Siblings in contact with children’s social care

Research suggests that many children in England have contact with a social worker at some point during their school years. However, national administrative data has previously made it difficult to identify siblings, meaning we know much less about how children’s social care (CSC) supports different children within the same family over time.

This project will use ECHILD’s mother–baby link to identify siblings born to the same mother and examine patterns of CSC involvement within families. It will explore which child and family characteristics are associated with different patterns of contact, and whether children’s education, mental health and social care outcomes differ depending on whether their siblings also have contact with services.

A group of care-experienced young people, supported by the charity Become, will contribute their lived experience throughout the research, and policy-makers and practitioners will be consulted to find out how sibling analysis at a national and local level might inform their work.

The project aims to explore the following research questions:

1. What kinds of contact with CSC do siblings born to the same mother experience over time?
2. What characteristics of children and families are associated with contact with CSC and with specific patterns of contact?
3. How do social care, education and mental health (including stress-related) outcomes differ between children with no CSC contact, children who are the only sibling in their family to have contact, and children whose siblings also have contact?
4. Can the approaches used to answer the above questions also be applied to a regularly updated London-wide dataset, including additional information available within that dataset?

By examining the characteristics associated with particular patterns of contact, and the outcomes for children whose siblings do or do not share contact with children’s social care, the project has potential to inform policy and practice that supports children and families.