Strengthening the rights of children and young people in care to ensure they have regular and meaningful connections with their siblings, is a key priority under a partnership between the Department for Child Protection (DCP) and CREATE Foundation.
The State Government committed additional funding to CREATE to improve advocacy and support for children and young people in care and leaving care. This includes providing $800,000 over four years to strengthen the voices of children and young people, with a focus on sibling connection.
As part of this funding, Create Foundation hosts an annual sibling connection event and this year released a report titled Sibling Connection SA, which included six recommendations aimed at strengthening relationships for siblings in care.
The report draws on the experiences of 26 young people with a care experience and focuses on areas of practice that can be improved to ensure decisions about siblings in care are child-centred and a key focus when making decisions about placements.
When a child or young person is in care, it is essential that they are supported to maintain and build connections with important people in their lives.
These connections can be crucial to a child’s psychological and emotional wellbeing and sense of identity.
To continue to build on this important area of work, DCP is:
- Reviewing and strengthening practice guidance, alongside workplace learning dedicated to sibling contact.
- Several of the recommendations in CREATE’s report, including prioritisation of the Kinship Systems and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Placement Principle for Aboriginal children and young people and enshrining rights to sibling contact in legislation, are being given consideration in the review of the Children and Young People (Safety) Act 2017.
- Consulting with children and young people with a care experience, through CREATE and No Capes for Change.
- Continuing to grow availability of family-based placements, with a strong focus on kinship and community.
Sibling contact is one of the top issues raised with the Guardian for Children and Young People’s office.
As put by Katrine Hildyard
Like all children, children and young people in care have a right to develop and grow relationships with their siblings. For some young people, their relationship with their siblings may be their only ongoing connection with their family.
This is an area I am passionate about improving with and for children and young people in contact with the child protection and family support system.
A key part of improving children and young people’s social and emotional wellbeing and sense of identity is developing and maintaining attachments with siblings and other family members where it is safe to do so.
This is particularly important for Aboriginal children and young people and is a key part of the Aboriginal Child Placement Principle, which supports the importance of connection to family, community, culture and Country.
I am committed to ensuring we strengthen policy and practice and listen to and act on the voices of young people; they have told us that, where it is safe to do so, that they want to improve their connections with their siblings.
Our Government is proud to have funded CREATE to undertake this crucial work and look forward to how it can help in maintaining these vital connections for kids.
As put by Jacqui Reed, CREATE Foundation CEO
CREATE is very pleased to hear about Minister Hildyard and the South Australian Government’s commitment to ensuring children and young people in care are appropriately supported to maintain strong relationships with their siblings. We know that positive sibling bonds have the potential to support a whole range of positive life outcomes including identity formation; resilience; social, emotional, and physical wellbeing; developmental growth; positive educational outcomes; and a sense of stability and permanency (McCormick, 2010; McDowall, 2015; Meakings et al., 2017; Seale & Damiani-Taraba, 2017; Tilbury & Osmond, 2006).
Supporting strong sibling relationships for children in care is critical. Where possible, sibling co-placements should be the priority but where that is not safe or possible, children must be supported by their caseworkers and carers to build and maintain strong and meaningful connections with their siblings. Enhancing the legislation and strengthening the practice guidance around this is a very welcome move.
As part of CREATE’s recent consultation with young people in care across South Australia, we heard from 26 young people across the state about their relationships with their siblings while in out-of-home care. We know from this consultation and broader statistics, that children are often separated from their siblings when they enter care and face a range of barriers and challenges in contacting and connecting with their siblings as often as they’d like to build and maintain strong relationships with their siblings. It should be noted that this problem is not unique to South Australia.
CREATE is looking forward to working with young people and the department to help develop more guidance for carers and caseworkers around this. It is vital that children and young people with lived experience of the care system are meaningfully engaged in the development of policy and practice.
