Family & Group Strategy Meetings

Do you have a decision to make with your family?
Do you need to create a plan with or for your family?
Do you want to discuss “change” for your family but have resistant family members?

Family Centered and Strength Focused!

Family-centered strategy meeting (FCSM) is a broad term used to describe a planning and decision-making process that includes parents, stepparents, grand parents, caregivers, children, and other service providers. It may also include extended family, friends, members of community groups, and other community partners.

What makes a family-centered strategy meeting different then the traditional approach to planning and decision-making in family support is that it applies the principles of family-centered practice to the group decision-making process.

The principles of family centered practice are:

• Everyone desires respect
• Everyone needs to be heard
• Everyone has strengths
• Judgments are set aside
• Partners share power
• Change is a process

Four more principles that are specific to Family Centered Strategy Meetings are:

• Families are experts about themselves
• Families members partner in determining solutions and making decisions
• Meetings should be set up in a way that fits with and honors the family’s culture, values and beliefs.

• Reach agreement on the issues to be addressed,
• Get the best thinking of all participants in developing agreements that offer solutions,
• Help these participants work together in carrying out the agreements.