Family group conferences, part one: Australia's first project within child protection

Family decision making through Family Group Conferences has been trialled in a pilot project by the Mission of St James and St John, Victoria, for the past 16 months (as of February 1994) in a two year Project. This article, the first of a series of two, intends to briefly explain the technique and how the project was established in Victoria. The theoretical basis, or project assumptions, will be outlined, together with the obstacles which currently prevent the wider implementation of the practice. The project was independently evaluated from October 1992 up to 31 August 1993 (Swain, 1993a; 1993b). Key findings of that evaluation will be discussed in the second article in this series along with practice issues that need further exploration.