Siblings living apart from each other in different foster families or residential homes rarely meet, according to experts.
They are calling for a formal system to be introduced that would enable brothers and sisters to make more frequent contact.
A total of 231 children, forming 70 sets of siblings, are living separately in out-of-home care, according to recent figures tabled in Parliament by Family Minister Michael Farrugia.
The most commonly cited reason for siblings being placed in separate homes is their “various needs due to different ages and life situations”.
Other reasons include that there are “no placements to cater for the amount of siblings in this family”, especially when the number exceeds two.
According to the figures, sibling pairs are most common, at 25. There are 19 sets of three siblings and four sets of seven.
Roslynn Vella, from the Maltese Association for Social Workers, said there were cases where siblings in different placements only met once every two months or during the holidays. Sometimes, a child’s siblings would be brought along during the visits with their birth parents.
However, it was not always possible to assemble them all, as different children had different commitments and extracurricular activities.
There should be more efforts to ensure that children not only met their biological parents but also their brothers and sisters, according to Ms Vella.
However, this puts a strain on social workers, who work under heavy caseloads.
“There is also the issue of who will bring the siblings together, as there are no supervised access visits specifically for siblings as there are for parents.
There are no supervised access visits specifically for siblings as there are for parents
“The social workers of looked-after children often take it in hand to ensure that the siblings meet. However, they do this over and above their duties. More human resources need to be pooled in to make this possible.”
Social policy and social work lecturer Daniella Zerafa stressed the need to maintain a positive relationship between siblings, even if they were not living together.
Malta currently lacked the services to facilitate such encounters, with the initiative often being left to the different foster carers, she said.
“There need to be people who can facilitate formalised, regular visits between siblings.”
Social psychologist Olivia Galea Seychell explained that, according to her research, children in care mentioned that they missed their siblings most of all. It could often benefit them to recount their experiences to each other without having to face the trauma of meeting a perpetrator of abuse, for example.
She stressed the importance of having a formal system which would ensure regular contact between siblings in separate placements. The general rule was to keep siblings together in the same foster family or home as much as possible.
However, there were cases where this was not possible. The decision depended on a multitude of factors, such as whether the siblings were actually half-siblings. This was the case with many of the larger families.
Other factors included the different relationships between siblings – some do not get along – and the age at which they were transferred to out-of-home care, with adolescents often finding it harder to adapt to new families.
“Ideally, they should be in a family environment,” Dr Galea Seychell said. “But this is not for every child. Adolescents in particular may not be ready to form part of a family.”
The supervisors who oversaw visits between the children and their family members needed to be better trained, she added. They should be professionals trained to deal with any tensions which could erupt and to identify situations which could act as a trigger.