The Staying Connected: Care-experienced children and young people with a sibling in prison or secure care report is the product of a joint project by Families Outside and the Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration (SCRA), funded by The Promise Partnership.

Around 70 per cent of care-experienced children and young people in Scotland experience some kind of separation from their siblings, which can create enormous barriers to maintaining some of the most important relationships in these children’s lives.

For care-experienced children and young people, sibling relationships are often some of the most significant relationships in their lives – often due to shared experiences and trauma, and siblings taking on a parental role. There is evidence that stable relationships, including sibling relationships, are key in reducing young people’s risk of offending.

While care-experienced young people affected by a sibling’s imprisonment experience many of the same barriers to rebuilding and maintaining relationships with a person in prison as many other families face, these barriers are often compounded by care experience, the report says.

These barriers include the physical distance of the prison or secure accommodation from family, and the costs involved with travelling to visits; the costs of other forms of contact, such as phone calls; the unnatural environment of the prison or secure accommodation, which does not allow for ‘natural’ family time; parents acting as gatekeepers in some cases, such as where one sibling was seen to be a bad influence; and the emotional impact of separation, which meant that some siblings chose not to remain in touch because they found it too painful.

Commenting on the report, Michael Grant, an expert consultant with lived experience, said: “This report reveals a powerful narrative about the essential and defining impact that our (sibling) relationships have on our stories and lives.

“For some of us, our siblings are the most important and consistent support that we have, and loss of liberty shouldn’t have to mean the loss of that relationship too. We need our institutions to step up and act as a scaffold of support for these relationships, which hold the meaning and context with which we experience ourselves and the world around us.”

While there are estimates of the number of Scottish children impacted by parental imprisonment each year – around 20-27,000 – there are no estimates of the number of children and young people experiencing the imprisonment of a sibling. There is a need for more thorough, effective data collection to ensure sibling relationships are properly supported, the report states.

Fi McFarlane, head of public affairs for The Promise Scotland, said: “The Promise Scotland welcomes the launch of this important research from Staying Connected, which highlights that care-experienced children and young people impacted by sibling imprisonment are often overlooked.

“The Promise Scotland supports the call for more effective data collection and sharing so that sibling relationships are properly supported and protected.”

Professor Nancy Loucks, CEO of Families Outside, said: “Imprisonment fractures families, and this unprecedented research shows that brothers and sisters already separated through care arrangements feel this even more acutely.

“The Promise underlined siblings as a crucial support network, but custody through prison or secure care can make access to these relationships exceptionally difficult. The Staying Connected project identified barriers but also solutions to this challenging issue.”

Neil Hunter, principal reporter for the Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration (SCRA) said: “What is clear from the findings of this research is that there is an ongoing need for all partners in the care and justice sectors to work effectively to ensure that siblings are identified, that they are informed of their right to maintain their relationships, and that all possible steps are taken to ensure that siblings get to see and keep in touch with each other if they wish to, and it is safe to do so.”