Inspiring Lives
Inspiring change for siblings in the shadows
PROJECTS
Funding research
We climbed Kilimanjaro in June 2016 to raise awareness of the huge mountain of challenges many families are facing and to raise money to fund research into the emotional and spiritual needs of the siblings of children and young people living with complex-care needs.
This research has been written up as a report.
Please join us on Monday 14th March at 19:45 GMT on zoom to hear about the research and resulting projects, following the link
Many thanks to all the families who participated and Birmingham Children’s Hospital’s Centre For Paediatric Spiritual Care.
Sibling groups
Siblings are often dealing with feelings of loss of how family life used to be, loneliness, guilt and anger, which can lead to difficulties in school, friendships, and low self esteem. These siblings often do not have a way to express their needs and can easily go unnoticed within the many needs of the family.
We have run a group in a school in Birmingham specifically for siblings. We used creative activities to help the children and young people express their emotions and talk about their experiences, finding common ground and understanding.
See our resources page to access the planning template to replicate this type of group.
Sibling Boxes
The Covid-19 pandemic restricted visiting of siblings into hospitals.
This has been especially hard for many children when their sibling has had to have long hospital stays.
We worked with a previous patient's family and local churches to provide boxes of activities for the siblings of babies on the neonatal units in Nottingham to let them know that they are seen and loved.
See our resources page for ideas of items to include in activity boxes.
Telling Stories
We are delighted to support the work of a theatre production of Michael Morpurgo's book 'Cool' which will incorporate the voices of the parents and siblings of a boy in hospital, enabling more siblings' stories to be heard.
Please come back for more details as the production progresses.
Sibling PAcks
We have been working with the chaplaincy team at Birmingham Women's and Children's Hospital to support them developing pack so for siblings that are unable to visit due to the Covid-19 restrictions.
These have received extremely positive feedback from parents and staff.
Training and Awareness
We plan to use research evidence along with the experiences from sibling groups to raise awareness about the challenges these siblings and families face.
We also aim to develop in training packs that can be used in healthcare settings, schools and faith based communities.
Please come back to see training opportunites as they develop.
