Stand Up For Siblings has won the prestigious Herald Society Partnership Award. Fourteen representatives from the multi-agency partnership attended the award ceremony in Glasgow on Wednesday evening.

Stand Up For Siblings joined 250 guests to celebrate the 12th annual Herald Society Awards, held in association with Wheatley Group, at the DoubleTree by Hilton. Organised by The Herald, the awards are supported by evh, Turcan Connell and YouthLink Scotland.

Dr Christine Jones, co-founder of Stand Up For Siblings, said: “What an honour. We are delighted to win the partnership award. We were up against some really tough competition, so congratulations to everyone who was shortlisted.

“This has been a fantastic year for Stand Up For Siblings. We celebrated the first anniversary of our launch in March with a very welcome announcement by the Minister for Children and Young People, Maree Todd MSP.

“The Minister announced that there were plans to make improvements to the law for brothers and sisters who are in the care system. The law is to be strengthened in relation to keeping brothers and sisters together when they are placed in local authority care when it is in their interest to do so.

“We hope that our partnership has made some positive strides, but we know there is so much more still to do to protect the rights and promote the wellbeing of siblings in Scotland. Thank you to everyone involved in Stand Up For Siblings, this award has been down to everyone in the partnership working together to make positive changes to legislation, policy and practices.”

Stand Up for Siblings is delighted to be shortlisted for the Herald Society Awards 2019.

The movement is a finalist in the Partnership category. The award ceremony takes place on Wednesday, November 6 2019 in Glasgow.

Dr Chris Jones who co-ordinates SUFS said: “It is an honour to be shortlisted for such a prestigious award.

“We are up against some really tough competition, so we are delighted to get through to the final.”

Dr Gillian Henderson from SUFS added: “Everyone in the partnership has been working tirelessly to protect the rights and promote the wellbeing of siblings and we are working together to influence the law, policy and practice.”

A new report has been published by the Family Rights Group on Kinship Care.

In it, they report that around 70% of the kinship children included in their study have a sibling or half sibling who is not living with them. Around a third of these are placed elsewhere in adoptive, fostering or residential care placements, a fifth are living with kin and just over a third are living with birth parents. 

In the report,  the Family Rights Group on Kinship Care, point out the anomaly in the current Care Planning, Placement and Case Review (England) Regulations 2010 which address sibling contact where both siblings are looked after, but do not refer to contact with siblings who are not looked after. They call for an amendment to these Regulations so that children who are looked after are better supported to have contact with siblings who are not in the care system, such as a brother or sister living in kinship care under a special guardianship order. 

You can read the report in full here.

The Justice Committee has launched a call for views on the Children (Scotland) Bill. Stand Up For Siblings will be making a submission. You can find out more here. The deadline for submissions is Friday 15 November 2019.

In the meantime, Stand Up For Siblings has already responded to the Scottish Government’s consultation on the Review of Part 1 of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995 and creation of a Family Justice Modernisation Strategy. You can review the initial response here.

Kate Richardson and Anne Begbie’s roles within the council are a good match with the philosophy and drivers of the Stand Up For Siblings network.

Kate is the lead practitioner for overseeing all transitions for children from interim foster care into permanent placements across Edinburgh and is based within the Family Based Care Team.

Anne is based within the Family Group Decision Making Team and is the lead coordinator for the Lifelong Links service. Lifelong Links is about working with young people in the care system and helping them identify and promote connections within their family network; building connections which will help young people as they move through their adult years.

Kate became an active member of SUFS following the official launch of the group and the website in March 2018. Anne joined later in 2018 and both of us have attended regular meetings to discuss how best to progress formal and informal ways to promote sibling relationships and agree on action points. Kate submitted City of Edinburgh Council’s response to consultation on review of Part 1 of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995 and creation of a Family Justice Modernisation Strategy. Focusing particularly on contact and sibling issues.

In September 2018, Kate represented CEC at a Conference run by CorumBaaf which also launched the new text by Shelagh Beckett; ‘Beyond Together or Apart: Planning for, assessing and placing sibling groups.’ Kate have since been asked by CoramBaaf to write a book review for their Adoption and Fostering journal. Each Locality now has a copy of this book for practitioners to use on a day to day basis when considering sibling relationships.

Kate has delivered a presentation and held discussions with Registration and Permanence Panel members, specifically asking them to think more broadly about placing children together when considering permanence, not accepting ‘together or apart’ assessments which are not thorough or objective. This is going to be followed up with more focussed workshops with Panel Chairs and ADMs.

Kate has also given a presentation at an AFA seminar in Glasgow, focussing on Transitions, where she highlighted SUFS and the need to ensure attention is paid to the needs of siblings when considering long term care away from home.

Together, Anne and Kate, along with other colleagues from SUFS, participated in the recent conference run by Clan Childlaw and S.T.A.R. where we looked at the progress made over the past year and were delighted to have MSP Maree Todd announce that Scottish Government will be looking to make changes to current Duties placed on Local Authorities with regard to meeting the needs of siblings.

Anne and Kate are going out regularly to all four CEC Localities to meet with Children and Families Practice Teams to promote SUFS and request wider, creative thinking and more positive approaches to keeping siblings together, and talk about maintaining Life-Long Links for children. Taking the copy of ‘Beyond Together or Apart’ to encourage workers to read the text and make use of the assessment frameworks alongside; leaflets and information from Lifelong Links and STAR.

We are aiming for these sessions to be discussion based; providing an informal breakfast drop-in where practitioners can ask questions and seek advice and guidance on specific cases.

If you have any questions, please contact:

Kate.richardson@edinburgh.gov.uk
Anne.begbie@edinburgh.gov.uk

Following the commitment made by Minister for Children and Young People Maree Todd MSP earlier this year to improve the law for brothers and sisters in the care system, the Scottish Government has published its proposals: the Children (Scotland) Bill and Family Justice Modernisation Strategy were published on 2 September 2019. The Scottish Government plans the following actions to prioritise the relationships of brothers and sisters in care:

Duties on local authorities

• Section 10 of the Children (Scotland) Bill introduces a duty on local authorities to promote direct contact and personal relations between a child and their siblings, where this is both practicable and appropriate and in the interests of the child. Siblings are defined to include individuals with whom a child has an ongoing relationship with the character of a sibling relationship.

• Section 10 of the Bill also requires local authorities to seek the views of the child’s sibling in relation to contact when it is reasonably practicable for the local authority to do so.

• The Scottish Government will introduce amendments to the Looked After Children (Scotland) Regulations 2009 to put a duty on local authorities to place siblings under 18 years of age together when they are looked after away from home when it is in their best interests to do so. These regulations will come into force at the same time as the section in the Bill placing duties on local authorities.

Practice

In recognition that legislative changes alone may not meet the policy aims, the Scottish Government will engage with the Stand up for Siblings Partners, corporate parents and key organisations to assist implementation and share good practice across Scotland.

Independent Care Review

The Independent Care Review has, in engaging with infants, children, young people and adults with experience of care and their families, identified at an early stage in the review that siblings must be kept together, or supported to maintain relationships, to ensure the best outcomes for looked after children. These actions are intended to support those aims. The Scottish Government will take further action, as required, to take forward the Review’s recommendations on this issue when it reports in Spring 2020.

The proposals are a significant milestone in the work to improve the rights and wellbeing of care experienced siblings across Scotland. Stand Up for Siblings partners look forward to workingwith the Scottish Government and Scottish Parliament as the proposals advance.

Read the Family Justice Modernisation Strategy here.

Read the Children (Scotland) Bill and the Scottish Government’s policy reasons for changing the law.