We are delighted to publish this guest blog by Dr Autumn Roesch-Marsh from the University of Edinburgh and The Binks Hub. 

My friends were the ones that really stood up for me when I was in care – P1 (Friendship Focused Support Project)​

I was delighted to be invited to present some of the work of the Transforming Friendship Focused Support project at the January 2025 meeting of the Community of Practice for Siblings (COP).  In this blog I will share a bit about what I presented, as well as some of the insights that emerged from the brilliant conversations we had on the day.  If you want to see my full slides you can access these on The Binks Hub website.  

The Transforming Friendship Focused Support, funded by an ESRC Impact Grant, emerged out of a review of the literature which showed that the friendships of care experience people have often been ignored by researchers (see Roesch-Marsh and Emond 2020, 2021).  Through conversations with the Scottish Throughcare and Aftercare Forum (Staf), practitioners and carers, we learned that this issue was sometimes being overlooked in practice.  The aim of the project is to develop some resources that will help practitioners to further develop their approaches to supporting friendship.  

The project team includes myself, Professor Ruth Emond, from the University of Stirling,  Ruth Kerracher, from Staf, and Dr Lily Gilder.  Working together we have recruited a small group of experts by experience and the staff who support them, to explore this topic further and develop a mini project on friendship that interests them.  We have been supporting them and the staff they work with to learn more about their chosen topic by doing reading, conducting some focus groups and interviews and reflecting on their experiences and knowledge from being in the care system.  The projects include a focus on friendship and residential care, friendship and parenting, friendship and trauma, friendship and risk, friendship and higher education, and friendship and ADHD.  We are also conducting interviews with practitioners across Scotland to capture their practice wisdom about how they support friendship and how they feel practice in this area could be developed.  We have just launched an online survey for practitioners which you can fill in if you are interested in sharing your knowledge with the project.

In my presentation I discussed how both The Promise (2020) and The Staying Together and Connected National Guidance (2021) highlight the importance of friendship for care experienced people.  

The Promise is very explicit in stating that:

Friendships with peers must be actively encouraged with support for and trust in the judgement of the main carer rather than over reliance on risk protection procedures, such as police checks before a child in care can go to a friend’s house for a sleepover. (p24)​

While the National Guidance (2021) repeatedly highlights the importance of sibling-like relationships, it does not use the language of friendship explicitly.  Instead, it refers to the Children (Scotland) Act 2020 which defines sibling-like as a relationship ‘where they have lived together and have an ongoing relationship’ which is like a sibling (2021, p.4).  The guidance points out that to determine who these ‘sibling-like’ relationships are the first step is to seek the child’s views.  Practitioners are also encouraged to consider if these relationships include ‘companionship, closeness and being playmates; emotional intensity’ and ‘a sense of belonging and security’ (2021, p. 18).  These sibling-like relationships may also include strong bonds or be ‘subsidiary attachment figures’ (2021, p.18).

Our discussion in the break-out rooms at the COP suggests that these definitions of ‘sibling-like’ relationships, with their focus on time having lived together, only take us so far in appreciating and thinking about the role of friendship for care experienced children and young people.  Practitioners highlighted the fierce and enduring bonds that often exist between friends, even when young people have not lived together.  Practitioners should be taking account of and supporting these relationships.  Overall, there was a feeling that progress has being made in ensuring we have a holistic understanding of children’s worlds and the important people in them, including friends.  However, with limits on practitioner time and resources, taking practical steps to support these relationships was not always prioritized.  It was also felt that some carers lacked the skills and knowledge about how to support friendships, especially as the children in their care often have experience of loss and trauma which make it harder for them to trust.  We discussed how there remain barriers to supporting friendship in some organisations.  These include geographical barriers and financial barriers but can also connect to risk averse cultures and concerns about how friends might influence each other.  

There was also a powerful discussion about the role of friendship among groups of young people on Champion’s Boards and other leadership groups.  It was felt that friendships were key to the work of these groups, giving the people involved the motivation to carry on and providing peer support.  Interestingly, the protective power of friendship among care experienced advocacy and activist groups is something that I have written about before with colleagues at Who Cares? Scotland (see Roesch-Marsh et al. 2023).  The link to this open access article is available to read.

These themes are also reflected in the poem by the Shetland Collective:

Well that is why we are here​
to make each other feel better.​
When things are tough​
we stand together​
through the pain.​

​Take a Walk in my Shoes – Shetland Archives​

Practitioners highlighted wider issues in relation to the ongoing stigma that some care experienced children and young people face.  They identified the need for further work to raise awareness, so that families would not discourage their children from being friends with those who have care experience.  They had other useful suggestions about how we could improve our support around friendship, including:

• Integrate friendship more fully into assessments and care plans, but make sure this is based on discussions with children and young people and reflects their wishes.

• Include a regular focus on friendship when you are having discussions with parents and carers (e.g. during support, supervision, peer support groups) to make sure ideas around supporting friendship can be shared and challenges addressed.

• Make the most of the role of Independent Reviewing Officers.  For example, IRO’s could focus more on understanding, assessing and recording friendships.  They could also make friendship an item heading for reviews.

• Include friends whenever we can (if the child or young person wishes), for example to chum young people on outings, on short breaks etc.  Including friends doesn’t always have to cost a lot more.

• More resources and training on friendship skills and friendship support strategies.

• Utilising resources like the Staying Connected Toolkit to think about friendships too.

We will further develop suggestions for good practice as this project evolves and we look forward to sharing the resources that we develop from the project. 

They will be launched in November 2025 at the annual Staf Conference and will then be hosted on the Staf website so that all carers, families, practitioners and care experienced people can access them.  

