Summary
Sis-Bro is a project for yourng carers who have siblings with additional and complex support needs such as autism; sensory impariments, learning difficulties and physical disabilities. We support 7-14 year old young carers to have time outside of their caring role.
What Sis-Bro did
We offer a safe, welcoming environment where young people can meet others who have similar experiences, make friends and engage in a variety of activities. These include crafts, basic baking and cookery skills e.g. smoothie making, games, immersive puzzle experiences including a murder mystery week, as well as seasonal and festival celebrations where they can share elements of their cultures and traditions with one another. We engage the young people in planning the rules and activities of the group, and we make sure the same rules apply to everyone including adults running the session, to encourage them to feel responsible, respected and included as an equal member in their group. We emphasise kindness and respect as the central rules as we want everyone to have fun and a playful atmosphere, but also to ensure everybody else is equally able. Our group runs for 2 hours every fortnight during term time and is currently held at the Templeton business centre at Glasgow Green. We organise a different activity each week to provide the siblings with the opportunity to try new things and develop new skills such as sushi making, growing your own veggies and so on. Each session begins with an emoji game which encourages the children to share what they have been doing since our last session and how they have been feeling. The siblings are also encouraged to place any suggestions or questions into a jar to which the project workers go through at the end of each session. This allows us to capture any concerns or issues that a sibling maybe experiencing but does not feel ready to discuss openly. It also allows us to capture any suggestions for suture sessions and events. Additionally, we support the siblings during the school holidays. In doing so, we host a 2-week Easter programme and a 6-week summer programme in which the siblings have the opportunity to participate in activities such as going to the cinema and bowling. However due to additional funding from the create we were able to take the siblings we were able to take the siblings to a day our to the Blair Drummond Safari Park.
What Cornerstone Community Care has learned
Project planning and budgeting:
We have learned a lot about managing our time between project workers, using a rota and lots of pre planning has allowed sis-bro to be a success. Budgeting for materials and room hire has also been a large part of organising sis-bro. We have had to be resourceful about materials we already have and being creative.
Targeting families most in need of support:
We established that carers who were living in poverty were at times not have any meals before coming to the sessions so we always made sure there are plenty of snacks, drinks, water and fruit for them. Additionally, when we hosted a group that involved cooking or baking we encouraged the young people to take them home to share with their family.
Unexpected challenges:
We have learned that when these young people do not want to engage with an activity, they can become disruptive, particularly in the cases of the younger and more boisterous children. In these situations, rather than trying to make sure everyone joins in, we now encourage them to quietly enjoy alternative activities e.g. craft activities, without disrupting the group. As such we have increasingly adapted the sessions to incorporate everyone’s needs while minimising disruption to others. Our overall strategy has come from paying attention to their needs as individuals (some have difficulty focusing; others find excessive noise very distressing) and as a group (we need to be able to hear each other and work together on tasks). We have discussed these rules and strategies as a group and made sure the young people understand our approach. In this way, we feel we have learned to respect the needs of every individual, and to ensure that the young people know that our rules are created in this spirit and are not to punish anyone or force anyone to do something they do not want to do. Now that the rules are clear, reasonable, equal, and created with maximising happiness and minimising ‘telling off’ in mind, we find that their behaviour is much better, presumably because they feel respected, understood, and empowered to spend their time how they choose.
How Cornerstone Community Care has benefitted from the funding
Yes, we have been able to offer a varied programme of activities, to pay for suitable spaces, to provide snacks, and to pay for transport where necessary so more siblings are able to attend. We have been able to create more immersive, engaging sessions thanks to the funding, for example our Escape Room week, which involved a range of puzzle tasks including props like UV pens for writing ‘secret messages’, and locked boxes they needed to find the combination for.
Project Outcomes
Outcome
Carers will have had the opportunity to have a days break from their caring role.
Results
We worked alongside the carers to organise activities during the school holidays. In doing so the young carers participated in the following activities:
Bowling, Cinema, Laser Quest, Go-Karting, High risk outdoor play (Baltic street), Games event, Arts and crafts day and a day out to Blair Drummond Safari park. This provided them with the opportunity to have time away from their caring role and focus on what they wanted to do and what interested them . Additionally, the group sessions are also an opportunity to provide the siblings respite from their caring role.
Case study
‘I’ who has a brother with a disability disclosed to a project worker that she self-harms due to the pressures of her caring role. ‘I’ discussed that she wanted to seek counselling in the hope that this would enable her to lead a better life. The project worker met with ‘I’ every week during home visits and every fortnight during the sibling group. They provided ‘I’ with emotional support while also liaising with other organisations who were more specialised. When she was ready to take each step towards counselling the project worker supported her to make contact with her GP, school and to research groups within her area. Through the emotional support from the project ‘I’ empowered herself to attend a nurture group at school and participate in our sibling group to help express her emotions. During a superhero-themed sibling group she proudly told us she had designed ‘Worry Woman’, a superhero who could take away other kids worries. This is an example of the positive impact of our project; helping them to build upon their own strengths, while also ensuring the person get the correct help that they required.
Outcome
At least 80% of carers will feedback that they felt more able to care for the person they support after their break.
Results
We compared pre and post activity feedback from 85% of the carers which showed that overall results were positive with some of the carers stating:
“I feel safe and feel I can talk about anything”
“This is the best Sis-Bro ever”
“We love Sis-Bro!”
When the young people were asked if they were able to fully communicate with the siblings - only half stated yes. However after we held a Makaton session all the young people provided feedback that they felt more confident in understanding basic signs used by their supported siblings. Additionally, when asked if the understood why their supported siblings displayed challenging behaviour, most of the young people stated that they were unsure. However after we held a group session on what it's like to be a carer, each sibling discussed their own experiences of facing challenging behaviour. Feedback from this session was again very positive with siblings stating that they now feel better understanding their siblings behaviour.
Case study
'M' and 'S' both attend the sibling group. They are siblings and have a supported sibling 'K' who has additional and complex support needs. 'M' & 'S' both look forward to the sibling groups as it not only gives them the opportunity to participate in new activities and respite from their caring role, it also provides them with the opportunity to spend time with each other which has had a positive impact on their relationship and now feel they are really good at working as a team when supporting their sibling 'K'.
Outcome
At least 80% of carers and 80% of people we support will show improved emotional health and feel this is a result of being able to access activities during the holidays
Results
This outcome was achieved when we received positive feedback from 85% of carers on the impact that Sis-Bro has had on the whole family. Being able to run sis-bro is great for the family as a whole, as it can provide respite for the parents and allow them to spend time with their child with a disability. Therefore running sis-bro allows us to add another aspect to the support we provide day to day. It also benefits us getting to know each member of the family as an individual, knowing the siblings can help us support both the supported child and the parents better. Feedback before sis-bro stated that parents have difficulty in sharing their attention and the opportunity to spend quality time with the young carers due to the high demanding support that the supported child with a disability requires. When we compared this to the feedback after sis-bro ended; we established an improvement to the whole families health and well-being.
Case study
'J' Is a parent of a young carer and has expressed that she feels guilty when she cannot share her attention with all her children. 'P' has complex needs and requires a lot of support from the whole family. 'A' attends sis-bro which 'J' feels she has noticed a positive improvement as they are getting the one-to-one emotional support that she would like to provide.