December 12, 2022 • 35 mins
This month we speak with Social Policy Researcher, Ariella Meltzer, about the similarities and differences in sibling support all over the world.
Access the transcript of this episode here.
Acceda a la transcripción en español
Resources and terms mentioned in this episode:
- Contact Ariella Meltzer at:
Email: a.meltzer@unsw.edu.au
Twitter
LinkedIn - Publications from Ariella’s research are available at:
What is ‘sibling support’? Defining the social support sector serving siblings of people with disabilities
The operation of the social support sector serving siblings of people with disabilities: a cross-country analysis
(These publications are behind a paywall for many. If you need help accessing a free copy, please email Ariella directly.) - Centre for Social Impact at The University Of New South Wales
- Community of practice definition
- If you know of a group that’s primary focus is to support siblings of people with disabilities and you think they would be interested in learning more about this Community of Practice, feel free to contact info@siblingleadership.org
"Sibling support really needs consistent recognition everywhere."
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Chris Berstler (00:02):
Welcome to the sibling Leadership Network
podcast. The sibling LeadershipNetwork is a national nonprofit
whose mission is to providesiblings of individuals with
disabilities the informationsupport and tools to advocate
with their brothers and sistersand to promote the issue is
important to us and our entirefamilies.
(00:22):
Hello, and thank you for joiningus for another episode of the
SLN Podcast. Today I am joinedby Ariella Meltzer to talk about
international sibling support.
Ariella, Thank you for joiningus today.
Ariella Meltzer (00:35):
Thanks so much.
It's great to be here.
Chris Berstler (00:37):
So I'd like to kick things off by asking you to
please tell us about yourselfand your experience working with
and researching sibs fromdifferent countries.
Ariella Meltzer (00:46):
First and foremost, I am a sibling myself.
So I have a twin sister with aphysical and intellectual
disability. And I've been areally long time member of
siblings support communities. Sosince I was a really, really
young teenager back in the daywhen SickKids existed and was
run by the sibling SupportProject, that's now turned into
(01:08):
into sub teen. More recently,though, I'm also a social policy
researcher working for theCenter for Social Impact at the
University of New South Wales,in Sydney, Australia. So in my
role there, I do a bunch ofresearch about a range of
topics. My core interests aredisability and young people
(01:31):
sometimes combined, andsometimes separately. But I also
do research about a range ofother related topics such as
Families, Housing, and thedesign and implementation of
Human Services. But one of thetopics that I've always been
interested in researching, Iguess, based on my own
experience is relationshipsbetween siblings where one has a
(01:54):
disability. My research in thatarea started with a study of the
sibling relationship duringyoung adulthood. And notably, in
that research, I focused on theperspective of both the sibling
with and without disabilities.
So I spoke to people withdisabilities, about their
relationships with theirbrothers and sisters, as well as
the siblings themselves. Morerecently, though, I've been
(02:19):
working on some research abouthow sibling support is provided
around the world. So I startedwith a small pilot study of just
five countries. So thosecountries were the USA, the UK,
Canada, and New Zealand andAustralia. And I'm now expanding
it out globally, to look at morecountries as well. So my current
(02:43):
piece of follow on research,include some of those original
five countries, but also includesome other places as well, such
as Japan, Peru, Nigeria,Portugal, Italy, Ireland, the
Netherlands, and, and Taiwan. Soit's been really interesting to
see how siblings what isprovided around the world. And
(03:05):
I'm kind of working on two setsof findings from that research.
One is a typology of differenttypes of sibling support. And
one is also looking at theconditions for the organizations
who run sibling support, becausethere's a whole lot of sibling
support organizations around theworld. And, you know, aside from
(03:26):
actually providing support tosiblings, they need to think
about how they run themselves.
