Family Group Conference in New

Family Group Conference in New Zealand

New Zealand launched a revolutionary and visionary package of legislation in 1989 called the Children, Young Persons and their Families Act - and from that bill the Family Group Conference (FGC) was born. The notion setting the stage for this new law was that there was a need for far greater participation by family members and community members when there is an instance of youthful lawbreaking. In terms of the management of the child from that point on, and discipline the child should receive, and the cultural and social implications of the process of justice, the FGC was viewed as not only important but also vitally necessary. It was, as Nicola Atwool and Cindy Kiro of the Office of Children's Commissioner explain, "a radical change," and moreover, it set an "international precedent for the involvement of children and families in decisions affecting them" (Atwool, et al., 2006).

The Family Group Conference concept was, as this paper will illustrate and detail, far more than just a new way of meting out justice in New Zealand. Indeed, as Atwood and Kiro of the government explain, it provided a way of officially coping with "the insidious nature of institutional racism"; the FGC indeed was a way of providing a culturally sensitive approach to the management of children. Further, the new law was to provide full participation by the Maori community in matters of social justice with reference to their young people and the existing laws.