Siblings Raising Siblings: The Invisible Kinship Carers

Abstract

When a child cannot safely live with their parents, kinship care can keep children with people who love them, rather than them being fostered or adopted by people they do not know. There has been an increasing awareness of how important kinship care is and the need for more recognition and support, particularly in England with the new Kinship Care Strategy being implemented across Local Authorities. 

People often assume kinship carers are all grandparents. But anyone who is connected with a child can become a kinship carer. This spotlight webinar, opening #KinshipCareWeek2026 will focus on the experiences and stories of older brothers and sisters who become kinship carers for their younger siblings, exploring what it means to raise your own sibling, where the gaps are in understanding and services, and how sibling kinship care intersects with young carers, being care experienced, and stereotypes around the capacity and capabilities of young people more generally.

Biography

Dr Lorna Stabler is a Research Fellow at CASCADE, Cardiff University. Her research focuses on ways to keep children safely within their family networks. She runs a programme of research focused on kinship care. As well as her academic study, she draws on her experience of having been a kinship foster carer to her younger brother and her own care experience, to ground her work in the everyday realities of care.