So what their business model is,how they get funding, who their
staff and volunteers are, whattheir leadership and governance
is like. So I've been lookinginto that. And as far as I'm
aware, it's it's the first pieceof research of that type. So
(03:47):
it's been, it's been really,really interesting to see how
sibling support has beenprovided around the world and
how many similarities there arebetween countries, but also how
many differences
Chris Berstler (03:59):
in your experience, what similarities
Have you seen in sibling supportfrom country to country?
Ariella Meltzer (04:05):
So I think that's a really, really strong
similarities across siblingsupport organizations from from
country to country. The firstsimilarity is that there's kind
of two different types oforganizations who provide
sibling support in a whole lotof countries across the world.
One type is dedicated siblingsupport organizations which are
(04:29):
there to service siblings only.
That's their primary focus. Andif they provide services for
others, such as parents orprofessionals, then the services
that they provide for thoseother people are always still in
the service of siblings, so it'seducating parents or
professionals about siblingissues. The second type of
(04:51):
sibling support organization areorganizations who have a broader
remit but income Doing siblings.
So that might be, you know, abig disability service provider,
or a big family service provideror a carer organization, or a
caregiver organization whoservice other people as well,
(05:13):
maybe people with disabilitiesor parents or caregivers more
generally. But siblings are onegroup within the broader set of
cohorts that they that theyservice and across different
countries, you can see thatthese two different types of
sibling support organizationsrecur time and time again, one
(05:35):
of the other really bigsimilarities, I think, between
the sibling supportorganizations across countries,
and this is particularly thecase for those organizations
that primarily serve assiblings. but not exclusively
the case for them is thatthey're all not for profits,
they're all charities. Andthey're mostly operating with
(05:58):
really minimal funding andstaffing. So they've got really
small grants small amounts ofmoney to do their work with. And
they often have only a reallysmall amount of paid staff. But
those staff are often siblingsof people with disabilities
themselves. And they're superpassionate. And so the
(06:21):
organization's are running onminimal resources, but huge
amounts of, of passion andpersonal experience. So what
that means is that often thatorganizations are conducting
really great work, but doing itwith minimal resources, and
often struggling in thebackground to gain recognition
or gain ongoing funding, whichis this really interesting
(06:43):
dynamic assign that they want tokeep going. And they they always
seem to, but it's going fromGrant to grant or donation to
donation. And kind of havingstability is always the
challenge.
Chris Berstler (06:59):
So what differences have you noticed
from country to country forsibling support?
Ariella Meltzer (07:04):
Um, so one of the big differences is that
there's only a couple ofcountries that have multiple
organizations that focus onsiblings only. So the USA, for
example, has multiple differentorganizations that focus
primarily on siblings, and Japandoes as well. But many or IDSA,
(07:26):
most other countries only haveone organization focus primarily
on siblings. And so theimplication of that, in terms of
that cross country comparison,is that where there are multiple
sibling focused organizations ina particular country, I think
they can differentiate andspecialize a lot more. Whereas
(07:49):
when there's only one sibling,focused organization, and a
country that's primarilyservicing siblings, that
organization has to do a lotmore, they have to do a bit of
everything. And there's not theopportunity to specialize and
focus on one product orspecialize and focus on one
group. I guess the other bigdifference is, you know, across
(08:09):
all of the different countries,they sibling support
organizations are operatingwithin the service systems of
the particular country they'rein. And all of those service
systems are a slightly differentwith different conditions that
make it easier or harder forthem to provide services and get
(08:31):
the resources and support theyneed to do so. So an example of
this is that in Australia, inthe UK, there's currently a
really big focus in thedisability sector on what's
called direct budgets andpersonalization in services for
people with disabilities. Sothis means that money goes
directly to a specific personwith disability, and is not
(08:55):
provided to a service providerorganization in a more wide
scale way to just do with whatthey want. And so when the money
is provided directly to a personwith disability, it makes it
really hard to then shave off abit to run sibling support. On
the side, for example, for oneof those bigger organizations
(09:17):
who serve as much multiplecohorts and makes it harder to
do sibling support. And it alsomakes it harder for the
dedicated sibling supportorganizations to get money or or
get space to do their work.
