Staying together and connected: getting it right for sisters and brothers: national practice guidance

8. Supporting families

"Children, families and the workforce must be supported by a system that is there when it is needed. The scaffolding of help, support and accountability must be ready and responsive when it is required."^[44]

This Section considers what all parents and carers need to support the relationships between children with care experience and their brothers and/or sisters, to care for brothers and/or sisters who live together, and to support the relationships of those who live apart. Sometimes, for example, the support a kinship carer needs will be different to that which a parent, foster carer, or prospective adopter needs, and vice versa. Specific support required by different caregivers is therefore also considered.

Parents, kinship carers, foster carers and prospective adoptive parents are significant members of the Team Around the Child. Their respective biological and relationship bonds are uniquely influential in shaping and understanding a child's individual experience. Parents and carers hold vital information about a child's personal story, experiences, behaviours, and preferences. All members of the Team Around the Child have distinct and crucial roles. Welcoming, empowering, valuing, listening to and including parents and carers in decision-making enables a fuller assessment of a child's needs, and enhanced, solution-focused partnership thinking and action on how to best meet these needs.

8.1 What helps parents and carers?

Parents and carers are key influencers of a child's wellbeing. Establishing working relationships of respect, trust and mutual communication between parents, carers, and practitioners from all agencies supporting a family strengthens the security of children's lifelong links with the people who are most important to them, including their relationships with brothers and sisters.

Caring for and supporting relationships between brothers and/or sisters who have experienced complex trauma requires nurture, stamina, knowledge, skill and teamwork. Support for those who care for children is crucial to ensure they can provide the nurturing parenting that children with brothers and/or sisters require. When children are living away from home, their parents also crucially require support and care to be heard and understood, and to enable their children to have positive relationships with one another.

The need to support positive working relationships with parents and carers from the earliest stages of working with families and throughout a child's time of being supported in care cannot be overemphasised. It is a key theme throughout the Sections of this guidance and epitomises the call of The Promise that:

"The workforce needs support, time and care to develop and maintain relationships. Scotland must hold the hands of those who hold the hand of the child."^[45]

8.2 Emotional and practical support

Practitioners being enabled to dedicate time to support birth, kinship, foster and adoptive families is critical to maintaining the stability of family life for the child at the centre, and to safeguard the wellbeing of everyone in a household.

Multi-agency practitioners in the Team Around the Child must be enabled to acknowledge that caring for sibling groups asks much of kinship, foster and adoptive families, practically and emotionally. Alongside this is the essential recognition that kinship and foster carers cannot always reach out for emotional support from wider family members as they cannot share confidential information about the child or children in their care.

Families need practitioners who notice, and are prepared to listen to and talk through, signs of pressure and stress, before these impact on adults' health (both physical and mental) and inevitably impact on the children in their care.

The right support, both practical and psychological, is essential, particularly during times of tension and strain when a calm perspective, advice and coaching can help change things immensely. Practitioners must have resources available to them to invite other colleagues with additional specialist knowledge and therapeutic skills to help and work alongside them in supporting families, carers and children. For example, colleagues from child mental health, early years, child development, therapeutic play, disability and speech and language therapy.

Building a community of formal and informal support is needed to offer continuous help, safeguard family stability and help to prevent strain and fragility developing. Support offered and provided by extended family and friends can be identified and agreed upon during early family meetings within Family Group Decision Making approaches and consideration of bespoke models, such as the Mockingbird model.

Strengths-based supervision, peer connection and wellbeing opportunities should be provided for carers and adoptive families during the early planning for a child's move to a kinship, foster or adoptive family and regularly reviewed and sustained to ensure that the right support is in place for the child and their family.

Practical support, including the necessary financial support, is vital to ensure parents and carers can enable brothers and/or sisters to live together, spend time together, and stay connected.

Carers should be asked to support sibling relationships, but there should not be an expectation that they do so without sufficient guidance and support. This needs to be specified within both children's and carers' care plans. For example, some carers may be able to also care for other children in their homes and for other carers this may pose challenges, especially if there are complex family dynamics involved. It should be made clear what emotional, financial and practical supports will be made available to carers to support sibling relationships. No carer should be in financial hardship because of supporting their child's relationships with their brothers and sisters.

Every situation is different, but all parents and carers will benefit from consideration and provision of whatever it takes to create and enable time for children to connect with their siblings and to manage children's transitions to and from family time with brothers and/or sisters living in separate places. These are important times for a child who is potentially experiencing a whole mix of emotions, including excitement, anxiety, anger and sadness. Help with transport arrangements can be key. While some young people's personal development and circumstances enable them to meet with their brothers and sisters independently, infants and children travelling unaccompanied (including in taxis) to and from meeting with their siblings (or any other kind of activity) is to be avoided^[46].

8.3 Understanding legal responsibilities and rights

Everyone involved in a child's care must understand their legislative duties and responsibilities, their parental and professional remit, and their professional and relationship boundaries. All parents and carers require accessible information to ensure they are upholding the rights of children in relation to their brothers and sisters and meeting their responsibilities.

Corporate parents have specific duties to safeguard and promote the wellbeing of children and young people with care experience. Corporate parents are an important source of information and advice to practitioners, parents and carers in understanding their legal responsibilities and children and young people's rights.

A number of organisations can provide information to children and young people on understanding their rights and supports available to them. This includes advocacy organisations such as Who Cares? Scotland, social work teams and Through Care and Aftercare teams. Legal agencies include Clan Childlaw, Children and Young People's Commissioner Scotland and the Scottish Child Law Centre.

'Family is family, they can't be wiped out or replaced. Bowlby didn't just talk about attachment, he talked about separation and loss. But we don't talk about this or consider it, despite children in care having their whole lives centred around separation and loss. It has a lifelong impact – we need carers and professionals to be aware of this. The reverberations are huge if not addressed.' (Source: Parent responding to survey to inform guidance)

8.4 Understanding trauma

As well as the impact on children, complex trauma plays a significant role in affecting parents' and carers' circumstances and their abilities to provide safe, nurturing care. How a practitioner anticipates, prepares for and pays attention to the expression and behaviours of fear, anger, guilt, loss and confusion that parents may experience around their child being cared for away from them, is the basis from which to develop the foundations of respect, trust and constructive working relationships.

Where a child is unable to live with them, birth parents require clear information about who their child will be living with (where possible) and support to understand if and how they can return to caring for their child as soon as possible with access to the help they need. This includes help with social security support; practical needs; housing; and support with their own experiences of complex trauma and health needs.

Parents and carers who were consulted on the scope of this guidance highlighted that to have the experience of being a valued member of the Team Around the Child, and in developing support plans for brothers and sisters, parents and carers need:

• compassion, respect, and to feel listened to
• clear reasons for the decision that a child cannot live at home
• clear explanations as to what parental behaviour is required to change and why before a child can be returned home
• advice on legal rights and how to access legal and advocacy help
• clarity over arrangements for connecting with people who are important to the child, such as their brothers and sisters and other significant family members
• clear explanation and regular review of the child's needs during care planning meetings and support to understand and meet the needs of the child in their care
• inclusion, respect and agency during Team Around the Child meetings, with accessibility needs anticipated, explored and provided for (e.g., a 'buddy'; literacy support; transport to and from meetings and/or choice of meeting location)
• a clear record of actions/agreements at the end of any meetings related to the child's care
• provision of necessary practical support for carers throughout the child's time in kinship or foster care (including social security support; practical needs; housing; support with their own experiences of complex trauma and health needs)
• practical help to support children to connect with their brothers and sisters living in other care settings from their own including kinship, foster and residential care or with adoptive families.
• During the engagement conducted in preparation for this guidance, carers and adoptive parents told us that to provide high quality care for brothers and sisters, the Team Around the Child (and, where applicable, support agencies) must:
• empower and support carers to make the day-to-day practical decisions around arranging time together between the child in their care with their brothers and sisters
• provide sensitive support, introductions and practical assistance to connect carers with parents, including adoptive parents, and other kinship and foster carers looking after a child's brothers and sisters
• help carers to be creative in choosing places for siblings to meet
• offer and arrange to facilitate time together for young brothers and/or sisters led by play leaders, and group activities for older brothers and sisters. This would enable carers to have time together (with other carers or for themselves) while the brothers and sisters in their care have family time together
• provide care for the other children in the family to help carers to support brothers and sisters in their care to have their family time together
• ensure that carers and adoptive parents have access to supportive life story work for the children in their care, and are equipped to answer children's questions about their personal history and who and where their brothers and sisters are.

Creative solutions

'Seven siblings became looked after through emergency child protection proceedings. By rapidly arranging additional furniture etc., we were able to ensure five children stayed together with experienced foster carers, whilst the other two children were placed with the sister of the foster carers (who herself is also a foster carer). The match was an excellent one, supported by the close contact the children have together informally as arranged by the two carers, as well as formally through the social work department.

With a high level of coordinated support, for the children, but also for their mum who worked closely with social workers and the foster carers, after a year all children were able to live back at home with their mum.' (Source: Perth & Kinross Council)

8.5 Listening to and supporting kinship carers: what else helps?

"Whatever the mode of arrangement, Scotland must ensure that children living in kinship care get the support they need to thrive. Kinship must be actively explored as a positive place for children to be cared for."^[47]

Kinship carers face unique challenges in caring for children whose parents are often family members. Practitioners need to anticipate the personal complexities kinship carers can experience with their extended family members (often their own adult children) being unable to care for their children.

Practitioners must ensure kinship carers have a clear understanding of the expectations of them in supporting brother and sister relationships, and that training and support (practical, emotional and financial) commensurate with the child/ren's and carer's needs are provided to them, whatever the legal status of the kinship arrangement.

Creative solutions

'Can the guidance recognise that parents and carers also have siblings, that can help the little siblings. Aunties, uncles, wider family support. We need to role model sibling relationships and utilise wider family networks. It's a win win and such an obvious thing.' (Kinship Carer responding to pre-guidance survey)

Creative solutions

'We supported a family of eight children who had specific cultural needs due to their travelling family background. The children became subject to Compulsory Measures of Supervision through the Children's Hearing, and their grandparents became kinship carers. Their grandparents provided excellent care, but required some support in some areas. Through the Team Around the Child and utilising a corporate parenting approach, we supported the grandparents with their literacy so they were able to provide support from the children's education. As they lived in a three bedroom flat, the housing department converted the next-door flat to create one large home. This enabled the family to stay together in their community and at their school. The grandparents have since applied for and been granted a Residence Order for all the children.' (Source: Perth & Kinross Council)

8.6 Listening to and supporting foster carers: what else helps?

"Foster carers must feel valued, cared for and supported to care."^[48]

Foster carers have an important role in helping children to maintain family relationships^[49]. Foster carer assessment and preparation must have a clear expectation that brothers and/or sisters who need care and protection are placed together in foster families, unless there are clear reasons why this would not be right for the child. Further guidance on how to understand and assess these reasons is in Section 10.

The recruitment, selection and assessment of foster carers should emphasise a carer's responsibility to promote and support children's family time with their brothers and sisters who do not live with them, and an understanding that very often this may take place in the foster carers' home. Facilitating family time with siblings is recognised and acknowledged as an integral part of a carer's role, with the expectation that the wider Team Around the Child will enable necessary support to be provided to help carers to make this happen.

The ways in which foster carers are supported and prepared to meet the needs of brothers and/or sisters are key. Caring for groups of brothers and/or sisters together can be challenging and complex, and in addition to the ideas and information contained in Section 8 to support caregivers to nurture and strengthen relationships between brothers and/or sisters, foster carers themselves will require practical and emotional support to be able to manage both the practical and family/relationship issues present when caring for siblings.^[50]

Creative solutions

'Three sisters were initially separated between two households (due to availability of placements, rather than an assessment evidencing this would be best for them). The younger sisters especially were very unsettled, and only calm during their visits with their big sister. The carer for the older sister was only approved to care for two children, but felt she could meet all three sister's needs. Following discussion, the carers approval was amended, and after time and negotiation about the right support package, the carer has now adopted the three children.' (Source: Barnardo's Scotland)

8.7 Listening to and supporting adoptive parents: what else helps?

"Adoptive parents must have access to support at any point during the life of their child if they require it. That support must be available even if it was not initially required and must mirror the principles of intensive family support."^[51]

Reflection, curiosity, anticipation and flexibility are required when thinking about brother and/or sister groups during permanence planning. The potential separation of younger children by adoption with the view that permanent fostering may be more appropriate for older brothers and sisters requires careful consideration.

A child's relationships with their brothers and sisters should be embedded in adoption policy and practice at each stage.^[52] Throughout the assessment and preparation for adoption, the presumption is that brothers and/or sisters who need care and protection will be cared for together, and wherever possible, if it is in the best interests of the child, with the same adoptive family.

Prospective adopters may require support to understand and accept an adoptive parent's responsibility to promote and support children's relationships with their brothers and sisters who do not live with them. This must be recognised as an integral responsibility of adopting a child, with the expectation that the child's local authority and adoption agency will provide necessary post-adoption support to help adoptive parents to ensure this can happen.

The needs of siblings must be discussed with all adoptive parents, whether they are adopting a sibling group or not. Even where adopters are adopting a child who does not have brothers or sisters, new brothers and sisters may be born in the future, and the expectations associated with this must be clear from the earliest possible stage.

Adopting a group of brothers and/or sisters can be both emotionally and financially challenging, and adoptive parents may require substantial additional support to help the family.^[53] This will look different depending on the needs of children and their adoptive parents, but should include:

• help to understand the child's life history (including pre-birth) and holistic development
• help to understand and manage the child's behavioural and relationship dynamics
• support with practical arrangements for seeing/spending time with brothers and sisters who live elsewhere
• access and work with professional therapeutic and health support for the child and the adoptive parents)
• have all known information, including medical information, about the child they adopt to provide compassionately attuned, trauma-informed and responsive relationship-based parenting
• are provided with comprehensive and regular training on the developmental needs of children who have experienced complex trauma
• peer support from other adopters where desired.

Creative solutions

'We have a family group of four children where one child is placed with his grandmother, another child is in permanent fostering, another is in kinship care out with Scotland and one child (who is now six years old) is adopted with local authority adopters. Direct contact has continued regularly with the older three siblings (which includes the child who is adopted) and is arranged between all of the children's carers. This has given the six-year-old a real sense of who his birth family are, he has positive relationships with them but is also very much part of his adoptive family.' (Source: Local authority response to guidance preparation survey)