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

7. Listening and Talking with children

"Many reports – over many years – have exhorted us to listen to the voices and experiences of children and young people. Nowhere is this more needed than in respect of siblings. Children and young people have much to tell us about the importance of brothers and sisters in their lives."^[35]

To ensure children's rights are safeguarded, children's views must be understood, listened to, and responded to, particularly with respect to:

• who their brothers and sisters are
• where they should live
• how they should be looked after
• how and when they should keep in touch (if they do not live together)

7.1 Listening to children

In "The Promise'', the Independent Care Review clearly articulates the need for Scotland to do more to listen to and involve children in decision-making about their lives. To feel safe, respected and feel their views will be valued, children need strong, positive relationships with the adults who care for and about them. Developing nurturing, trusting and respectful relationships with children is the cornerstone of providing the best care possible, and these relationships are crucial to ensuring children's views can be shared and are acted upon.^[36]

Furthermore, where children have experienced trauma and other adversity, they may require additional help and support from trusted adults to feel safe to express their views.

7.2 Children's experience of trauma

Many children, including those with care experience, have experienced complex trauma. Complex trauma is substantively different to other forms of trauma such as, for example, the physical and emotional trauma of being involved in a car accident. Occurring in the context of infants and children's closest relationships, and happening repeatedly over time, complex trauma can greatly influence what a child feels, understands and communicates about themselves and their world and, crucially, their relationships with others.

From cradle to grave, humans are strongly influenced by two basic needs: our need for survival and our need to connect with others. For most children, most of the time, these needs are met in the context of safe, loving and predictable care. However, for children who experience complex trauma, these two needs are often set at odds with one another.

Where a child's primary carers are their main source of survival but also their source of harm (unintentional or intentional), children can experience overwhelming and prolonged feelings of fear, disconnection and abandonment. This can lead to complicated interpersonal relationships and it is likely that core developmental skills, particularly the ability to manage emotions (self-regulate) and build a 'sense of personal agency' will be compromised.

For children who have experienced complex trauma, relationships within families can be far from straightforward. This means that practitioners need to be emotionally attuned in how they observe a child's needs, have good knowledge of the individual and family dynamics, and be sensitive to how the issues are explored to ensure that children are enabled to feel safe enough to speak to a trusted adult. A child feeling safe is not just the result of an absence of danger.

Establishing with whom and where a child feels a sense of physical and psychological calm, balance, and connection with others, is important in helping them to navigate and control their own emotions, to develop a sense of themselves and a sense of belonging. This skilful work needs to go beyond simply asking what a child feels or wants or removing them from immediate, physical harm. For those caring for and working with children living with complex trauma, communication requires a deep understanding of the impact of trauma for each individual child.

The shared ambition of the Scottish Government, COSLA and partners is for a trauma-informed and trauma-responsive workforce across Scotland, ensuring that services and care are delivered in ways that prevent further harm or re-traumatisation for children, young people or adults affected by psychological trauma, and supports their own unique journey of recovery. An investment of over £2m to date, in the National Trauma Training Programme, led by NES, is key to driving this ambition.

The National Trauma Training Programme provides evidence-based trauma training resources that can help raise awareness, knowledge and confidence among our workforce to embed trauma-informed practice based on the key principles of safety, trust, choice, empowerment and collaboration. It also provides a model for trauma-informed organisations, systems, policies and environments that are able to recognise and adapt to the ways that the impact of trauma can affect people.

A key priority for the programme in 2021/22 is to continue to work with organisations who support care experienced babies, children and young people to ensure the principles of trauma-informed care are embedded throughout the care system, aligning closely with The Promise. This will include an increased focus on rolling out trauma enhanced level training for the Social Work workforce as part of an advanced practice framework.

7.3 Ascertaining the views of children

To explore children's views about their relationships with their brothers and sisters, a starting point may be to: ask who the people are they view as their siblings, and; listen carefully to how they describe them.

Where appropriate for their age and developmental stage, using drawing activities which illustrate who in their family lives where, and who they see or would like to see may enable children to express how they feel. It is essential to listen to the child's views about how they relate to one another within the wider family, what they like about them, what is going well, what they might like to change, and any worries they have.

Relationships between sisters and/or brothers change over time. This may be simply through the passage of time, or because situations arise which cause views to shift. It is important not only to listen to children's views about their brothers and sisters once, but to pay attention to the possibility that these may change, and revisit the topic regularly, in a way which is natural and feels comfortable for the child.

7.4 Different communication needs

Children's relationships with their brothers and sisters must be valued and understood from their own perspective, whilst retaining an awareness of the child's history, experiences, and possible impact of these.

All behaviour is communication. Children are not always able to express their wishes verbally, so recognising non-verbal communication is crucial.^[37] For example, observing and considering a child's behaviour before, during and after they spend time with their sisters and brothers. Careful thought and discussion with others in the Team Around the Child (including parents and/or carers) is important before attaching meaning to behaviours.

The views of infants and young children must also be attended to without a reliance on verbal communication. Again, observation and an understanding of the child's history and developmental trauma experienced (including pre-birth) are key, including colleagues with specialisms such as infant mental health, early years and developmental play and considering factors such as:

• facial expressions
• body language
• responsiveness to play and interactions
• initiating play and interactions
• responses to sensory triggers such as touch, smell, sounds (including voices)
• where/from whom children seek reassurance or comfort^[38]

If children are living apart, the observations of those who support the time they spend together (including parents and carers) are key to being able to interpret what their sibling means to an infant.

