FAMILY GROUP DECISION MAKING

In the child welfare system, there has been an increasing need for creative and innovative programming that provides alternatives to out-of-home placements for children. The Family Group Decision-Making Initiative is one such technique: an approach that seeks to ensure child safety within his or her own family and community.

FGDM Objectives and Values

FGDM assists families in making and maintaining healthy connections within the family unit and with others aligned to support the family. It is also a valuable tool in: helping teens transition to adulthood, supporting measurable increases in child safety, improving timeliness of the permanency planning process, reducing foster care re-entries, improving the stability of placements, and enhancing the capacity for families to provide for their children's needs. We achieve these objectives by recognizing and respecting the following values:

    Families have strengths and can change.

    Strengths are identified through listening, noticing and paying attention to people.

    Families have the greatest investment in seeing their children safe and successful.

    Empowering families will lead to families controlling their lives.

    Mistakes are opportunities for growth and development.

    Empowering people is preferable to controlling them.