Newswise — Family Group Decision Making is a relatively new tool available to social workers, the judiciary, educators and other professionals who deal with families. It is the subject of a new book, Family Power: Engaging and Collaborating with Families, published by the International Institute for Restorative Practices (IIRP) in Bethlehem, PA. The book is written by Elizabeth Smull, Joshua Wachtel and Ted Wachtel.
“This book is dedicated to the proposition that restorative practices can help us be more effective in winning the trust and cooperation of families,” says Ted Wachtel, president of the IIRP. “In doing so, we can reduce the burden, responsibility and intrusiveness of government and professionals by enlisting the collective strength of families and their communities of care to work together in support of those they love.”
Family group decision making (FGDM) has its origins in New Zealand in 1989 when that nation passed a law granting families, whose children might otherwise be removed from their homes, the right to meet and develop an alternative plan before such action was taken.
The law created a process by which social workers and other professionals brief the family on the government’s expectations, resources and available services. Then the professionals leave the room and family members have the opportunity to take responsibility and come up with a plan of their own. If the plan meets safety and legal concerns, it is adopted.
“Never before in the history of the modern interventionist state has government shown so much respect for the rights and potential strengths of families,” note the book’s authors.
From New Zealand the concept, which is called Family Group Conferencing (FGC) everywhere except in North America, spread around the world. Family Power provides stories and case studies from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Hungary, the Netherlands and elsewhere.
The book explains how to engage and empower families and help them develop solutions to their own problems through both formal and informal strategies, including how to plan and coordinate formal FGC/FGDM conferences.
“This should be helpful to anyone working with families, including social workers, educators, probation or corrections officers, clergy and others,” says Ted Wachtel.
The 153-page book also describes family engagement practices beyond the formal FGC/FGDM process. The authors define all of these as part of the emerging new social science of restorative practices, which holds that “people are happier, more cooperative and productive, and more likely to make positive changes when those in positions of authority do things with them, rather than to them or for them.”
Family Power: Engaging and Collaborating with Families is the fourth in a series of books published by the IIRP Graduate School that represent the core of restorative practices. The other three are The Restorative Practices Handbook, Restorative Circles in Schools and Restorative Justice Conferencing. All four books espouse the restorative philosophy.
The authors all have long experience with restorative practices. Elizabeth Smull is a program supervisor at Community Service Foundation and Buxmont Academy (CSF Buxmont) in Pennsylvania. Joshua Wachtel is an author in western Massachusetts who previously taught in the CSF Buxmont programs and now contributes regularly to the Restorative Practices eForum. Ted Wachtel and his wife, Susan, in 1977 founded CSF Buxmont, whose school, counseling and residential programs employ restorative practices in their work with delinquent and at-risk youth and their families. Wachtel is now the president and founder of the International Institute for Restorative Practices, an accredited graduate school in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, which offers master’s degrees, certificate programs and professional development in restorative practices.
The IIRP also provides a range of restorative practices initiatives such as “SaferSanerSchools,” a program to reduce violence, bullying and misbehavior and improve the school environment, “Real Justice,” which brings together victims, offenders and their families and friends to deal with the emotional aftermath of crimes; and “Building Campus Community,” a cost-effective way to improve residential life in college and university housing.
RSS