Support group for siblings

A series of blogs for #CarersWeek

Masie Nichols is a social worker with the Perinatal Mental Health Service, which supports women with mental ill health who are pregnant or have a child under one.  Here she describes the siblings group she runs with Bronwen Ashton which had only just started meeting before the lockdown started but has moved online.

“I’ve run one group so far online. Three families being supported in the community joined in and there were 6 children aged 5 – 11. It was an experiment but it seemed to go well and the children joined in with the activities. It ran for about 40 minutes.

“To start with we did a short mindfulness session. Everyone thought quietly about a place where they felt happy, calm and safe. Next we did a couple of scavenger hunts for the children. First they had to find their favourite thing, bring it back to the group and talk about it. Next they had to find the favourite thing of someone else in their family and then talk about that person.

“The next group is planned already and will be an arts and crafts session. I’ll be sending  out an activity in advance to do during the session, but if the children can’t wait, it might be a ‘show and tell’ session! A future session might involve therapeutic games. Each session will aim to help the children talk about their thoughts and feelings about what is going on.

I hope to run one session every two weeks online, but when we can meet physically, we’ll do it monthly.”