Webinar: extra-familial risks and harms, trauma-informed responses, and the implications for family courts

Young people’s experiences of extra-familial risks and harms (EFRH) – including exploitation, abuse or criminality – may be both a cause and consequence of trauma. In recognition of this, many children’s social care departments have sought to develop more effective responses to EFRH through developing new organisational systems and practice approaches.

As part of the ESRC funded Innovate Project, researchers at Sussex and Durham Universities have been examining innovations to address EFRH in six sites around the country, as well as exploring emergent themes through a wider learning and development network of statutory and voluntary social care organisations.

In this webinar

The researchers will discuss the emergent findings from this work, with particular consideration of two sites who are adopting a trauma-informed approach. Specifically, they will reflect on learning to date that is of relevance to those working in the family justice sector, setting out:

a) How does innovation differ from incremental practice or system improvements and what will enable it to flourish and sustain over time?

b) How can trauma-informed approaches be used to create both internal and external safety for young people affected by EFRH, and what role may secure care play in this respect?

c) Whether young people affected by EFRH are ‘known-by’ professionals, or ‘known-to’ services, and the implications of this for building relationships of trust and collaboration in which children’s wishes and feelings can be fully considered in care-planning processes.

There will be an opportunity to participate in a discussion panel at the end.

Tuesday 17 May 2022
16:30 – 18:00

With speakers:

Professor Michelle Lefevre, University of Sussex 

Professor Carlene Firmin, Durham University

Book places here.