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Restorative practices is the emerging social science of building social capital and achieving social discipline through participatory learning and decision-making.

The fundamental unifying hypothesis of restorative practices is that human beings are happier, more cooperative and productive, and more likely to make positive changes in their behavior when people do things with them, rather than to  them or for  them. This hypothesis maintains that the punitive and authoritarian to mode and the permissive and paternalistic for  mode are not as effective as the restorative, participatory, engaging with  mode.

The field of restorative practices offers a common thread to tie together theory, research and practice in fields such as education, counseling, criminal justice, social work and organizational management. Individuals and organizations in many fields are developing models and methodology and performing empirical research that shares the same fundamental hypothesis, but they are often unaware of the commonality of their underlying assumptions.

In criminal justice, restorative circles and conferences allow victims, offenders and their respective family members and friends to come together to explore how everyone has been affected by an offense and, when possible, to decide how to repair the harm and meet their own needs (McCold, 2003). In social work, family group decision-making (FGDM) or family group conferencing (FGC) processes empower extended families to meet privately, without professionals in the room, to make a plan to protect children in their own families from further violence and neglect (American Humane Association, 2003). In education, circles and groups provide opportunities for students to share their feelings, build relationships and problem-solve, and when there is wrongdoing, to play an active role in addressing the wrong and making things right (Riestenberg, 2002).

These various fields employ different terms, all of which fall under the rubric of restorative practices: In the criminal justice field the phrase used is "restorative justice" (Zehr, 1990); in social work the term employed is "empowerment" (Simon, 1994); in education, talk is of "positive discipline" (Nelsen, 1996) or "the responsive classroom" (Charney, 1992); and in organizational leadership "horizontal management" (Denton, 1998) is referenced.

History
The restorative practices concept has its roots in Restorative Justice, a way of looking at criminal justice that focuses on repairing the harm done to people and relationships rather than on punishing offenders.

Restorative justice originated in the 1970s as mediation (or reconciliation) between victims and offenders. The victim offender reconciliation movement began in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, in 1974, in what has been called the "Kitchener experiment" (McCold, 1999; Peachey, 1989). The transformative results of having two teenagers meet directly with their victims following a vandalism spree and agree to restitution became the impetus for the Kitchener Victim Offender Reconciliation Program (VORP). The Community Justice Initiatives Association began the first VORP in 1975 with support and encouragement from the Mennonite Central Committee and collaboration with the local probation department (McCold, 1999; Peachey, 1989; Victim Offender Reconciliation Resource Center, 1984).

Eventually restorative justice broadened to include communities of care as well, with victims' and offenders' families and friends participating in collaborative processes called "conferences" and "circles." (See 3.1. Restorative Conferences and 3.2. Restorative Circles, below.) Conferencing addresses power imbalances between the victim and offender by including additional supporters (McCold, 1999). Restorative justice is a process involving the primary stakeholders in determining how best to repair the harm done by an offense. (See 2.2. Restorative Typology, below.)

Conferencing started in New Zealand in 1989, was adapted by Australian police in 1991 and was first used by Australian educators in 1994 (O'Connell, 1998). Restorative practices and restorative justice echo ancient and indigenous practices as employed in cultures all over the world, from Native American and First Nation Canadian to African, Asian, Celtic, Hebrew, Arab, and many others (Eagle, 2001; Goldstein, 2006; Haarala, 2004; Mbambo & Skelton, 2003; Mirsky, 2004, April & May; Roujanavong, 2005; Wong, 2005).

The restorative concept has its roots in the field of criminal justice, but restorative practices are not just reactive, i.e., only to be used as a response to crime and wrongdoing. On the contrary, the free expression of emotion inherent in restorative practices not only restores, but can also proactively build new relationships and social capital. Social capital is defined as the connections among individuals (Putnam, 2001), and the trust, mutual understanding, shared values and behaviors that bind us together and make cooperative action possible (Cohen and Prusak, 2001).

The International Institute for Restorative Practices (IIRP) a graduate school and training and consulting organization, (External Link 6.1), which grew out of the Real Justice program (External Link 6.2), has been developing a comprehensive framework for practice and theory that expands the restorative paradigm beyond its origins in criminal justice (McCold and Wachtel, 2003). Use of restorative practices is spreading worldwide, in education, criminal justice, family and youth and-serving and workplace applications (McCold, 1999; O'Connell, 1998; External Links 6.3, 6.4, 6.5, 6.6 & 6.7).