Children must be supported to identify the significant relationships with family members that are important to them. This will require particularly careful attention where children have disabilities. There can be conscious or unconscious attitudinal barriers regarding the significance of children with disabilities seeing family members, sometimes alongside limited opportunities or attempts to seek and listen to children's views.^[39]

Children with disabilities will need positive and sensitive relationships with adults who provide the time and support required to understand their views and wishes in relation to their siblings. This will enable these views to be effectively understood and represented. Building trust and working directly with children is a priority, but we must also listen to those they trust and who understand their communication, behaviour and are best able to represent them. This may require specialist input, training, or partnership working with other agencies, but most importantly it requires us to take time to listen to the child themselves.

7.5 Further ideas for understanding how children feel

Given the wide range of circumstances, preferences and needs of children, and their right to be heard, it is not possible to provide here a definitive list of the range of ways in which views can be ascertained. Creative approaches to understanding the views and needs of children can be helpful. These could include reading or creating a story about brothers and sisters; choosing photos, images or emojis that represent their views; drawing pictures about brothers and sisters; or using puppets and dolls to prompt and encourage storytelling.

Some children and young people may prefer individual time with a trusted adult to reflect on their relationships, their experiences, their hopes and their worries.

Children and young people communicate their views to the people around them, through what they say and do, their words and behaviour. The role of the Team Around the Child in sharing the responsibility for listening to and understanding the child's views is crucial. This includes family members, carers, teachers, social workers, health and early years professionals and any other professionals involved in the child's care with whom the child may share their views on the relationships with their sisters and brothers.

7.6 Understanding and communicating decisions

In "The Promise'' the Independent Care Review is clear that the starting point for any decision must be how to best protect relationships that are important to children.^[40] Children's views and feelings must be a central part of decision-making. It is a matter of upholding their human rights that their views are considered and given appropriate weight. Sometimes this will mean that their wishes can be followed, but this may not always be the case. The overarching duty of a local authority is to safeguard and promote the child's welfare, and there may be circumstances in which implementing children's views and wishes would contradict this duty.

Decisions made by adults who are responsible for the welfare of a child must respect and enable the child's individual choice and agency whilst protecting the child from any burden of guilt or responsibility for the outcome.

Children need support to understand how their views have influenced decisions and plans and why these decisions and plans have been made. Decisions should be clearly and carefully communicated and explained to children in a way which best meets their individual needs, by a person the child trusts. Children and young people should be encouraged to ask questions about the things they do not understand, and to seek reassurance and clarification (repeatedly if necessary) following a decision being made. If decisions are poorly communicated, children will struggle to understand why their views were sought at all, possibly leading to a breakdown in trust and potentially how, when and if a child shares their thoughts and feelings in the future.^[41]

Creative solutions

'Young people can require strong advocacy to make sure their rights are upheld. We supported two older siblings who lived with foster carers and wanted to spend more time with their baby sibling, who was living at home with their mum. Social workers were concerned this could be detrimental for the young people if the baby's longer term care plan meant being moved away from their Mum's care, as they might experience loss. Following discussions between their advocacy worker and social workers, it was agreed that the siblings could see each other every six weeks.

In preparing for their Children's Hearings and Looked After Reviews, both older siblings shared with their advocacy worker that they wanted to see the baby more often. One said "I feel like my baby [sibling] doesn't recognise me and that makes me sad." The other said "my baby [sibling] changes so much in 6 weeks [they] always look different." On hearing these views, it was decided that the young people would see their baby sibling every two weeks when they had supervised contact with their Mum. Both young people were really happy about this. They came up with suggestions for activities and things to do during their time together with their Mum and baby sibling.' (Source: Who Cares? Scotland)^[42]

Children's views must be carefully and clearly recorded (for full details see Section 12). A record of their views and wishes is important for several reasons including:

• to check back with children that what they have conveyed has been understood
• to validate their feelings
• to reinforce the importance of their views
• as a record of what their views were, which may be important for their own understanding into adulthood
• to demonstrate how their views influenced decisions
• to establish any picture of changes in their views over time

7.7 Advocacy and representing views

Legislative duties (commenced 26 July 2021) are in place to ascertain the views of brothers and sisters before making decisions about children in their care (Section 13 of the 2020 Act, which amends Section 17(3) and 17(4) of the 1995 Act). In practice, this is a shared responsibility involving the Team Around the Child in line with the Getting it right for every child approach.

Children and young people should be supported by people who they know and trust, to express their views in whatever way is most suited to their needs and preferences. This includes their right to challenge decisions and to make a complaint. Children must be supported to share their views with whoever they trust, and they may choose to express their views to different people in different roles under different circumstances, directly or indirectly. For some children and young people, this should involve the support of high-quality independent advocacy or children's rights officers; for others it may mean the support of a family member, a teacher, social worker, kinship carer, foster carer, residential care worker, early years worker, developmental play specialist or speech and language specialist. In some situations, children may require legal help and support to access the services of a solicitor.

7.8 Independent advocacy for children

Guidance on the National Practice Model for advocacy in the Children's Hearings System^[43], and the online resource supporting children to access advocacy is listed in the 'Useful Resources' list at the end of this guidance.

For children's views about their brothers and sisters to meaningfully inform decision-making in formal settings and reviews, such as a Children's Hearing, Looked After Child Reviews, or when in court for Permanence proceedings, it is vital that these views are fully represented in any paperwork provided. Local authorities will need to fully represent children's views about their brothers and sisters in any paperwork submitted to a Hearing. For younger children, who are unable to express their wishes verbally, they will require the adults who care for them, and can represent them, to identify their needs regarding contact with their brothers and sisters.