Welcome to Learn on the go, a Community Care Inform podcast where we discuss what the latest research, practice models and policy guidance mean to your practice.

This episode is about siblings. It covers some of the issues for practitioners making decisions when placing brothers and sisters who come into care, and contact for siblings who - whether in the short- or long-term - have different living arrangements. The expert guest is Shelagh Beckett, an independent social worker and consultant specialising in this area, and author of Coram BAAF’s Beyond together or apart: planning for, assessing and placing sibling groups (https://corambaaf.org.uk/books/beyond-together-or-apart-sibling-adoption-fostering). The questions were asked by Joanna Silman, content editor at Community Care Inform.

1.59 – What are the key challenges for practitioners when siblings come into care?

3:48 – How should social workers approach assessments and evidence, especially when siblings are initially placed in separate arrangements, for pragmatic or other reasons? Examples of difficult decisions regarding long-term separation.
12.14 – How can practitioners explain to children why they are living separately from siblings?
15.14 – What do research and practice experience say is important when arranging sibling contact if children are separated?
20.52 - How can social workers best support children and carers when siblings are placed together?

27.35 – How should introducing multiple siblings into the same family be approached?

Community Care Inform subscribers can access additional resources and a written transcript of the podcast: https://www.ccinform.co.uk/learning-tools/siblings-placements-and-contact-podcast/

And if you want to hear more, in 2019 we published an episode of the podcast on child to parent violence, with Helen Bonnick and Jane Griffiths https://www.spreaker.com/user/communitycare/child-parent-violence-edit and in 2017 we spoke to Julie Selwyn and Elaine Dibben about adoption disruption https://www.spreaker.com/user/communitycare/adoption-disruption

References
Beckett, S (2018)
Beyond together or apart: planning for, assessing and placing sibling groups.
Coram BAAF, London