One in five Scottish children placed into care kept with their siblings via the Children’s Hearing system

New research highlights the many complexities surrounding children placed into care in Scotland.

Academics from Lancaster University and Stirling University collaborated to analyse data from 2013 to 2020.

They found that only one in five infants taken into care in Scotland who had older brothers or sisters were initially placed with them, and two years later only a third were living with a bother or sister.

The research team was led by Dr Linda Cusworth, from Lancaster University, in partnership with researchers at the University of Stirling, and the Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration.

Overall, the team analysed data from 2,849 infants who entered the care system before they were a year old, 882 of whom were under a week old.

Dr Helen Whincup, from the University of Stirling, said: “Our findings show that placing babies and infants with older brothers and sisters was the exception rather than the rule."

“This is despite the drive to keep brothers and sisters together and research which shows that early decisions about where, and with whom children are placed, can have huge consequences for their relationships with their siblings.”

Of those nearly 3,000 children, researchers looked in depth at the circumstances of 70 of those children and their families.

Dr Whincup told CentralFM that there are many complex decisions that have to be made when it comes to separating children from their siblings and where they are placed into care.

The records analysed by the team indicated that many of the children’s parents had difficult childhoods, with a large proportion having experienced neglect or abuse. Although less information was recorded about fathers, over a third of the mothers and a quarter of fathers were care experienced. For a third of mothers this was their first child, but two thirds had older children, and for many their older
children were also in care.

Meanwhile, Dr Linda Cusworth from Lancaster University said that: “It is clear that these families have complex needs. This emphasises the need for a range of early, sensitive and flexible support services to support parents, including those who are care experienced, and those who have had a child previously removed from their care”.

Data of the children's parents was also analysed by the team, to which they found many had difficult childhoods, with a large proportion having experienced neglect or abuse. 

Read the study in full: https://www.gov.scot/publications/born-care-scotland-circumstances-recurrence-pathways/

We've attached an extended clip from our discussion with Dr Helen Whincup about the study: