Lessons from holding virtual family group conferences under Covid

By Tim Fisher and Jamie Spencer

We’ve been carrying out adult family group conferences in the London Borough of Camden for the last few years. FGCs are family network meetings where people come together in person to work through problems and make a plan, and are part of our commitment to working with individuals and families to give them the freedom to make their own plans.

Risks to FGCs

In March, there was a real danger that FGCs would be put to one side as the emergency professional response to Covid-19 kicked into gear. The language we heard around us was understandably focused on ‘protecting the vulnerable’ and meeting people’s needs as we wondered how we could retain our commitment to strengths-based working through the crisis.

In fact, as Brian’s story highlights, Camden’s adult FGC work quickly formed part of the mainstream response, evolving in ways that surprised us and teaching us all about virtual meetings as we lived our new slogan, “connection over distance”.

We saw 50 referrals for adults from April to July, an absolutely unprecedented demand for the service. The demand included specific concerns raised by the Covid crisis such as connecting isolated families, supporting people who are anxious, planning returns home from hospital, and building networks of support for individuals who are shielding due to their clinical vulnerability.

We know that FGCs are a space where people can come together to look after each other, by sharing information and having private time to come up with a plan to solve a problem or make a change. Covid-19 and lockdown meant we had to hold with the well known and powerful elements of these independent conferences, using different & digital methods.

Widening the circle

FGC co-ordinators, who facilitate the meetings, have embraced this way of working. They have learned new tools and speak about the good feeling and spirit of connection in the work during this time.

The team of 10+ independent co-ordinators, who between them speak more than 20 different community languages, have also been working in a more graduated way as ‘network connectors’, building up to larger virtual meetings where possible but always doing significant work with people to support links, increase contact and add reassurance in people’s informal networks. This work has significantly relieved pressure on citizens and our frontline workers.

One of the points of exploratory learning for FGC has been around connections made locally to community volunteers who are part of the mutual aid movement, a new concept for us in our FGC practice as we widen the circle beyond family and traditional networks of support.

We have been awed by the continued resilience and creativity of the people, families and communities we work with. Face-to-face FGCs are happening again, tentatively held for citizens who want them and rigorously risk assessed, but we know the connection over distance approach and its digital methods will remain.

Tim Fisher is service manager – FGC and restorative practice, and Jamie Spencer head of transformation and performance, at the London Borough of Camden. It has recently published a report on adult FGCs in the borough.