How Family Group Conferencing Can Support a Contextual Safeguarding Response to Community-based Youth Harm: Lessons for Practice from a Participatory Study

Abstract This article reports on a study that brought Family Group Conferencing (FGC) and Contextual Safeguarding together to create an innovative practice response to extra-familial harm. It took place as part of a wider research project into the implementation of Contextual Safeguarding—an ecological approach to creating safety for young people harmed outside the home. Whilst there is growing understanding in social care of the contextual dynamics of young people’s safeguarding needs beyond their homes, many remain unsure about what it means, in practice, for them to create safety in a context. Using data collected via participatory and embedded research methods, this article considers how FGCs were adapted to create responses to youth harm that shifted the focus from ‘family’ to ‘community’; addressed the ‘social conditions of harm’; and drew on practitioners’ existing FGC skills. It demonstrates conceptual alignment and practice benefits for bringing the two approaches together and argues that drawing on the value-base and skills of FGC coordinators has considerable potential. The article highlights three key elements that are needed to recreate similar responses, namely: organisational mandate/support; conceptual framework aligned to ecological theory; and skills and attributes that include facilitation, working restoratively and with authority in challenging situations.