The Social Discipline Window
The social discipline window (Figure 1) is a framework with broad application in many settings. It describes four basic approaches to maintaining social norms and behavioral boundaries. High control but low support is punitive or authoritarian. High support but low control is permissive or paternalistic. Both low support and low control is neglectful or irresponsible. Restorative or authoritative involves both high control and high support. The restorative domain combines both high control and high support and is characterized by doing things with people, rather than to them or for them.

Restorative Practices Typology
Restorative justice is a process involving the primary stakeholders in determining how best to repair the harm done by an offense. The three primary stakeholders in restorative justice are victims, offenders and their communities of care, whose needs are, respectively, getting reparation, taking responsibility and achieving reconciliation. The degree to which all three are involved in meaningful emotional exchange and decision-making is the degree to which any form of social discipline can be termed fully “restorative.” These three sets of primary stakeholders are represented by the three overlapping circles in Figure 2. The very process of interacting is critical to meeting stakeholders’ emotional needs. The emotional exchange necessary for meeting the needs of all those directly affected cannot occur with only one set of stakeholders participating. The most restorative processes involve the active participation of all three sets of primary stakeholders (McCold & Wachtel, 2003).



When criminal justice practices involve only one group of primary stakeholders, as in the case of governmental financial compensation for victims, the process can only be called “partly restorative.” When a process such as victim-offender mediation includes two principal stakeholders but excludes their communities of care, the process is “mostly restorative.” Only when all three sets of primary stakeholders are actively involved, such as in conferences or circles, is a process “fully restorative” (McCold & Wachtel, 2003).

The Restorative Practices Continuum
Restorative practices is not limited to formal processes, such as restorative conferences or family group decision making, but range from informal to formal. On a restorative practices continuum (Figure 2), the informal practices include "affective statements" that communicate people's feelings, as well as "affective questions" that cause people to reflect on how their behavior has affected others. Impromptu restorative conferences, groups and circles are somewhat more structured but do not require the elaborate preparation needed for formal conferences. Moving from left to right on the continuum, as restorative practices become more formal they involve more people, require more planning and time, and are more structured and complete. Although a formal restorative process might have dramatic impact, informal practices have a cumulative impact because they are part of everyday life (Wachtel and McCold, 2001).

The aim of Restorative Practices is to develop community and to manage conflict and tensions by repairing harm and building relationships. This statement identifies both proactive (developing community) and reactive (repairing harm and building relationships) approaches. Organizations and services that only use the reactive without building the social capital beforehand are less successful than those that also do the proactive (Davey, 2007).

The Nine Affects
The most critical function of restorative practices is restoring and building relationships. Because informal and formal restorative processes foster the expression of affect or emotion, they also foster emotional bonds. The late Silvan S. Tomkins's writings about psychology of affect (Tomkins, 1962, 1963, 1991) assert that human relationships are best and healthiest when there is free expression of affect—or emotion—minimizing the negative, maximizing the positive, but allowing for free expression. Donald Nathanson, director of the Silvan S. Tomkins Institute, adds that it is through the mutual exchange of expressed affect that we build community, creating the emotional bonds that tie us all together (Nathanson, 1998). Restorative practices such as conferences and circles provide a safe environment for people to express and exchange emotion (Nathanson, 1998).

Tomkins identified nine distinct affects (Figure 3) to explain the expression of emotion in all human beings. Most of the affects are defined by pairs of words that represent the least and the most intense expression of a particular affect. The six negative affects include anger-rage, fear-terror, distress-anguish, disgust, dissmell (a word Tomkins coined to describe "turning up one's nose" at someone or something in a rejecting way), and shame-humiliation. Surprise-startle is the neutral affect, which functions like a reset button. The two positive affects are interest-excitement and enjoyment-joy (Tomkins, 1962, 1963, 1991).

Silvan S. Tomkins wrote (1962) that because we have evolved to experience any of our nine affects—two positive affects that feel pleasant, one (surprise-startle) so brief that it has no feeling of its own, and six that feel dreadful—we are wired to conform to an internal "blueprint." The human emotional blueprint ensures that we feel best when we 1) maximize positive affect and 2) minimize negative affect; we function best when 3) we express all affect (minimize the inhibition of affect) so we can accomplish these two goals; and, finally, 4) anything that fosters these three goals makes us feel our best, whereas any force that interferes with any one or more of those goals makes us feel worse (Nathanson, 1997b).

