a family-led child protection inquiry
who is involved?
Camden Conversations 'a family-led child protection inquiry' it was born out of a partnership with Camden’s Community, relational activist Tim Fisher and the social worker service, academic Professor Anna Gupta and ‘Annie’ from Surviving Safeguarding.
what we did?
Throughout 2018 /2019, parent-activists led this major participatory research project into child protection practices. Camden Conversations was about building dialogue and co-constructing services, it offers a means of opening up new and innovative responses to protecting children and supporting families. Parents and other family members were centrally involved in the design, implementation and recommendations. Interviews and focus groups were undertaken by family members who were trained as peer researchers. The interviews were analysed and preliminary findings were discussed with the Camden Family Advisory Board.
Parents were centrally involved in the analysis, development of recommendations and production of the report. One of the key findings was the sense of powerlessness and isolation felt by parents involved in the child protection system.
Tim Fisher:
“I remember on Camden parent's request we organised a feedback session in the town hall. Faye Hamilton, a relational activist, turned up with many parents, friends, and people she knew from the community (loads of em!), all with experiences they were keen to share with the professionals. In some ways, this interaction was outside of our comfort zone (us professionals), but it was necessary. The disruptive effect of her bringing people into that council space generated some hope. Here were people who wanted to share experiences and ideas. Those ideas ultimately led to change. Hopeful disruption. And it felt like it was needed to connect together people and the good intentions of the system world, with its logic of timescales and duty, with the messy human world of community that runs on love. Keeping that bridge open between the services and people.”
Clarissa Stevens, relational activist and Camden Conversations parent researcher:
“We’ve got so much more ideas, and thoughts, and feelings that can change this system. And we’re not the only ones we just carry every body else’s voices. We carry every single person that has ever felt unjustified, from going through whatever it is through the system, we empower them. And we want to hear those voices too. Not a lot of people know, like I didn’t, that there is a platform for them. And I think once people realise that there is a platform for them, and that people are listening, and everybody is sharing ideas, and that we can all come together and really figure out what families need. I love creative methods working with families and being able to be creative and get them to think out of the box, and get them to engage differently. Think differently. Not just families, professionals, everybody! You know, be able to do ice breakers, get everyone, get up in a room moving around, have people on the floor drawing. It’s a whole new way of doing it all, especially in social care, a whole new way of doing it.”
what happened next?
The Camden Conversations co-design, was building an appreciative consensus around the idea that we are the system! It’s the people in it that have to own it, the harm as well as the good. Leadership, therefore, is about the ability to respond and is not confined to professionals with certain qualifications or roles. All actors in the system can position ourselves to co-create change and value those in the community that can offer valuable experience and expertise. The responsibility of leaders is to listen to our ‘village’ and take their lead in what we should care about. What they care about is what we should care about, together.
After presenting to a local safeguarding board and publishing to much national interest a number of recommendations, which were accepted by the CSCB (Now CSCP) were made that could make the local system more humane and participatory, including the key recommendation for an advocacy service
One of big recommendations in Camden Conversations was Peer Parental Advocacy, parents drawing on their lived experiences, getting trained and supporting other parents who need help navigating the child protection system. All of these examples of good work help form set a beliefs about the right of community to be involved in the ground-level democracy in Camden. To be part of who makes the decisions about how services are run. In this is the hope of new potential collaborations and shared futures.
Link to full report and recommendations:
Camden Conversations a video summary