ABSTRACT
The implementation of family group conferencing (FGC) in Sweden was launched and run by the Swedish Association of Local Authorities with the aid of a grant from the Swedish Ministry of Health and Social Affairs. Support for implementing FGCs in the ten Swedish local authorities was generally poor. Those local authorities having a project leader specifically employed to run the implementation locally and having well-trained staff had the highest number of FGC referrals. The FGCs seem to have empowered the families. The extended families spent, on average, 160 minutes in private family time. Such an extended period suggests that the family members were supportive and determined to solve the problems effectively. The main reason for the low rate of FGCs was that the social workers only offered every third parent an opportunity to participate. Another contributing factor for the low rate of FGCs is that some social workers presented FGCs to parents in a negative light.
