Siblings - Staying Together and Connected National Implementation Group: executive summary report

Background

Relationships between siblings are uniquely important. For many, they are among our most enduring, significant, and lifelong relationships. As highlighted in The Promise^[1], contact with the care system has led to separation between brothers and sisters for too many children in Scotland. Despite an existing (pre-2021) legal presumption^[2] that children will stay together with their brothers and sisters in care wherever appropriate, research evidence^[3], and the powerful testimony of care experienced people, underscore that separation and estrangement continues, with profound lifelong consequences for many sibling relationships.

A collective commitment to change this was behind the enactment of legislative changes in 2020 and 2021^[4] to strengthen the law and protect children's rights to maintain their sibling relationships.

To aid in understanding the complexity of this work and in supporting the implementation of these legislative changes and the national practice guidance accompanying them, a Staying Together and Connected (STAC) National Implementation Group was established in November 2021. Four short-life-working-groups were also established to drive forward focused work on areas in need of particular attention, namely:

• Learning, development and leadership – to promote implementation and knowledge of the legislation at all levels within the workforce and in particular to those who have responsibilities to lead on and assess, plan and support sibling relationships.
• Scaffolding and infrastructure – to explore how structural and cultural barriers to keeping brothers and sisters together and in touch are being, or could be, overcome.
• Legal matters - to identify experienced and potential difficulties in the effective, consistent interpretation and application of the legislation.
• Data – to understand the impact of the implementation of legislation and guidance on children's experiences of staying together and connected with their brothers and sisters, and develop a baseline to measure improvement over time.

The short-life-working-groups benefitted from the insight and feedback of children and young people with lived experience to shape their work through a small participation project led by Who Cares? Scotland. Sixteen care experienced children and young people aged 6-27 years (majority aged 6-20) from a range of care settings took part in the project.

This report is intended to summarise the work of the group, the progress made, and the priorities for further work in the immediate, medium and longer term, for Scotland to continue on its journey to ensure brothers and sisters with care experience stay together and connected.