A Family Group Decision Making (FGDM) Conference:
- Brings together extended family, friends and professionals to make a plan to address a problem.
- Empowers families and close friends—the people who know and care most about each other—to make decisions that affect their own lives and the well-being of their children.
- Focuses on finding solutions within families and communities.
- Fosters collaboration and communication between families and professionals.
- Provides a meeting time for:
- professionals to share information, concerns and resources with the family regarding the youth.
- the family to meet alone to develop a plan for the youth.
- the professionals to confirm that the family’s plan meets legal requirements; an agreement is reached.
A Restorative Conference is…
- A structured meeting run by a trained facilitator that brings together offenders, victims and both parties’ supporters to deal with the consequences of an offense and decide how to repair the harm.
- An event that gives victims an opportunity to meet with offenders, express their feelings, ask questions and have a say in the outcome.
- A means for offenders to hear firsthand how their behavior has affected people and begin to repair the harm by agreeing to make amends.
- A process that holds offenders accountable, while providing them an opportunity to discard the “offender” label and be reintegrated into their community or school.
