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A B S T R AC TThe use of family group decision-making (FGDM) in child protection is rapidly increasing throughout the world. This paper provides a brief overview of the research evidence from 1996 to 2005 and proposes future directions for both practice and research. The purpose of the review is to help move the discussion of FGDM from a promising practice to an evidence-based practice. The research review considers what is known about the child welfare outcomes of FGDM. The paper then turns to research concerning which families are offered FGDM and which FGDM processes appear to be important. The paper concludes with specific suggestions for developing FGDM programmes that can improve child protection practice and then testing these specific programmes in rigorous trials. Research Review: Family group decision-making D CramptonChild and Family Social Work 2007, 12, pp 202-209

This study examines how changes in the social and economic structure of neighborhoods relate to changes in child maltreatment report rates over an extended period. The panel study design allows us to partition the changes in child maltreatment report rates into a portion associated with how the levels of socio-economic risk factors have changed over time, and a portion related to how the relative importance of those factors in explaining maltreatment report rates has changed over time. Through the application of fixed effects panel models, the analysis is also able to control for unmeasured time-invariant characteristics of neighborhoods that may be a source of bias in cross-sectional studies. The study finds that increases in vacant housing, single parent families and unemployment rates are strongly associated with increases in child maltreatment report rates. Changes in racial/ethnic composition did not produce changes in maltreatment report rates except when they reached extreme levels of segregation. Although poverty rates were predictive of cross-sectional variation in child maltreatment, increases in neighborhood poverty became less associated with increases in child maltreatment report rates over time.

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