By encouraging people to express their feelings, restorative practices build better relationships. Restorative practices demonstrate the fundamental hypothesis of Tomkins’s affect theory—that the healthiest environment for human beings is one in which there is free expression of affect, minimizing the negative, maximizing the positive, but allowing people free expression (Nathanson, 1992). From the simple affective statement to the formal conference, this is exactly what restorative practices are designed to do (Wachtel, 1999).

The Compass of Shame
Shame is worthy of special attention. Nathanson explains that shame is a critical regulator of human social behavior. Tomkins defined shame as occurring any time that our experience of the positive affects is interrupted (Tomkins, 1987). So an individual does not have to do something wrong to feel shame. The individual just has to experience something that interrupts interest-excitement or enjoyment-joy (Nathanson, 1997a). This understanding of shame provides a critical explanation for why victims of crime often feel a strong sense of shame, even though the offender committed the "shameful" act (Angel, 2005).

Nathanson (1992, p. 132) has developed the compass of shame (Figure 4) to illustrate the various ways that human beings react when they feel shame. The four poles of the compass of shame and behaviors associated with them are:
 * One Withdrawal—isolating oneself, running and hiding
 * Two Attack self—self put-down, masochism
 * Three Avoidance—denial, abusing drugs, distraction through thrill seeking
 * Four Attack others—turning the tables, lashing out verbally or physically, blaming others

Nathanson says that the "attack other" response to shame is responsible for the proliferation of violence in modern life. Usually people who have adequate self-esteem readily move beyond their feelings of shame. Nonetheless we all react to shame, in varying degrees, in the ways described by the compass. Restorative practices, by their very nature, provide an opportunity for us to express our shame, along with other emotions, and in doing so reduce their intensity. In restorative conferences, for example, people routinely move from negative affects through the neutral affect to positive affects (Nathanson, 1998).

Fair Process
Because the restorative concept has its roots in the field of criminal justice, we may erroneously assume that restorative practices are reactive, only to be used as a response to crime and wrongdoing. However, the free expression of emotion inherent in restorative practices not only restores, but also proactively builds new relationships and social capital. Social capital is defined as the connections among individuals (Putnam, 2001), and the trust, mutual understanding, shared values and behaviors that bind us together and make cooperative action possible (Cohen and Prusak, 2001).

For example, primary schools and more recently, some secondary schools use circles to provide students with opportunities to share their feelings, ideas and experiences, in order to establish relationships and social norms on a non-crisis basis (Mirsky, 2007). Businesses and other organizations utilize team-building circles or groups, in which employees are afforded opportunities to get to know each other better, similar to the processes used with students. Classrooms and workplaces tend to be more productive when they invest in building social capital through the proactive use of restorative practices. Also, when a problem does arise, teachers and managers find that the reaction of students and employees is more positive and cooperative (Davey, 2007).

When authorities do things with people, whether reactively—to deal with crisis, or proactively— in the normal course of school or business, the results are almost always better. This fundamental thesis was evident in a Harvard Business Review article about the concept of "fair process" in organizations (Kim and Mauborgne, 1997). The central idea of fair process is that "…individuals are most likely to trust and cooperate freely with systems—whether they themselves win or lose by those systems—when fair process is observed" (Kim and Mauborgne, 1997).

The three principles of fair process are:
 * One Engagement—involving individuals in decisions that affect them by listening to their views and genuinely taking their opinions into account
 * Two Explanation—explaining the reasoning behind a decision to everyone who has been involved or who is affected by it
 * Three Expectation clarity—making sure that everyone clearly understands a decision and what is expected of them in the future (Kim and Mauborgne, 1997)

Fair process applies the restorative with domain of the social discipline window to all kinds of organizations, in all kinds of disciplines and professions (O'Connell, 2002; Costello and O'Connell, 2002; Schnell, 2002). The fundamental hypothesis that people are happier, more cooperative and productive, and more likely to make positive changes in behavior when authorities do things with them, rather than to them or for them expands the restorative paradigm far beyond its origins in restorative justice.

Restorative Conferences
Restorative conferences, which have also been called restorative justice conferences, family group conferences and community accountability conferences, originated as a response to juvenile crime (Doolan, 1999; O'Connell, 1998).

A conference is a structured meeting between offenders, victims and both parties' family and friends, in which they deal with the consequences of the crime and decide how best to repair the harm. Neither a counseling nor a mediation process, conferencing is a victim-sensitive, straightforward problem-solving method that demonstrates how citizens can resolve their own problems when provided with a constructive forum to do so (O’Connell, Wachtel, & Wachtel, 1999).