Similarly, some countries aroundthe world have more of a focus
on carers or caregivers thanothers in terms of just their
(09:41):
social policy. And for thecountries that have a really big
focus on carers or caregivers,often, government and other
funders will subsume siblingsunder that broader caregiver
label. And think that siblingshave been catered for and
policy, when perhaps people likeyou and I who know more about, I
(10:05):
guess the specificity of thesibling experience. Know that,
you know, we can benefit fromsome caregiver supports and
services. But we need somespecific stuff that sibling
specific as well. And so incountries where that is that
care focused, it's a particulardynamic of navigating, you know,
(10:25):
where do we collaborate and joinwith caregiver organizations?
And where do we need to dosomething specific? And then in
the places where we need to dosomething specific? How do we?
How do we get the resources weneed when a lot of it is going
to broader social policysettings around carers?
Chris Berstler (10:47):
Currently, the SLN and other organizations
around the world are part of anew initiative, called the
International Community ofPractice on supporting siblings
of people with disabilities. Canyou tell us a little bit about
that initiative?
Ariella Meltzer (11:00):
Sure, so that community practice is a really
exciting initiative, which isone of the first really
sustained or long term attemptsto create a conversation between
siblings support providers indifferent countries. So for
listeners of the podcast whomight not have come across the
idea of a community of practicebefore, a community of practice
(11:23):
is a group that shares commonconcerns and interests, and they
come together to share with eachother and learn from each other
and support each other. In thecase of the international
community of practice forsupporting siblings, people with
disabilities, a very long name.
The idea for this came fromdiscussions between a few
(11:45):
members have different siblingsupport organizations who had
been on some conference panelstogether talking about
international sibling support.
And we kind of worked outthrough the conversation on the
on those panels that it wasreally time for something to be
(12:07):
created. Some representativesfrom Sibling organizations in
the US, UK, Canada, India, andAustralia, got together and
decided to create the communitypractice. And it's for
organizations, groups onnetworks whose primary mission
(12:27):
is to support siblings forpeople with disabilities. So
it's that first type of siblingsupport organization I was
talking about earlier. And theintent is really to create a
space for people working insibling support to share and
learn from each other. We've hadone meeting so far. So it's
early days. And in that firstmeeting, we're really just
(12:48):
introducing ourselves and thedifferent organizations that
that were present. And hearingabout some of the background to
be successes and challenges thatthey've had over the years, is a
really democratic group. So weplan to share leadership of the
group and rotate who facilitatesthe meetings and come up with
the agenda. So there's no oneleading the group per se,
(13:11):
everyone who's involved is is aleader of it, which is a really
nice feature. Obviously, workinginternationally comes with some
challenges, though, so it'sreally hard to find a timezone
that works for everyone. There'salso some other challenges. So
particularly from an inclusivityperspective. So at the moment,
the meetings are in English, we,as we progress, and we become
(13:36):
more established, we really wantto think about how to expand
that to other languages, or howto work in other languages as
well, because that will open updoors for others.
Chris Berstler (13:46):
So far, what countries are involved in the
community of practice?
Ariella Meltzer (13:49):
So far? The first meeting that we have are
countries who were representedwhere Australia, India, the USA,
Korea, Nigeria, Indonesia,Canada, there was a
representative from Peru therewhose organization services,
other Spanish speaking countriesas well. We also have links in
(14:12):
with UK sibling groups as well.
Chris Berstler (14:16):
Do you see the group expanding a lot more in
the future?
Ariella Meltzer (14:20):
We're open to whoever wants to come. From my
own research. I think that thereare few countries, for example,
that were included in myinternational sibling study, who
aren't yet at the Community ofPractice and vice versa. So I
think that there's opportunitiesto expand definitely. However, I
(14:43):
think that you know, therearen't yet sibling organizations
in every country around theworld. And so, at this stage, we
wouldn't be expanding infinitelyto, you know, a lot more
countries, but we're open to it.
