Family to Family collaborative decision making is a meeting that includes family members, foster parents (if the child is in placement), service providers, or other community representatives, the caseworker of record and often resource staff from the child welfare agency. The meeting is chaired by a trained facilitator. These staffings are generally convened when the agency is considering placement for a child, when a child has been placed in emergency foster care, or when reunification is being considered.

Collaborative decision making serves an important gate keeping function to ensure that children safely remain at home with appropriate services or, in the event that foster care placement is decided upon, to ensure that the birth parents and foster parents and the entire team begin to work cooperatively for reunification at the onset of placement.