Conferences provide victims and others with an opportunity to confront the offender, express their feelings, ask questions and have a say in the outcome. Offenders hear firsthand how their behavior has affected people. They may begin to repair the harm by apologizing, making amends and agreeing to financial restitution or personal or community service work. Conferences hold offenders accountable while providing them with an opportunity to discard the "offender" label and be reintegrated into their community, school or workplace (Morris and Maxwell, 2001).

Participation in conferences is voluntary. After it is determined that a conference is appropriate and offenders and victims have agreed to attend, the conference facilitator invites others affected by the incident–the family and friends of victims and offenders (O’Connell, Wachtel, & Wachtel, 1999).

A restorative conference can be used in lieu of traditional disciplinary or justice processes, or where that is not appropriate, as a supplement to those processes (O’Connell, Wachtel, & Wachtel, 1999).

The conference facilitator sticks to a simple script (see External Link 6.8) and keeps the conference on focus, but is not an active participant. In the conference the facilitator asks the offenders to tell what they did and what they were thinking about when they did it. The facilitator then asks victims and their family members and friends to tell about the incident from their perspective and how it affected them. The offenders' family and friends are asked to do the same (O’Connell, Wachtel, & Wachtel, 1999).

Using the conferencing script, offenders are asked:
 * One “What happened?”
 * Two “What were you thinking about at the time?”
 * Three “What have you thought about since the incident?”
 * Four “Who do you think has been affected by your actions?”
 * Five “How have they been affected?”

Victims are asked:
 * One “What was your reaction at the time of the incident?”
 * Two “How do you feel about what happened?”
 * Three “What has been the hardest thing for you?”
 * Four “How did your family and friends react when they heard about the incident?” (O’Connell, Wachtel, & Wachtel, 1999)

Finally the victim is asked what he or she would like to be the outcome of the conference. The response is discussed with the offender and everyone else at the conference. When agreement is reached, a simple contract is written and signed (O’Connell, Wachtel, & Wachtel, 1999).

Restorative conferencing is an approach to addressing wrongdoing in various settings in a variety of ways:
 * One Conferencing can be employed by schools in response to truancy, disciplinary incidents, including violence, or as a prevention strategy in the form of role plays of conferences with primary and elementary school students.
 * Two Police can use conferences as a warning or diversion from court, especially with first-time offenders.
 * ThreeCourts may use conferencing as a diversion, an alternative sentencing process, or a healing event for victims and offenders after the court process is concluded.
 * Four Juvenile and adult probation officers may respond to various probation violations with conferences.
 * Five Correctional and treatment facilities will find that conferences resolve the underlying issues and tensions in conflicts and disciplinary actions.
 * Six Colleges and universities can use conferences with dormitory and campus incidents and disciplinary violations.
 * Seven In workplaces conferencing addresses both wrongdoing and conflict (O’Connell, Wachtel, & Wachtel, 1999).

Restorative Circles
A restorative circle is a versatile restorative practice that fosters cooperation and responsibility in group situations. Less formal than a restorative conference, a restorative circle often doesn't specify victims and offenders and doesn't employ the conferencing script, although it may employ some of the restorative questions within the conferencing script (see 3.1. Restorative Conferences). A circle may or may not have a facilitator or leader.

The circle is a process that brings together individuals who wish to engage in conflict resolution, healing, support, decision making or other activities in which honest communications, relationship development, and community building are core desired outcomes. Circles offer an alternative to contemporary meeting processes that often rely on hierarchy, win-lose positioning, and victim/rescuer approaches to relationships and problem solving (Roca, Inc.).

In a restorative circle, one person speaks at a time: The opportunity to speak moves around the circle, and each person waits to speak until the person before them has finished speaking. The chance to speak continues moving around the circle as many times as necessary, until everyone has said what they need to say. A "talking piece" is often used to facilitate this process: Whoever is holding the talking piece has the "floor." Both the restorative circle and the talking piece have roots in ancient and indigenous practices (Mirsky, 2004, April & May; Roca, Inc.). The circle is central to traditional aboriginal cultures and social processes. Circle processes for handling crime and wrongdoing originate with traditional concepts of freedom and individuality–one person cannot impose a decision upon another (McCold, 1999).

Family Group Conferencing (FGC) aka Family Group Decision Making (FGDM)
Family group conferencing (FGC), aka FGDM, is a process that provides families with an opportunity to bring together larger family networks—aunts, uncles, grandparents, neighbors, friends—to make important decisions that might otherwise be made by professionals. This process of engaging and empowering families to make their own decisions and plans for their family members’ well-being seems to lead to better outcomes, less conflict with professionals, more informal support and improved family functioning (Merkel-Holguin, Nixon & Burford, 2003).

