Family group conference

Family Group Conference is a mediated meeting between family members and the professional practitioners where they closely work together to make decisions that best meet the needs of the child.

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SBU Enquiry Service

Responds to queries received from Swedish healthcare and social service providers, or governmental organisations. Queries have a limited scope and the process is designed to enable a more rapid response, typically within two to three months. Reports are based on systematic reviews, that are identified through structured searches and critically appraised for risk of bias.

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Published: Report no: ut202025 Registration no: SBU 2020/253

Question

What systematic reviews are there on the effect of family group conferences?

Identified literature

Table 1. Systematic reviews with low/medium risk of bias

Included studies Population/Intervention Outcome
Nurmatov et al 2020 [1]
Inclusion criteria: Both interventional and natural experimental studies were eligible, but they had to have a comparative group.
Within-groups, cross-sectional studies were not included.

Included studies: Search resulted in 2.680 unique records. 32 papers were included in the systematic review. 7 of which also included an economic evaluation.		 Population: Children and young people (0–18 years of age) who are either at risk of entering, or already in, out-of-home care and/or their parents/carers/guardians.
Their definition of care does not extend to included informal care arrangements or those that do not specify continued statutory involvement (e.g. adoption.

Intervention: Any service involving shared decision-making meetings between families and professionals that included the following components:
1) Organized meeting, 
2) Action plan and 
3) Collaborative or family-led.		 Primary outcomes: Rates of out-of-home placement
Reunification rates
Family empowerment
Family satisfaction.

Secondary outcomes:
Adverse effects
Economic data
Authors' conclusion:
“The review does not provide conclusive evidence as to how shared decision-making meetings affect care entry, re-entry, family reunification, family empowerment or satisfaction, compared with usual services. The lack of strong evidence is as least partially attributed to a lack of high-quality quantitative and comparative evaluation studies and considerable variation in published results.”
“There was not strong evidence on the cost-effectiveness of shared-decision-making meetings, however, there are encouraging indications that shared decision-making meetings could be cost saving and potentially cost-effective.”

References

  1. Nurmatov UF, C. Mann, M. Scourfield, J. Impact of shared decision-making family meetings on children's out-of-home care, family empowerment and satisfaction. What works for children's social care, Cardiff University. [cited 2020 May 19]. Available from: https://whatworks-csc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/WWCSC_Family_Group_Conferencing_Report.pdf.
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