arents may decline this and the reason should be recorded. • Parental representation should enable, support or advocate for the parent and representatives must have the skills, knowledge and understanding to support parents. Areas must set out the arrangements for appointing representatives and provide appropriate support and training. • Parental representatives should be independent of the operational and/or line management responsibilities for the child’s case, including models of parental representation that might be commissioned from other organisations. • Must work with parents, including those with lived experience of child protection, to design and deliver the service. • Must develop and implement a plan for engaging harder to reach parents such as male parents/carers. • Must clarify how they plan to work with parents where the harm is extra -familial and where parents are a protective factor (e.g. exploitation). Family Networks • Our vision is that every child’s right to a family life is prioritised wherever possible. Family networks are essential in supporting families to stay together and thrive. When this is not possible, they can themselves offer a safe, loving and stable family home and keep children out of local authority care. • We want to create a culture where family networks are actively involved from family help and at every stage throughout the children’s social care system. Children and families should be supported to identify who in their family network could be a source of support and these networks should be empowered to help and support parents and children when they are struggling. To achieve this, we want to: • Give family-led plans a central position in practitioners’ plans wherever possible. • Offer and embed family group decision-making (FG