Sibling Support

It can be hard to juggle the needs of a child with complex medical conditions and the wider family. It’s important for siblings to connect with their peers and have some time and space to share their experiences with others. Siblings may sometimes require emotional support or if they are also young carers, breaks from their caregiving responsibilities.

Below is a list of originations that provide support for siblings.

Sibs

Sibs is a UK charity supporting people who grow up with a disabled brother or sister. Sibs provides information, support, and training for siblings, parents, and professionals.

The Sibs website has a Parent hub packed with guides, information, and advice, including:

• Your sibling child’s experiences
• Helping siblings with emergencies and hospital stays
• Giving your sibling child attention
• Dealing with sibling rivalry
• How grandparents and relatives can support siblings
• Support networks for your sibling child

Young SIBS

Sibs also has a great information and advice section called YoungSibs. This part of the website is just for siblings themselves and includes lots of information and tips including:

• How Siblings may feel and how to help you with these
• Understanding disability – where siblings can find out about different disabilities and conditions
• Good sibling stuff- read about all the good stuff that siblings talk about
• Spotlight – is an area to highlight Siblings and all things creative

Sibs also has an advisor service for young siblings called sibling advisor, which provides support and advice, and answers your questions on any sibling issues. To access this service, complete their form here.

The Children’s Society

The Children’s Society is a national charity, working with young people to counsel and support them through their most serious life challenges.

The Children’s Society has a search tool to find young carer services in your local area. Their young carer support service provides lots of opportunities to meet other young carers, access counselling, attend training courses and workshops, join peer-to-peer support groups, take part in leisure activities, and access a young carers forum. You can find the search tool here.

The Children’s Society Include Service offers advice and help for young carers to understand their rights, providing advice on different ways into education and employment. Find out more here.

The Carers Trust

The Carers Trust helps young carers to cope with their caring role through specialist services delivered by its network of local carer organisations across the UK, all made up of independent charities.

These organisations provide activities, breaks, community support, peer mentoring, information, advice, guidance, one-to-one support, emotional support, and more. Carers Trust has a search tool to find local carer groups too.

The Cares Trust also provides general advice and resources for young carers, including financial advice and support, health advice and information, your rights, educational advice and wellbeing and mental health.

The Young Carers Future Hub is a service specifically designed to assist young carers in securing employment opportunities. This service is aimed at individuals under the age of 25 and provides training and development sessions to help young carers achieve their employment goals.

Action for Children

Action for Children’s Sidekick is a helpline for young carers aged between 13 to 18 years old, or up to 25 years if you have special education needs.

Sidekick supports young carers by offering listening services. It can help by:

• Listening when things are tough
• Advising about managing responsibilities
• Helping with making phone calls, filling out forms, and much more.

Activities for Siblings

Various organisations offer clubs, young carer groups, or residential breaks for siblings and families. Accessing support services can help young people when connecting with their peers, and provide them with a chance to take a break. Some also offer counselling services, training and workshops, peer support, leisure activities, and forums.

Sense Support for Young Carers and Siblings of Disabled People

Sense provides space for young carers and siblings of disabled people to relax and share experiences with people who understand them.

Sense online activities include book clubs, film nights, arts and crafts, cooking, games nights, wellbeing sessions, dance, and discos. Each month, they send an activity timetable of up-and-coming online events. Sense can provide iPads and IT support to enable everyone to be able to access these events too. They also send out free activity packs in the post to give children and young people a chance to try something new.

Sense also offers face-to-face support in selected areas. You can find out more and register your interest here.

Over the Wall

Over The Wall offers residential trips for children with health challenges, siblings, and their families across the country. Offering a haven and a chance to escape the pressures of daily life.

Camps offer a medically and physically secure environment, enabling young people affected by health challenges to engage in exciting and meaningful activities, establish new friendships, and build their confidence. Over The Wall operates camps at select locations throughout the UK, and they offer free transport hubs from some UK cities. Comfortable accommodation with beds is provided for all campers.

In addition to the support provided by Over The Wall’s staff, campers are also assisted by a team of clinical and non-clinical volunteers. Clinical volunteers, including fully qualified doctors, nurses, and paramedics, take care of each camper’s medical and care needs and are led by the Over The Wall Nursing Team. Over The Wall provides in-person residential camps for families and virtual online Camps in the Cloud, all for free!

You can find all the information about when, where, and who can attend these camps on their website.

Sibling Bereavement Support

Children can feel many emotions, shocked, confused, sad, angry, bewildered, or worry when a sibling dies. They might worry that other family members will also die, or that they’ll die, too. Some children worry about what their death will mean for the family – will things change or stay the same? Your child will need support for a long time, and their support needs will probably change over time.

Below are some bereavement charities that specifically support siblings.

Child Bereavement UK

Child Bereavement UK helps children and young people (up to the age of 25 years), and families rebuild their lives after the death of a child, including advice on supporting bereaved children and young people. They also provide advice on how to tell children and young people someone has died, or how to tell them when someone is not expected to live.

Child Bereavement UK offers confidential bereavement support for children, young people and families by telephone, video, or instant messenger wherever you live in the UK, all for FREE! They also offer face-to-face support in various locations. To find out more about the support Child Bereavement UK provides, click here.

Hope Again

Hope Again offers a safe place for children and young people to learn from other young people about how to cope with grief and feel less alone. Hope Again wants to break the isolation that grief brings by providing a space for young people to explore their grief.

Hope Again provides support, advice and an online signposting service to children and young people who have lost loved ones. Find out more here.

Winston’s Wish

Winston’s Wish helps children and young children (up to the age of 25 years) through on-demand services, information, bereavement support and counselling.  They support young people across the UK to understand their feelings, process their grief and find ways to move forward with hope for a brighter future. Winston’s Wish also provides support for adults caring for young grieving people, including parents, school staff, and healthcare professionals.

Winston’s Wish has a dedicated space for grieving teenagers and young adults (aged 13 to 25 years). Talk Grief is a platform where you can learn from other young people who are grieving and find healthy ways to cope with your grief. By connecting with teenagers and young adults who are going through similar experiences, you can feel less alone and gain a better understanding of what it’s really like to live with grief. Additionally, Talk Grief has bereavement experts who offer advice and tips on managing your grief. Find out more here.

In Your Area

Why not look for services for siblings on our In Your Area (IYA) platform!

In Your Area is a directory of services across the UK and in your local area; made by parents, for parents!

The platform enables you to search for activities and services that are near you. To use the platform you just need to enter your postcode and search!

You can search and filter results by:

• Postcode
• Search bar
• Type of service
• Accessibility needs

Once you have entered your search criteria, results will be shown in distance order from your location.

Find further information here.

Join our community!

Our private Facebook Group is a safe space for parents and carers to access peer-to-peer support from others who ‘just get it.’

You can find support, connect with other parents, share experiences, get advice, and make friends in our Facebook group. The group is also great for getting tips and advice on Wellbeing every Wednesday.

The information in this article was correct at the time of publishing but may be subject to change.

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