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

6. Working together

"All this work [of The Promise Scotland] provided a basis for a new approach of collaborative implementation which is based on joint working and shared understanding."^[33]

Stakeholders – whether that be practitioners, carers and parents, or children and young people themselves – consistently told us that working together is key to supporting sibling relationships. No one person or agency can do it alone.

6.1 Children and young people

Children and young people must be at the centre of all decisions made about their lives. They have told us that they should be supported to share their views with the person they feel most comfortable with. This could be their kinship or foster carer; their social worker; their residential child care worker; their teacher; their play therapist; their children's rights officer; or any other adult in their life that they feel close to. The child's views should be sought on an ongoing basis. Practitioners and carers need to ensure the child feels supported and empowered to be part of discussions about their care and spending time with their brothers and sisters, without feeling any burden of responsibility for areas of adult decision-making. Further guidance can be found in Section 7.

6.2 Parents and carers

Parents and carers, including residential child care workers, are key partners in supporting children and ensuring their needs are met. Other than the child or young person themselves, parents and carers most likely know the child best and hold key information about the child's relationship with their brothers and sisters. They are the people who notice the impact on the child of time spent together with their brothers and sisters, and time spent apart from them. Consequently, parents and carers must be involved in planning and decision-making, including being supported to seek the child's views about spending time or keeping in touch with their sisters and brothers if they are the most appropriate person to do this. Further guidance can be found in Section 8.

Creative solutions

'When two brothers could no longer live with their mum, they were each cared for by kinship carers from their father's families (the brothers have different dads). Despite being from different "sides" of the family, the kinship carers work well together to keep the brother's relationship strong – both kinship carers have the boys for regular sleepovers meaning that 2 nights a week they are always together. The kinship carers all work really closely with the boys' social workers and contribute richly to joint meetings. The brothers' relationship has become stronger, since they moved in with kinship carers they are able to just have fun together, as when they lived at home the older brother was providing a lot of care for his younger brother. Both boys are clear that they want to continue to spend a lot of time together and this is a crucial part of their plans going forward.' (Source: Aberdeenshire Council)

6.3 Health, Education and other professionals who know the child

Social workers are a key part of the Team Around the Child's planning, and in ascertaining the child's views. However, all GIRFEC partner agencies, and particularly health and education colleagues, who often know the child and their family well, consider and contribute valuable information relating to the needs of the child and those of their family and carers. Child Planning Meetings, Looked After Child Reviews and children's care and permanence planning will be informed by the professional opinions of all practitioners involved in supporting children.

Health and education practitioners have a wealth of important information about a child's relationships with their brothers and sisters and should be asked to contribute to all relevant assessments and decision-making about this.^[34] Residential child care practitioners also have vital information and are key partners in care planning where children and young people are living in residential care.

Midwifery colleagues contribute vital information relating to pre-birth care planning. Health visitors can offer observations on the relationships that are important for pre-school children and the influence of early parenting on a child. Other health professionals involved in supporting a child's needs such as those from child mental health and speech and language therapy have a key contribution regarding the child's individual needs, those relating to their sibling relationships and how to meet these.

Early years and nursery teachers, play therapists, primary and secondary school teachers and other education staff such as classroom assistants, catering and ancillary staff can offer valuable information about the child's relationships with their sisters and brothers, how they might be affected by spending time with their siblings, the impact on them when they are not able to spend time together. They can also observe and highlight if children do not have a positive relationship with one or more of their siblings and appear to require support with this.

Virtual School Head Teachers play a vital role in promoting the educational achievement of all children looked after by the local authority. They are key individuals for Team Around the Child consultations on the educational needs of children, supporting transitions, and will usually have a link between what is happening at school and what is happening in a child's home life. The Virtual School Head Teacher should liaise with the lead professional and named person within each school to consider revisions to a child's plan and enable outcomes to be met. This may involve sourcing/commissioning or signposting to other services. This is a further opportunity for creative care planning to consider how brothers and sisters are enabled to be connected and supported through their school lives. Virtual School Head Teachers also offer an important advocacy role and route for children and young people to ensure they are involved in their own future planning relating to their learning and to represent their views accurately.

This collaborative approach ensures that all recommendations are made from an holistic, multi-disciplinary basis. This is particularly helpful when seeking legal orders to secure a child's permanent home. It also allows for a wider range of information to be available to help the child to understand their personal identity, family history and to inform life story work, later life letters and re-establishing or establishing relationships with family members.

6.4 Services within local authorities

Practitioners have told us that it is not only colleagues in social work, health, and education who are crucial in supporting the rights of siblings. Colleagues in other services, such as legal and housing, play a pivotal role in exploring and supporting options to enable children to live with their siblings. This is further discussed in Section 9.

Lack of housing space should never be the reason children cannot live with their brothers and/or sisters. Early and ongoing communication with colleagues in housing services can ensure that children and carers' needs are anticipated and recognised as soon as possible – in turn enabling children remaining together if it is appropriate for them to do so. Practitioners told us of examples of positive and creative practice that involved working together with housing colleagues to find suitable homes for children and their siblings. This involved, for example, the repurposing of existing buildings to become family homes, and the provision of funding to extend carer's homes to house a sibling group.

Practitioners also told us that early communication with colleagues in local authority legal services can ensure that such creative solutions to housing demands can be approved at an early stage and in line with correct procedure.

6.5 Cross-local authority working

There will be times when children live in different local authority areas from their sisters and brothers. When this happens, carers have told us that regular communication between local authorities is vital to ensure that the plans of all siblings are considered to support their relationships with their brothers and sisters. This is particularly important if children are at different stages in their permanence plans. Local authority practitioners and children's carers need to work closely together to ensure that children's views are taken in to account before all key decisions are made, and that the outcomes of these decisions are sensitively communicated to all children. Further guidance can be found in Section 7. Practitioners from all local authorities, family members and carers should also consider the sensitivities involved in sharing information regarding brothers and/or sisters who may not be currently known to the child, which will require careful coordination between responsible local authority services.

If children are living in different local authority areas, practitioners have told us that it is vital to agree who is responsible for organising and supporting children spending time with their brothers and sisters. If this requires a social worker to support time spent together, which local authority is responsible for this? If time together can be supported by carers, how will practitioners ensure that carers in each local authority have the emotional, practical and financial support they need to do this? If young people can spend time together themselves, which local authority or authorities are responsible for ensuring each young person has the financial support they need to travel to spend time with their brothers and sisters? Much can be learned from existing positive practice in this area. For example, many local authorities have been able to support large sibling groups across Scotland, whether that be directly in person or online, by working closely together and supporting carers (where appropriate) to facilitate this.

6.6 Cross-border working within the UK

Cross-border working between Scotland and other parts of the United Kingdom needs to be considered should a child and their parent or carer relocate to Scotland or out of Scotland. It must be clear to everyone involved which local authority holds responsibility for the care and protection of the child and therefore who is responsible for ensuring the child and their carers have the emotional, practical and financial support they need. Where parents with sisters and brothers living at home move across the UK, this requires regular review and consideration regarding how their siblings living with carers and adoptive families are enabled to stay connected.

6.7 Local guidance and clear processes

Practitioners have told us that local guidance and processes for all practitioners in the Team Around the Child are crucial for supporting positive practice. This is further discussed in Section 10.

Clear processes ensure that practitioners know what needs to happen, when, and by whom in order to uphold the rights of brothers and sisters. The focus needs to be on practical considerations and how these relate to each child and their individual circumstances. This is absolutely crucial in relation to key decisions, such as whether there are reasons that might prevent brothers and/or sisters from living together. We have heard from practitioners that this approach provides clear parameters of what needs to be done and when, which helps practice to remain focused on the child's needs and for decisions to be made without any unnecessary delay.