Families Outside at the Scottish Parliament for Staying Connected
“At the very heart of this project, has been voice. To be able to speak, to be heard and to be listened to.”
Families Outside were delighted to take the findings of the ‘Staying Connected’ project to the Scottish Parliament when we hosted a parliamentary event, kindly sponsored by Maggie Chapman MSP, on Wednesday 5th June 2024.
‘Staying Connected: care-experienced children and young people with a sibling in prison or secure care’ was a joint project between Families Outside and the Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration (SCRA) and funded by The Promise Partnership. It explored the topic of care-experienced siblings separated by imprisonment or secure care and the gap in knowledge surrounding this.
An estimated 70% of care-experienced children and young people in Scotland experience separation from their siblings, and this report found that a disproportionate number of care-experienced children and young people had a sibling held in prison or secure care. Sibling separation through care and custody is often overlooked and more needs to be done to ensure siblings are properly supported to not only maintain, but also rebuild their relationships.
The event sought to engage MSPs and key stakeholders in the research recommendations with a view to working together to take forth policy and practice solutions to improve the experiences of siblings separated by care and custody across Scotland.
Welcoming over 40 attendees to the event from across the care, justice, and children’s sectors, Maggie Chapman MSP noted the importance of the ‘Staying Connected’ project in shining a light on an issue which is so often overlooked. Guests then heard from Chloe Sharkey, the Staying Connected Project Officer, who provided a powerful account of the importance of putting lived experience at the heart of this work and emphasised that the work was fundamentally about people and relationships.
Professor Nancy Loucks, CEO at Families Outside, called attention to the hidden nature of this population of children and young people explaining that despite both Families Outside and SCRA working in the care and justice sectors, they had experienced significant challenges in identifying care-experienced siblings separated by care and custody across their own databases and case files, and had gained significant learning from the project in this regard. Alistair Hogg, Head of Practice and Policy at SCRA echoed this reflection, noting that the challenge of gathering information was in and of itself a major finding of the report, and highlighted the important role that compassion and kindness have to play in making things better.
Dr Briege Nugent discussed key findings from the project and members of the Expert Consultant Group who worked on the project provided powerful testimony sharing their key asks. This compelling testimony from the Expert Consultants highlighted the importance of sibling relationships, emphasising that “humans are fundamentally relational”. They called for a person-centred scaffold of support to be put in place, noting that practitioners need to be asking the questions about sibling relationships, but crucially they need to do so in the right way, and they need to ensure they are trusted.
Following the Expert Consultants, Rachel Farrier and Claire Lightowler of Clan Child Law spoke about the need to value and protect sibling relationships and the importance of children and young people being aware of their rights and how to challenge decisions and actions. They shared a powerful video ‘Alright?’ which highlighted the importance of building a legal system that empowers young people to know and claim their rights.
Attention then turned to how the recommendations can be brought into practice in prisons. Laura Scofield, Policy Manager (Families and Parenting) at the Scottish Prison Service, spoke about the new Family and Parenting Strategy which will serve as a basis to support sibling relationships. Laura noted that the SPS do ask the relevant questions but need to consider whether they are being asked in the right way and how to build relationships with people in custody.
Sasha Groves, Manager at HMP Polmont Visitor Centre, and Tess Hamilton, Manager at HMP Addiewell Visitor Centre spoke of their work to begin to develop processes and procedures to support implementation of the recommendations within their establishments, highlighting the need to ensure that people in custody are provided with the right support to engage with these processes in a safe space with a trusted person. They further highlighted the need to ensure all prisons are actively supporting sibling visits – at present only 5 prisons host specific sibling visits.
Adam Bennett, CEO at Project Change introduced attendees to Phase 2 of the ‘Staying Connected Project’ which, building upon the learning from Phase 1, aims to raise awareness and cultivate better standards of support amongst the workforces at statutory and third sector agencies in contact with this group of children and young people directly, or indirectly. Adam highlighted the importance of having a justice system that understands care-experience and the importance of having space to explore identity and relationships and then applying that learning to the systems.
Closing the evening, Maggie Chapman MSP highlighted that there is huge amount of awareness raising around this issue that needs to take place amongst MSPs and beyond. She noted that the importance of compassion came through strongly from speakers and reflected that it appears so many of our public services do not have time for compassion, noting that:
‘The one thing our justice system is short of is time and we need to change that’.
So, what next? A compelling reflection from one of the Expert Consultants – “people who have been harmed by relationship are healed by relationships” – should serve as reminder to us all that we have both the power and responsibility to make a difference to the lives of siblings separated by care and custody.
Please access the ‘Staying Connected’ report and resources and get in touch if you would like to discuss them further. Working together, we can #KeepThePromise to Scotland’s care-experienced children and young people.