Together or apart: supporting better decisions for siblings in care

How sibling relationships are understood in practice

Social work professionals often have a nuanced understanding of siblinghood, taking into consideration child-defined and relationship-based definitions, such as the importance of co-residence in shaping ‘sibling’ relationships. However, these understandings were not always reflected in case files, which tended to default back to narrower definitions. In practice, difficulties in recording sibling relationships based on lived experience led to decisions being based primarily on biological and legal definitions. 

Together or apart: sibling trajectories over time

Whether siblings were initially placed together or apart often shaped their subsequent care trajectories. Most siblings (75%) were initially placed with at least one sibling, and in many cases these living arrangements remained stable over time. Sibling placement stability was highest when all siblings lived together and when children experienced shorter stays in care. This stability was also evident when siblings lived separately; children who were initially separated were rarely reunified in later living arrangements. 

Complexity and recording of decision-making

Siblings living together was the starting point for most social work professionals involved in decisions about this. However, social work professionals recognised that living together was not always appropriate, given siblings’ behaviour, needs, wishes and risks, and felt this was sometimes overshadowed by an expectation that siblings should always be placed together.

Decisions to separate siblings reflected a complex interplay of professional judgement, assumptions and beliefs, local authority constraints, external pressures, and the characteristics of children and sibling groups, with social workers playing a central role. Yet the rationale for these decisions was not always clearly documented. Reasons for separation were often dispersed across the case file, with little coherent narrative. As a result, it was difficult to trace decision-making over time and fully understand the rationale for sibling living arrangement decisions.

The policy recommendations presented in this briefing were developed through a series of seven targeted stakeholder workshops, involving 45 participants across a range of perspectives, including kinship carers, foster carers, care-experienced adults, social workers, independent reviewing officers (IROs), local authority managers, children’s guardians, legal professionals (including a judge), researchers and data specialists. A subsequent national England workshop, involving 25 participants, brought stakeholders together to refine and strengthen the final recommendations presented in this briefing. 

Across the workshops, stakeholders highlighted emerging practices, interventions and models to better support sibling relationships and improve decision-making. These approaches require evaluation to determine their effectiveness for siblings in care. Future work should therefore focus on identifying, mapping and evaluating promising approaches to understand their effectiveness, implementation and potential to improve decision-making and outcomes for siblings in care.  

An international workshop with 25 policy and practice representatives from England, Wales, Scotland and the Netherlands highlighted strong commonality across countries in the challenges and priorities identified above. While the four countries are at different stages of legislative, policy and practice development, there was a shared commitment to providing greater opportunities for siblings to be placed together and to support sibling relationships. Alongside this was recognition of common challenges, including insufficient resources and availability of suitable homes, the complexity of balancing the best interests of all siblings within a sibling group, and limited data and analysis on siblings in care. 

The international discussion reflected the recommendations developed through the national stakeholder groups, specifically highlighting the importance of:

• siblings living together where possible and, where this is not safe or in their best interests, supporting their relationships before, during and after time spent in care;
• ensuring the identification, recognition and recording of sibling relationships is relationship-centred and child-led;
• achieving cultural change requires resources and leadership at all levels of the system, informed by policy, practice, research and lived experience. This is essential to keeping siblings’ needs at the forefront of decision-making and promoting and sustaining sibling relationships.

The consistency of these messages across different child welfare systems provides important international support for the direction of change set out in this briefing.

This research has been published as a PhD thesis by Dr Florie Schmits, accessed here. 

Additionally, two empirical articles have been published: Who Is a Sibling? Social Work Professionals’ Views on Definitions of Siblinghood in Foster Care in England

Reasons for sibling separation in care in England: A case file analysis. 

We would like to thank the stakeholders who generously gave their time to participate. Their experience, expertise and commitment have been invaluable in shaping this work. This work was supported by CoramBAAF and funded through the PolicyBristol Policy Support Fund.

By Florie Schmits, Esther Dermott, Dinithi Wijedasa, Katie Riches, University of Bristol