You know, as Many countries thathave siblings support and want
to be involved can and I guessone of the intents of the group
(15:04):
as well as to help foster newsibling support organizations,
in countries where there mightnot be one already. And so
hopefully, by the very existenceof the group, we might actually
expand, which countries aremembers as well,
Chris Berstler (15:21):
what are members of the community of practice
hoping to learn from each other?
Ariella Meltzer (15:26):
I mean, really, we just want to learn about what
each other are doing. We want tosee the scope of what's being
done internationally, and learnabout what's been successful in
one place. And think aboutwhether that might be also
successful in another place, ifthe idea was was done somewhere
else as well. I think there'salso opportunity to benefit from
(15:47):
the lessons learnt already byothers. You know, as I said
earlier, a lot of siblingsupport organizations operate in
really hard conditions. And so,if one organization has learnt a
way to solve a problem, orlearnt the hard way, how to deal
with a particularly difficultresourcing problem, or
(16:10):
implemented new program thatworks really well, in particular
circumstances, it's great forothers to learn about that and
not have to learn the hard wayas well. I think also, as I
said, we want to support smallor new or emergent groups, and
some of the bigger or siblingorganizations who have more
resources, maybe haveopportunity to help some of the,
(16:34):
you know, one person show typeorganizations who are struggling
a bit more, and could benefitfrom some some shared resources.
Chris Berstler (16:43):
If any listeners out there know of a group that's
primary focus is to supportsiblings of people with
disabilities, and you think theywould be interested in learning
more about this community ofpractice, please feel free to
reach out and contact us atinfo@siblingleadership.org.
How has COVID-19 impactedsibling support around the
(17:04):
world? Were there any countriesthat had sibling organizations
that were hit especially hard?
Ariella Meltzer (17:10):
So when I take the first part of my
international sibling research,so that was the section with the
USA, UK, Canada, New Zealand andAustralia, I collected the data
for that research in 2020 andearly 2021. So COVID was, you
know, a really new experiencethan it was at its height, it
was really hard for a lot ofpeople and a lot of
(17:33):
organizations. And so,inevitably COVID was something
that came up in my discussionswith sibling support providers.
Interestingly, though, while thecircumstances of COVID were
absolutely awful, it created afew opportunities for sibling
support organizations that wereactually useful. So one of the
(17:54):
really interesting things thatseveral organizations told me
and I did that first round ofthe research in 2020 2021, was
that. And the pandemic actuallycreated more awareness of the
role of siblings in the lives ofpeople with disabilities. So as
everyone stayed home inlockdown, and people were
(18:15):
confined to their homes confinedto whoever they were living
with, and governments and otherbroader organizations in the
disability and family supportsectors have had to think about
how to provide servicesremotely, suddenly, that dynamic
really shone a spotlight onsiblings, you know, people were
(18:36):
like, Whoa, who's at home withthe person with disability are
their parents, their siblings,their immediate family, ah,
siblings might be a similar ageto people with disability. It's
like peers, it's like friends,you know, maybe we should be
looking at what siblings andchildren and teenagers with
(18:56):
disabilities can do together,you know, maybe we should be
supporting the siblings. It waslike, you know, this light bulb
went off for different fundersand bigger organizations. And so
for a few organizations, it wasactually quite helpful in
helping to show others whysiblings are important, what
(19:17):
role they play in the lives ofpeople with disabilities, and
was also helpful in findingfundings and resources for a
sibling focus during that reallyheightened pandemic time because
there were, you know, newstreams of funding available to
address community isolation andsocial cohesion and family
(19:38):
support. And severalorganizations were able to get
short term programs in tosupport siblings in a way that
they just never would have beenoutside the pandemic conditions.
