Family Partnership

Facilitation


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Family Partnership Meeting (FPM) is a deliberate and structured approach to involving youth and families in decision making through a facilitated meeting of family, their identified supports, and professionals working with the family.  FPM's bring together families and their extended supportive networks to make decisions regarding the safety, stability and well-being of their children.

Key Elements

  • A family partnership meeting, including birth parents and youth, is held for ALL decisions involving child removal, change of placement, and reunification/other permanency plan. 

  • The family partnership meeting is held BEFORE the child’s move occurs, or in cases of imminent risk, by the next working day, and always before the initial court hearing in cases of removal.

  • Neighborhood‐based community representatives are invited by the public agency to participate in all family partnership meetings, especially those regarding possible child removal. 

  • The meeting is led by a skilled, immediately accessible, internal facilitator, who is not a case‐carrying social worker or line supervisor. 

  • Information about each meeting, including participants, location, and recommendations, is collected and ultimately linked to data on child & family outcomes, in order to ensure continuing self-evaluation of the family partnership process and its effectiveness. 

  • Each family partnership meeting resulting in a child’s removal serves as a springboard for the planning of an “icebreaker” family team meeting, ideally to be held in conjunction with the first family visit, so that the birth‐foster parent relationship can be initiated.