ABSTRACT
In 1995 a group from New Zealand presented information on family group conferencing and in the audience were two members of the social work faculty from California State University at Stanislaus, and key managers from the Child Welfare Section of the Stanislaus County Community Services Agency. At the same time family group conferencing was developing in public child welfare, work began in a local grassroots community organization, the West Modesto King Kennedy Neighborhood Collaborative. The effort in this community focused on a partnership between the collaborative and local schools, initially on introducing a family decision process in one elementary school. The development of family decision-making processes in the northern central valley of California has been referred to as the Stanislaus model and has followed some basic definitions and principles. The transformation process and the development of policy and procedures for the family decision process is, a change in the culture of an agency.
