Client: Department for Education Date: September 2025 – March 2026 Challenges faced by the client: Across England, many Designated Family Judge (DFJ) areas experience sustained delays in care proceedings, with a significant proportion of cases exceeding the 26-week statutory timeframe for completion. Delays in public law proceedings within the family justice system have significant consequences for children and families. These delays can leave children waiting for stability a

The public family justice system is a complex network of professionals, legal frameworks, and administrative bodies designed to protect children and support families. Understanding how these components interact is vital for anyone working within or navigating the court ecosystem. To provide clarity on this intricate landscape, we have developed an interactive system map that visualises the connections between key stakeholders and processes. An interactive overview of the syst

In our end‑of‑programme webinar series, we took a deep dive into the most pressing family justice and children’s social care topics, sharing learning from across the programme and the wider children’s services sector, and explored what this means for professional practice, system working, and the future of the sector. Through the series we brought together practitioners, analysts, and system leaders to explore real‑world learning, share local experiences, and examine approach

Join us for two data deep dive sessions , 24th February 1-2pm and 10th March 1-2pm. As learning from the DFJ Trailblazer Programme continues to shape thinking across the sector, many local authorities are beginning to focus on what this means for data, analysis and performance reporting. With changes on the horizon, including a new statutory pre-proceedings dataset, analysts and data leads are increasingly being asked to think ahead about how data is designed, interpreted and

In this article, Ben Rosie argues that the family justice system remains too complex and inaccessible for the families it serves. There is a need for clearer communication, more inclusive practices, and a culture that enables families to understand and participate meaningfully in decisions that shape their lives. For many families, involvement in the family court is often their first interaction with the legal system and one of the most distressing experiences they will ever

Watch our webinar where guests consider what we can learn from pathfinders. Regional Care Cooperatives (RCCs) are set to become a defining feature of the next phase of children's social care reform. While national policy is still evolving, pathfinder areas are already testing what RCCs could mean in practice - for systems, places, providers and communities. This webinar explored how leaders can plan ahead for further roll-out of RCCs, rather than waiting for final guidance to

Building on the success of the DFJ Trailblazer and Guided Learning programmes, Mutual Ventures has been commissioned by the Department for Education to help all DFJ areas in England participate in the National Learning Support programme. In a series of articles, the Mutual Ventures team summarises the DFJ Area Trailblazer Pilot, sharing insights from the five pilot areas to inform others developing their own solutions. In the fourth article, Ross Murray, explores efforts to i