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6.4.1 Adoption/Permanence Planning for Sibling Groups

SCOPE OF THIS CHAPTER

This chapter was amended in June 2011 in relation to the Care Planning, Placement and Case Review Regulations, 2011. Changes have been highlighted below.


Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Definition of Siblings
  3. Legal Position
  4. Policy
  5. Assessing Children in Sibling Groups
  6. Contact Issues if Brothers and Sisters are Placed in Separate Adoptive or Other Permanent Families
  7. References


1. Introduction

A high proportion of children who are Looked After have brothers and sisters.  Brothers and sisters who share a childhood and grow up together have potentially the longest lasting and closest relationships of their lives with each other.  Looked After children often have very complex family structures and it is important that these are researched, that the significance of relationships to the child are assessed and that permanence planning takes this into account.


2. Definition of Siblings

For the purposes of this guidance, siblings are defined as:

  • Children who share at least one birth parent; and/or
  • Children who live or have lived for a significant period with other children in a family group.


3. Legal Position

The Children Act 1989 provides that where the local authority looks after siblings attempts must be made so far as is reasonably practicable and consistent with their welfare to place them together (section 23(7)(b)).

Where it is not possible to place siblings together, Government guidance emphasis the need to ensure that contact arrangements between the siblings are given very careful attention and plans for maintaining contact are robust.

The Framework for the Assessment of Children in Need and their Families recognises that the quality of relationships between siblings may also be of major significance to a child’s welfare.

The National Adoption Standards state:

“Every effort will be made to recruit sufficient adopters from diverse backgrounds so that each child can be found an adoptive family within the timescales which best meets their needs, and in particular:

  1. Which reflects their ethnic origin, cultural background religion and language, and
  2. which allows them to live with brothers and sisters unless this will not meet their individuality assessed needs.  Where this is the case, a clear explanation will be given to them and recorded.


4. Policy

Siblings who are Looked After by Wakefield MDC will be placed together in an adoptive or other permanent home.

The decision to place brothers and sisters in separate adoptive/permanent placements will be made only by the Agency Decision Maker, on the recommendation of the Adoption Panel after consideration of the individual needs of the children.

Sibling groups, whether or not placed together, should have the same Independent Reviewing Officer, except where conflict of interest between siblings makes this inappropriate or the size of the sibling group makes this unmanageable.


5. Assessing Children in Sibling Groups

1. It is important to do a full assessment of each individual child in a sibling group as well as an assessment of their relationships with each other and the dynamics of the group.  Even if it seems clear that the siblings should remain together, a full assessment will provide essential information for a new family and will enable the agency to anticipate the extra help and support that may be necessary.
2. There are no current frameworks for the assessment of sibling relationships in general use.  A Department of Health publication (1991) includes checklists as a basic tool for studying the way siblings behave towards each other.
3. The most recent publication on the subject “Assessing Brothers and Sisters for Permanent Placement (Lord and Borthwick, BAAF 2001) suggests the following should be considered during assessment:
i.

Clarify who the siblings are

  • Who should be considered form placement together?
  • Are there brothers and sisters in other families?
  • Who does the child view as their brothers and sisters?
ii.

Who should be involved?

Who can contribute to the assessment?

Birth parents, foster carers, Family Centre staff, specialist staff etc.
iii.

Are the children placed in separate foster homes?

  • Should efforts be made to reunite the children in the same foster home?
  • If this is not possible or appropriate, it is essential that brothers and sisters be given the opportunity to come together regularly.  Arrangements for this should reflect the primary aim of giving the children a chance to build or rebuild a sense of themselves as a family group.  It is also important for those assessing their relationships that other children are not present.
iv.

Assessing each child’s needs

  • Each child should have an individual assessment which accurately reflects their needs.
  • This assessment should commence as soon as child becomes Looked After using the Assessment Framework
  • Each child should be worked with as an individual and should have his or her own Life Story Book - see Life Story Books and Memory Boxes Guidance.  However some work can be usefully done with the brothers and sisters together.
v.