Originally developed in New Zealand as family group conferencing, the family group decision making process has taken root worldwide and is now known by several different names, including family unity meetings, among others. Family group decision making began in the field of child welfare and youth justice, but is now used in education, mental health, domestic violence and other applications (Rush, 2006).

Family group decision making has acquired various characteristics in the different locations where it is practiced, but certain common elements are evident, as well. In general, the philosophy underlying family group decision making holds that families, when provided with the necessary pertinent information, are better able to devise plans to protect their own welfare than are professionals, because families know themselves -– their problems, strengths and resources – better than professionals do. Young people need the sense of community, identity and stability that only the family, in its various forms, can provide, and families are more likely than professionals to find solutions that actively involve other family members, thus keeping the child within the care of the family, rather than transferring care of the child to the state. Also, when families are empowered to fix their own problems, the very process of empowerment facilitates healing (Rush, 2006).

The key features of the New Zealand FGC/FGDM model are preparation, information giving, private family time, agreeing on the plan and monitoring and review. In an FGC/FGDM, the family is the primary decision-maker. A wide definition of family applies, including extended family and close, concerned friends and neighbors. An independent coordinator facilitates the conference and refrains from offering preconceived ideas of the outcome. During private family time, the family, after hearing information about the case, is left alone to arrive at their own plan for the future of the child, youth or adult. The plan is evaluated by professionals with respect to safety and legal issues, and resources may be procured to help implement the plan. Professionals and family members monitor the plan's progress and often follow-up meetings are held (Morris & Maxwell, 1998).

A critical aspect of family group decision making is the use of private family time. By taking the decision-making process out of the hands of professionals and governments and putting it back in the hands of those people who are directly affected, private family time indicates a crucial paradigm shift (Rush, 2006).

Informal Processes
The restorative paradigm is manifested in many informal ways besides the formal processes. Informal restorative practices include "affective statements" that communicate people's feelings, as well as "affective questions" that cause people to reflect on how their behavior has affected others (Wachtel and McCold, 2001).

For example, a teacher in a classroom might employ an "affective statement" when a student has misbehaved, letting the student know how he or she has been affected by the student's behavior: "When you disrupt the class, I feel sad" or "disrespected" or "disappointed." The student then realizes that his or her behavior isn't happening in a vacuum, but is actually having an effect on a real person with real emotions.

Or the teacher might say. "When you disrupt the class, you are making it difficult for me to teach," or "you are depriving other students of the opportunity to learn." Hearing this, the student learns how his or her behavior is affecting others, and can think about the real consequences of his or her actions (Harrison, 2007).

Affective questions can include those used in the conference script, listed in 3.1.: Restorative Conferences. For example, within a classroom setting, when a student misbehaves, a teacher might ask some or all of the following: “What happened?”; “What were you thinking about at the time?”; “What have you thought about since?”; “Who do you think has been affected by your actions?”; “How have they been affected?” and "What can you do to repair the harm that's been done?" In answering such questions, instead of simply being sent to the principal's office or detention, the student has a chance to think about his or her behavior, make amends and change the behavior in the future (Morrison, 2003).

Victim-Offender Mediation and Victim-Offender Dialogue
Victim-offender mediation and victim-offender dialogue are the pioneering restorative processes that were first introduced in the 1970’s. They limit participation to the identified victims and offenders, whereas conferencing and circles widen participation by including family and friends of victims and offenders (McCold, 1999).

Restorative Conferencing Research
Extensive research has been performed regarding restorative conferencing. Two major meta-analyses are listed below.

“Restorative Justice: The Evidence,” completed in 2007, an analysis by Dr. Lawrence W. Sherman and Dr. Heather Strang, longtime researchers on the effectiveness of restorative justice, evaluated every research project concerning restorative justice conferencing published in English between 1986 and 2005. Published in the UK, carried out by the Jerry Lee Center of Criminology at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and sponsored by the Smith Institute, an independent think tank based in London, the study concludes that restorative justice (RJ) conferencing—no matter how it is measured—is as or more effective than traditional methods of criminal justice (CJ) for reducing crime, with respect to nearly every group of offender studied. The study concluded that in at least two trials each: The report is available online in PDF format (External Link 6.9).
 * One RJ reduced recidivism for offenders of both violent and property crimes.
 * Two RJ reduced post-traumatic stress symptoms and the desire for revenge for victims.
 * Three RJ processes were preferred over CJ by both victims and offenders.
 * Four RJ reduced costs when used as diversion from CJ.
 * Five When RJ was an option, two or more times as many cases were brought to justice (including cases of robbery and assault). (Angel, 2005; Sherman & Strang, 2007; Wachtel, 2007.)

