Sibling kinship care is far more common than most people realise, yet it remains one of the least understood forms of care. In this powerful episode of Trauma Informed Conversations, part of the Care-Experienced People mini-series, host Carrie Wilson sits down with Dr Lorna Stabler from Cardiff University to explore what really happens when a young person becomes the primary carer for their own brother or sister.

Drawing on lived experience and ground-breaking research, Lorna shares the hidden realities of sibling kinship care: stepping into parenting roles while still traumatised, navigating systems that don’t recognise sibling carers, and carrying emotional and financial pressures that professionals often overlook. Together, Carrie and Lorna unpack the myths, misunderstandings and invisible labour that shape these family stories, while highlighting the deep love, commitment and resilience that hold them together.

Listeners will gain insight into why sibling kinship care sits at the intersection of multiple forms of invisibility, how language and policy fail to reflect real family life, and what needs to change to build trauma-informed systems that actually support carers rather than overwhelm them. From shared-care models to financial recognition, from the importance of narrative work to the complexity of sibling bonds, this episode offers a compassionate and honest exploration of a rarely heard care experience.

Whether you work in social care, policy, education, or simply want to understand kinship care more deeply, this conversation invites you to rethink assumptions and recognise sibling carers as experts in connection, not exceptions to the rule.

Key topics include:

• The emotional and practical realities of becoming a sibling kinship carer
• Why existing systems expect carers to “do 100% or nothing”
• Trauma-informed approaches to supporting kinship families
• The power of narrative and lived experience in reshaping practice
• Financial barriers, identity, and the hidden costs of care
• How language like “placement” and “contact” distorts real family relationships

About our Guest

Dr Lorna Stabler is a researcher at the CASCADE Research Centre at Cardiff University, focusing on care experience, kinship care and family support. She grew up in and out of foster care and kinship care and later became a kinship foster carer for her younger brother. That lived experience runs through her work, including her PhD on sibling kinship care, which asks not whether kinship care is “good or bad” but how it really feels to live it.

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