Concerted efforts will need to be made to identify and link families with community resources. A principle is that family involvement in developing the case plan and identifying needed assistance directly correlates to their willingness to support and accept the services provided. As probably will be experienced by U.S. communities, the most frequent request for assistance in New Zealand is that of financial subsidies to care for the children. In addition to the assumption that families will more likely implement a plan they developed, another presumption is that families will monitor the plans more thoroughly than social workers. It is reported that minimal monitoring functions have been built into New Zealand's implementation of the FGC model.
Monitoring is such a critical method of ensuring child safety and well-being.
It must be a strong component of any U.S. child welfare agency implementing FGDM processes, for it remains child welfare's authority to protect children from maltreatment. Private family time. Explicit consideration of family strengths. In the Family Unity model, there is a separate stage to discuss family strengths that relate to the presenting concern. If there is discussion about strengths during a Family Group Conference, it most probably occurs during either the information-sharing stage or the family's private deliberation.