Study reveals few infants taken into care in Scotland are placed with brothers and sister

Only one in five infants taken into care in Scotland who had older brothers or sisters were initially placed with them, according to a new study funded by Scottish Government which has been published today.

The research, led by Lancaster University and involving academics from the University of Stirling, found that although on the whole families were known to services before their birth, and thus their arrival was expected, most infants were not placed with their older brothers and sisters. Two years later, only a third of children were living with a brother or sister.

The Promise, the report of the Independent Care Review set up by Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s First Minister, and published in 2020, states that where living with their families is not possible, children need to be placed with their brothers and sisters.

The research team was led by Dr Linda Cusworth, from Lancaster University, in partnership with researchers at the University of Stirling, and the Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration (SCRA). The team analysed data for all 2,849 infants who entered the care system via the Children’s Hearing before they were a year old between 1st April 2013 and 31st March 2020, and looked in depth at the circumstances of 70 of those children and their families.

Co-author, Dr Helen Whincup, from the University of Stirling, commented, "Our findings show that placing babies and infants with older brothers and sisters was the exception rather than the rule.

"This is despite the drive to keep brothers and sisters together and research which shows that early decisions about where, and with whom children are placed, can have huge consequences for their relationships with their siblings”.

The study also explored the circumstances of families where infants were removed, uncovering complex needs relating to poverty and housing problems, mental health, substance misuse, domestic abuse and offending histories.

Researchers also found that many of the parents were recorded as having difficult and disrupted childhoods themselves, with significant proportions having experienced abuse or neglect. Over a third (37%) of mothers and a quarter (24%) of fathers were care experienced.

Around a third of parents did not have any older children. But the study found that this was not the first child who had become looked after away from home for many of the parents.

Nine out of ten of the mothers known to have older children had at least one child previously removed, with one in five having had three or more children taken into care.

Although less information was recorded for fathers, over half (56%) of those with older children were known to have had a previous child removed from their care.