The Family Rights Group proposes that some criminal cases involving 10- to 15-year-olds be transferred to the family law system if the young person’s behaviour can be attributed to their home circumstances or to neglectful or abusive parenting.
Such a move would divert scores of children away from the criminal justice system.
The organisation also proposes that at the child protection stage of family law proceedings, families should be routinely offered a family group conference.
This would promote a partnership between the local authority and the child’s extended wider family, who would be supported to take a lead in drawing up a safe plan for a child at risk.
Cathy Ashley, chief executive of the Family Rights Group, said this would save money and increase the numbers of children remaining within their families.
She said research shows that about a third of local authorities in England do not offer family group conferences, while others do so only at the discretion of individual social workers.
"Recent research we have carried out shows that within six local authorities offering family group conferences, 206 children have been prevented from entering the care system or been safely returned to their families at a saving of about £9m," Ashley said.
"We are calling for it to be a right of all children and their families to be offered a family group conference prior to them being taken into care."
Further proposals for change include pushing for earlier "threshold criteria" findings in legal proceedings – the minimum standard to be met in determining whether a child is at risk of harm as a result of their family circumstances.
They also propose judicial continuity, so that the same judge hears all parts of a care proceedings case.