Reducing Delays in Care Proceedings: Helping Children and Families Navigate the System

 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 fifth article, Ross Murray, explores efforts to better support children and families to navigate the system. 

The Family Justice System is complex, with persistent delays in proceedings impacting outcomes for children and families. Such delays often leave children waiting for stability and increase pressure on both families and professionals.

The Designated Family Judge Area (DFJ) Trailblazers Pilot Programme was launched to address these delays by helping local authorities in five DFJ areas to identify causes of delay and develop solutions to improve the management of public law care proceedings.  

The five Trailblazers were:

• Central London 

• Cheshire and Merseyside 

• Essex, Suffolk, Southend-On-Sea and Thurrock (ESST) 

• Guildford 

• Wolverhampton

  
  

With support from Mutual Ventures, the Trailblazers addressed shared challenges through solutions spanning five key thematic areas.

This article provides an overview of the fifth theme: Helping children and families navigate the system.

The journey of a family in the public family justice system typically involves four main stages: initial local authority involvement, the Public Law Outline (PLO) pre-proceedings process, formal court proceedings, and post-order arrangements. This process is often confusing and distressing for families.

Existing Challenges

For many families, entering the Family Justice system can be extremely overwhelming.  It is important to acknowledge the profound emotional impact of these proceedings.

Although the law says that most public law cases should be finished within 26 weeks, this target is rarely met. Sometimes this is necessary to ensure that the right outcomes are achieved, compared to rushing and getting it wrong. However, it is common for there to be drift and uncertainty, which can have an agonising effect on the child and family.  Drift means a child does not know where they will be living at Christmas. It means uncertainty about whether they will have to leave their school and friends next term. It is this state of limbo that is detrimental to a child’s well-being and creates unbearable pressure for families already grappling with issues and vulnerabilities such as substance misuse, mental health concerns, or domestic abuse.

These factors make effective engagement with the court process profoundly difficult. Although legal representation is generally provided in public law, parents often report feeling excluded, distressed, and dehumanised by the adversarial nature of contested hearings, and being “put on trial”. The intense process, coupled with continuous scrutiny from multiple organisations, exacerbates existing stress and compromises a parent's capacity to participate fully, or support their child through the proceedings.

Beyond the fear, there is a distinct "knowledge gap." The process is incredibly difficult to understand for those without legal training. Parents and young people frequently struggle to find simple answers to their questions or clear guidance on what is expected of them. This confusion, coupled with barriers such as language skills or learning difficulties, exacerbates stress and compromises a parent's capacity to participate fully or support their child.

Across the Trailblazer areas, there were challenges with family engagement. The Trailblazers reported a lack of accessible, supportive communication and clear documentation for families. Another challenge was fragmented support. Resources, advocacy, and support for parents and kinship carers varied widely between local authorities, leading to gaps in engagement and understanding during care proceedings. Families often lacked dedicated support to help them navigate the complex care proceedings system.

Trailblazer Solutions Developed 

The Trailblazer areas implemented a range of targeted initiatives to enhance family support and improve engagement within the family justice system. A common thread was to involve parents in the design and delivery of support.

In Wolverhampton, this insight was used to redesign official communication, specifically the Letter before Proceedings, to ensure it was both supportive and clear about the seriousness of the situation. They systematically reviewed all documentation sent to parents and produced professional development materials to enhance practitioner empathy and understanding of family perspectives. Wolverhampton worked closely with Experts by Experience (parents with lived experience) to redesign the Letter before Proceedings to be supportive yet clear about its seriousness. They systematically reviewed all documentation sent to parents, incorporating feedback from those with lived experience. Podcasts and professional development materials were also produced with input from parents part of Telford and Wrekin’s Dandelion group to improve practitioner understanding of family perspectives. A new forum for engaging children and young people with lived experience was also established.

Another approach involved the establishment of enhanced family navigation and advocacy services. Central London piloted external parental advocacy services, mirroring a successful external model in Telford, and developed accessible animations to demystify complex pre-proceedings and court processes, directly addressing known barriers to engagement. Similarly, ESST hired dedicated Family Support Workers across their local authorities. These workers provided targeted, early intervention support aimed at reducing unnecessary progression to court and improving overall navigation of the care proceedings system for families and children.

Finally, other areas concentrated on delivering comprehensive and specialist support. Cheshire and Merseyside developed multi-faceted support with organisations like Warrington Speak Up and Kinship to address diverse family needs.

Lessons learnt

Drawing on the experience of the Trailblazer areas and wider system-improvement efforts, several key lessons emerge for effectively supporting families as they navigate the family justice system:

• Put families and children at the centre. This goes beyond mere consultation; it requires systemic co-production by involving parents in redesigning processes and documents. Involve parents in redesigning processes and documents, and make information clear and accessible.  

• Advocacy and early support make a difference. The use of external advocacy services, as piloted in Central London, is crucial for helping vulnerable parents understand the complexity of the process and participate meaningfully, thereby reducing feelings of exclusion. Just as the use of dedicated support workers was vital for delivering early intervention to address the needs of families before proceedings became entrenched in ESST. 

• Parent/children forums. Parent and child forums play a pivotal role in shaping effective family support by ensuring that the authentic voices of parents and children are heard and acted upon. These forums provide feedback and can influence the development of support materials and services, making them responsive to the needs of families. For instance, in Telford, the Dandelions group was instrumental in tailoring resources so that they genuinely reflected the experiences and requirements of both children and parents. Where such forums are absent, there is a significant risk that support tools and training become overly professional-led, potentially overlooking the real-life challenges families face and diminishing the impact of support provided. 

• Professional alignment is crucial. All professionals should focus on the child’s welfare and use consistent, child-centred approaches. Lessons from wider reforms highlight the need for improved data collection and a clear accountability structure across the fragmented system to monitor performance, measure the long-term impact of interventions, and ensure cases are resolved swiftly and fairly, as delay is almost always detrimental to the child's welfare. 

Initial Impact

The initial impact of the Trailblazer initiatives on families navigating the care proceedings system demonstrates a clear improvement in engagement and a shift towards more supportive relationships with professionals. These efforts enhanced families' understanding of the care proceedings process and improved their access to necessary information.  

Key to this success was the authentic involvement of Experts by Experience in redesigning documentation and resources, which led to more accessible and supportive communication. This work aimed to help families feel more supported and better equipped to navigate the complexities of the system, reducing traditional barriers to participation and improving overall attendance and contribution in proceedings.

Across the Trailblazer areas, the focus on practical support directly contributed to enhanced family engagement. Initiatives like the redesign of official and the development of accessible guides and animation resources helped demystify the complex court framework and empower families.

The provision of specialist support, such as targeted advocacy and dedicated Family Support Workers, plugged support gaps. This consistent, early intervention and advocacy not only empowered families to participate effectively but, in some cases, led to a reduction in unnecessary formal court involvement by addressing issues earlier.

Finally, the positive effects were felt by practitioners as well as families. Social workers reported that the improved communication and clearer expectations fostered more positive and collaborative relationships with parents.

These initial outcomes indicate that a system built on clarity, early advocacy, and the active inclusion of the family’s perspective can fundamentally transform engagement, creating a more supportive environment essential for achieving better outcomes for children.

What is happening next?

Improvement in Family Justice is an ongoing journey, and the value of collaboration and shared purpose is clear.

The National Learning Support Programme is now open to all DFJ areas, offering support to identify challenges and co-design solutions. If you’d like to join the next cohort, starting in January 2026, contact kate.copeland@mutualventures.co.uk.