The context in which the relationship between the siblings has developed

  • The child’s position in the family
  • The child’s gender* Cultural and family experiences for each child
  • The emotional age at which each child is functioning
  • The extent to which the children have a shared history and family experience
  • The role each child is perceived to have played in the sibling group leaving home and starting to be Looked After
vi.

Assessing a child’s attachment to and relationship with each sibling

  • This should be based on detailed observation by key people of how the children behave with each other
  • Sibling relationship checklists are available in ‘Patterns and Outcomes in Child Placement’ (HMSO, 1991)
vii.

Dynamics of the sibling group

  • Are there any particular issues that need to be considered, e.g. is one child excluded or scapegoated by the others, is an older sibling very controlling?
  • If children are currently placed separately this will affect the dynamics of the whole group
  • It may be useful to video the children together so that their interaction can be discussed with the Team Manager(s) and other specialists
viii. What work could be done to improve relationships between siblings?
ix. Before a decision to separate siblings is made it is important to consider what work could be undertaken to make it possible to place them together
x.

Exceptional circumstances which may indicate that siblings should be placed separately. If children are placed in the same family, it MAY be impossible (within a reasonable timescale) to help them recover from dysfunctional and destructive patterns of interaction with their birth family. Examples of these may be:

  • Intensive rivalry and jealousy
  • Exploitation of siblings – can be based on gender or age
  • Chronic scape-goating of one child
  • Maintenance of unhelpful alliances and birth family conflicts
  • Maintenance of unhelpful hierarchical positions, e.g. victim/bully
  • Highly sexualised behaviour with each other
  • Acting as triggers to each other’s traumatic experiences and potentially constantly re-traumatising each other (Gerrilyn Smith, Clinical Psychologist) However, it must be stressed that efforts MUST be made to address any issues of difficulty in sibling relationships before the serious decision to place separately is made
xi.

Identifying who should be placed with whom if a sibling group needs to be split

  • This should not be based purely on who is together in foster care.  This is likely to have been a resource-led decision.
  • What information has been gathered about levels of need of individual children, what are their wishes and feelings?

xii.
Recording

It is vital that reasons for decisions about the placement of brothers and sisters are well recorded.  Information should also be given to adopters and should be contained in the child’s Life Story Book and Later Life Letter.  When the children become adults, they may or may not agree that the right decision was made with thought and care.


6. Contact Issues if Brothers and Sisters are Placed in Separate Adoptive or Other Permanent Families

1. If brothers and sisters are unable to be placed together, it is essential that the Directorate ensures there are robust contact arrangements in place, which can be sustained throughout childhood.
2. There may be circumstances where children have lived together in a foster home and a significant relationship has developed.  Consideration should be given to whether ongoing contact with these children would be of benefit.
3.

Adoptive parents of separated siblings will require information about how and why decisions have been made so that they can talk to the children in years to come.  They also have specific needs in respect of contact, such as:

  • Opportunities to meet the adoptive parents of the siblings prior to child-to-child contact
  • Clear contracts, which have been openly negotiated with all parties.  Who will initiate arrangements, who will travel, how often, how to handle changes to contact?  It will be essential to acknowledge any differences in family income to ensure that potential venues are within all adopters’ means
  • An understanding of any risks and how to minimise these
  • An understanding of the current and potential benefits of maintaining sibling relationships
  • The range of ways that links can be maintained, e.g. video, email etc.
  • Access to support (which may include financial support) and a means of reviewing contact.  This is of particular importance as contact arrangements can easily go wrong with the result that brothers and sisters lose touch with each other.
4. Adoptive parents managing sibling contact may also have to cope with issues in the other families impacting on their children, e.g. placement disruption or an older child’s reunion with members of their birth family.  The capacity to tolerate periods of change and uncertainty need to be recognised and discussed during preparation and assessment and when discussing placements.


7. References

Rushton A, Dance C, Quinton D and Mayes D (2001) ‘Siblings in Late Permanent Placement, BAAF

Department of Health (2001) ‘Patterns and Outcomes in Child Placement’, HMSO

Lord J and Borthwick S (2001) ‘Assessing Brothers and Sisters for permanent Placement’, BAAF

Beckett, Shelagh (2001), ‘Sibling Relationships: Planning for Permanent Placement

End