Below: A photo of part of the Friendship collage made by the FFSP team November 2024 in Glasgow

To mark National Siblings Day on 10 April, the Community of Practice for Siblings is holding its next event. 

The online session will hear perspectives from sisters, brothers and all those with sibling-like relationships of loving connection on what those bonds mean to them. 

Also on the agenda is decision-making processes and how they best nurture sibling and sibling-like relationship. A panel with a range of perspectives will be sharing their thoughts and answering our questions.

We’re also delighted to be joined by Drs Helen Whincup and Paula Jacobs for an exploration of what the Permanently Progressing Phase 2 Findings tell us about our work across Scotland to keep the promise to sisters and brothers.

Register for the event.

The Community of Practice for Siblings Planning Group is reaching out! If you are an area that might be interested in getting involved in one of our New Horizons tests of change, please get in touch! 

The Community of Practice for Siblings Planning Group is interested in hearing from any local authority areas/community planning partnerships who might be interested in getting directly involved in one of the three ‘New Horizons’ tests of change, launched at the last Community session on 23 January. 

New Horizons – Innovation Tests of Change

The Community of Practice is looking to develop three key Innovation Tests of Change given that broad agenda, and our learning from our work together over the past two years:

Kinship Care and Housing:

A focus on kinship care and exploring how collaboration in local areas could enable quick, impactful responses to housing adaptation/extension needs that would have significant positive impact on the lives of kinship carers and the children they care for.

That’s in a context where Kinship care is now the most significant form of care for children and young people across Scotland, growing rapidly. There is some helpful background information on why this theme is so significant within the context of kinship care – and in the guides at the bottom of that Report.

Data and Telling the Story of Change locally

Building from innovative work in West Dunbartonshire and Aberdeenshire, how do we better understand, evidence and share progress in keeping the promise to sisters and brothers? This theme also has links to the national activity to enhance the ‘CLAS’ data that is provided by Local Authorities to better reflect sibling relationships, and The Promise Progress Framework with its focus on siblings.

Decision Making Processes and nurturing Sibling and Sibling-like relationships

This theme has close links to Hearings for Children and how implementation of those recommendations is progressing. But it also has a broad focus on all decision-making processes in a local area in the journey of a child, sibling or family, from the earliest solution-focussed or Family Group Meetings through to adoption. 

Please just get in touch if you’re interested. We’ve already got active interest from some areas, for example from Aberdeenshire (and a number of the relevant national bodies) on theme 1; from West Dunbartonshire on 2; and from East Renfrewshire and Glasgow on both 2 and 3.  

On each theme, the provisional plan for the initial stages is:

• To have an initial ‘development’ session, probably online, with interested/connected folk;
• To follow that up with a full-day in-person development session hosted in one of the LA areas that’s interested in exploring/advancing the theme.

This work very much reflects the recommendations within Staying Together and Connected, key aspects of the promise, and work to further develop the route maps for Plan 24-30.  

Watch this space for more information!

Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership’s Family Connections Assessment and Plan, and associated guidance has recently been updated following a period of evaluation. 

The original assessment was received positively and a number of children and young people now have stronger connections and have plans which will help maintain their connections in an enduring way. The pilot did highlight a number of areas of improvement and the new versions have been adapted to incorporate this. 

Changes include:

• A two stage approach to allow a quick stage one assessment when children become looked after
• Inclusion of wider connections
• Inclusion of life story approaches in assessment and planning
• A section to include direct conversations with children about who is important to them
• A My Connections Plan to ensure we communicate the plan directly to children as well as those who look after them.

After over a decade, Siblings Reunited (STAR) is overjoyed to share that their long-dreamed-of barn is almost complete! 

This magical new space represents so much more than bricks and beams—it’s the heart of new opportunities for STAR and the families they support.

Karen Morrison said: “Having this barn opens up endless possibilities for creating lasting memories. This December, we celebrated its first major milestone by hosting our first ever Christmas Craft Fayre, which was open to the public and a resounding success! Seeing the barn filled with festive cheer, creativity, and community was truly special.

“Looking ahead, the barn promises even more exciting events. We’re planning a Burns Night celebration, additional craft fayres, and, most importantly, providing another welcoming space for our siblings to enjoy time together.

“This barn symbolises the power of dreams, community, and love. We can’t wait to see all the wonderful moments it will hold for STAR in the years to come!”

Adoption UK Scotland with the support of AFKA have developed a new resource to support those parenting care experienced brothers and sisters.

The Padlet tool is in two parts and is now available online and is free for anyone to use.

Part one looks at understanding and supporting sibling relationships, while Part two covers protecting sibling relationships when children experience distress.

Speaking at the Community of Practice for Siblings webinar on Thursday 21 November, Dr Chris Jones who led on the development of the new tool, said it would be of interest to adoptive parents, foster carers and kinship carers, as well as professionals who support these families.

She said: “The Padlet draws together into one place a range of topics that families and professionals may need to engage with at different points when thinking about sibling relationships. It provides information in bite-sized chunks and signposts to additional resources. We wanted the resource to apply to, and help real life situations and we wanted to ensure that the voice of children, parents and carers was prevalent throughout. We hope it provides a language and a framework of ideas that families and professionals can use together.”

At the session, delegates got to hear how the resource was developed, they also had a chance to look at the information within it (there wasn’t enough time to do it justice!) and then everyone had the opportunity to consider and discuss a series of questions in breakout rooms.

Heather Moonlight, Kinship Care Consultant from KCASS co-chaired our recent event. Speaking afterwards, she said: “Thank you so much to Chris for coming along and telling our community all about the Padlet. What a wonderful resource for our Foster Carers, Kinship Carers and Adoptive parents – and our community as a whole. I am very excited to see how the resource will be used and how practice will develop as a result!”