"A Survey of Assessment Research on Mediation and Conferencing," by Dr. Paul McCold, "brings together in one place and in a dramatic graphic form the results of research on restorative justice from all over the world and summarizes what currently can be said that we know scientifically about restorative practices," and shows "that restorative practices are a very popular and effective alternative form of responding to criminal and civil conflict" (Mirsky, 2004, June).

Restorative Practices in Schools Research
An ever-increasing number of schools worldwide are adopting restorative practices as a means of dealing with discipline and improving school culture, and school leaders are analyzing their effect. Schools implementing restorative methods have seen a drop in disciplinary problems, decreased reliance on detention and suspension, and an improvement in student attitudes (Porter, 2007). Studies conducted from 1999 to 2003 in the "restorative milieu" of Community Service Foundation and Buxmont Academy alternative school/day treatment programs, in southeastern Pennsylvania, USA, found that students in these programs developed higher self-esteem and showed an increase in prosocial values, becoming more willing to take responsibility for their misbehavior. Court records showed a two-thirds reduction in offending rates after six months in the program, as well as two years after discharge (McCold, 2002 & 2004).

Research has been conducted demonstrating the efficacy restorative practices in public schools in Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, USA; Ontario, Canada; New South Wales and South Australia, Australia; Sefton, England; in several school districts in Scotland; throughout New Zealand; as well as in a school for children with emotional and behavioral difficulties, in Oxfordshire, England, among other schools worldwide (Porter, 2007; Kane, Lloyd, McCluskey, Riddell, Stead, Weedon, Maguire, and Hendry, 2007).

FGC/FGDM Research
The following is a sampling of the many research study results obtained concerning family group conferencing (FGC), aka family group decision making (FGDM).

Family Involvement:

Facilitators who organize conferences have "often found more and previously unknown relative resources as a result of the family conferencing process” (Sandau-Beckler, 2003). In most program startups, the concern is raised that local families might not be willing to respond to invitation to attend conferences. Virtually every study shows this to be an unfounded concern (Merkel-Holguin, Nixon, Burford, 2003).

Numerous studies of FGC/FGDM from all over the world indicate a high level of family participation. Average FGC/FGDM conference attendance rates range from six to eight family members attending (Gunderson, 2005; Marsh & Crow, 1997; Rasmussen, 2001; University of Sheffield, 2004). The Eigen Kracht FGC program in the Netherlands has seen an average of 15.8 participants per conference (Van Pageé, 2004). Of fathers invited to FGC/FGDM conferences and to traditional case management meetings, 61% attended the conferences, while just 21% attended the traditional case management meetings (Marsh & Crow 1997).

Satisfaction Rates:

Direct feedback from families indicated 98% positive statements about the FGC/FGDM meeting. Professionals and others reported rates of 96% positive responses (Sandau-Beckler, 2003). 86% of families favored the FGC/FGDM as a method in bringing a solution to child protection cases (Sundell, Vinnerljung, 2003). 76% of social workers felt the conferences offered the child a better plan of action than they had prior (Rasmussen, 2001).

Implementation of Plan:

Families assume 80% of the plans they develop in FGC/FGDM conferences as their responsibility; 20% of these plans include requests for help from professional agencies (Van Pageé, 2004). On average, 95% of FGC/FGDM plans are accepted by authorities, and very few FGDM/FCG conferences result in no plan being developed (Holguin, 2003). Nearly 60% of the agreements made by the families in FGC/FGDM conferences have been carried out after three months (Van Pageé’, 2004).

Outcomes:

Of 11 to 18 year olds in group care for at least two years, 34% of youth returned home or were placed with relatives within six months of an FGC/FGDM conference (Gunderson, 2005). Two years post FGC/FGDM conference, only 9% (N=5) of children returned to out of home care (Shore et al., 2001). A number of studies report reductions in re-abuse rates for FGC/FGDM children in comparison with those who do not participate in a conference (Holguin, 2003, Gunderson, 2001). Child abuse cases were reported closed for 54% of those cases that participated in a FGC/FGDM conference in the last two years (Shore et al, 2001). Of FGC/FGDM 52 conferences assessed by the social worker over a 15-month period, 42 conferences were assessed as successful, seven unsuccessful and four could not be measured (Sandau-Beckler, 2003).