This chapter assesses Family Group Conferencing in the youth justice arena. FGCs in the youth justice field sit under the umbrella of restorative justice. Restorative justice is the process of bringing together the ‘victim’ of a crime with the ‘offender’ to enable dialogue between the two parties with a focus on ‘repairing the harm’ to the victim. The restorative process is aimed at creating an outcome where the victim feels that justice has been served and that the offender is taking responsibility for their crime. The result is a ‘personalised’ justice process because it is the ‘victim’ who determines what needs to happen for them to feel that justice has been served. The chapter then looks at the ReConnect project, an FGC service based within Leeds Youth Offending service, to demonstrate that there is a broad need for family-centred responses to youth justice issues.
Family group conferencing in Dutch child welfare: Which families are most likely to organize a family group conference?
