold the conferences at locations away from the CPS office and Partnerships for Children provides a light meal at each conference.

By partnering with families and their communities, CPS has been able to measure great successes regarding child safety/well-being, including: increase number of relative/kinship placements; decrease in foster care placements; increase in extended family/kinship involvement, including biological father involvement; increase in the development of person-specific plans; among others, which can be viewed on this final evaluation:
http://www.dfps.state.tx.us/Documents/about/pdf/2006-10-09_FGDM_Evaluation.pdf

For additional information about helping to provide meals or to volunteer to be a co-facilitator for FGDM please contact us at info@partnershipsforchildren.org or call 512-834-4756.