Hybrid child protection conferences in England: a scoping and practice development project

Are you a social care professional involved in the delivery of child protection conferences? If so, we would like to hear from you.

The University of East Anglia and King’s College London, in collaboration with Research in Practice, are undertaking a scoping study of arrangements for child protection conferences across England. We want to learn about how hybrid arrangements are being implemented and how they work for children, parents and professionals.

We would like to speak to:

• Child Protection Case Conference Chairs
• Children’s social workers 
• Principal Social Workers.

Regional workshops will be held on the following dates. 

You can only attend the workshop for your region. Each workshop will have 70 places. These will be allocated on a first come, first served basis, with a minimum of three places available for each local authority. The closing date for signing up for the regional workshops is 26 September 2025.

By participating in this online session facilitated by Research in Practice, you will help us to better understand current practice, innovations and challenges of child protection conferences across England. You will have an opportunity to share your knowledge and experiences with the research team and to hear from other social care professionals about practice within their local authority or Children’s Trust.

During the sessions we will discuss the hybrid arrangements in place in your regional area and work together to identify key themes to inform the research. Later in the project, Research in Practice will work with University of East Anglia and King's College London to develop practice tools to support hybrid child protection conferences.

If you have any questions, please contact us.