And then it's interesting forpeople like us who follow the
sibling interest really closely,they're like, well Of course,
(19:59):
siblings are at home, with theperson with disability, they
always have been. But thepandemic circumstance created
the conditions for other peopleto see it, the ones who don't
normally see it. And that wasreally quite a big change. The
other thing that happened inthat 2020 2021 period of
(20:19):
pandemic was that everythingwent online. And it created a
lot more online opportunitiesfor sibling support. So people
who are really involved in thesplink, communities will know
that there's always been onlinesibling support. You know, for
example, subnets in 2017,they've always been online, and
(20:40):
they've always been some of thecornerstones of the sibling
support community. But the COVIDpandemic also saw others
specific, smaller peer support,and individual wellbeing
programs run online for thefirst time, or ran more
intensively than they ever hadbeen, by a whole range of
different organizations. And inmodels that were quite different
(21:04):
to the SIP net, for example,experience. So, you know, small
groups of people coming togetheronline for a chat, or more
education sessions being runonline and more well being
programs being run online. Andthat I that I think was quite
beneficial. And if you look now,it's it's stayed. One of the
(21:24):
challenges of sibling support, Ithink, has always been getting
enough people together in aspecific location to run a
program. And so the opportunityto do it online, and you know,
lots of people in high incomecountries in particular,
becoming really second naturewith Zoom or, or other video
(21:45):
platforms created thatopportunity. I think,
unsurprisingly, this wasespecially the case in countries
that had really long andprotracted lockdown periods. And
those were the countries inparticular that soar, government
funding becoming available fordoing online programming as
well. Obviously, not everythingwas a benefit about the
(22:08):
pandemic, though, you know, Ithink it was really hard for
both siblings and siblingsupport communities to contend
with COVID being a really bigdanger to the people with
disabilities that we love and toour families and, you know,
extended lockdown and shieldingarrangements to make sure that
(22:29):
we could keep people safe. Ithink it also meant that the
sibling community really had tograpple a lot more with grief
and loss, then, you know, thosehave always been an issue, but
it was suddenly pushed onto theagenda and in such a dramatic
kind of way. And in a reallyrenting type of way when, you
(22:50):
know, people in the onlinecommunities soar outcomes of the
pandemic for other people thatthey were really fearful of for
themselves and their ownfamilies as well. In terms of
your original question, also,you asked about organizations
who were hit the hardest. And Ithink the organizations who were
(23:11):
hit the hardest were those whowere just trying to get off the
ground at the time when COVIDhit. So in my current piece of
research, where I've, I'veexpanded that sibling support
study out to more countriesaround the globe, there's a
number of countries in thatstudy who were really just
(23:31):
starting their sibling supportorganizations at the time when
COVID hit and really struggledto sustain the momentum both as
countries locked down asresources constricted, as
economic conditions cost ofliving have become harder in
this kind of era of the pandemicwere in now. And as the support
(23:51):
of parent organizations orbroader disability support
providers who might have beenfostering a small sibling
support organization, have driedup as those organizations have
had to focus on their corebusiness a little bit more, some
of the organizations who werejust starting around the time
(24:12):
the pandemic hit, managed topivot, the great buzzword of the
pandemic, at least in Australia,I don't know if that's the case,
elsewhere as well, but theymanaged to pivot and really
benefit from the the onlineexperience that it created. But
the really small ones who werelike a one or two persons show,
(24:33):
I think they really struggledand particularly those in
countries who had really severepandemic conditions as well. And
those organizations now justthinking in various ways about
what how can we try andreestablish where we left off.
Can we get back to where we wereor is it all too hard? And I
(24:53):
think, particularly the reallymicro small organizations are
asking themselves thesequestions at the moment?
Chris Berstler (25:01):
How are sibling support organizations tackling
issues of discrimination?
Ariella Meltzer (25:06):
It's a really interesting question. And I
think it's something that'sreally pushing onto the agenda
of sibling support organizationsat the moment. Like it's a
really current big issue for alot of organizations across the
world in a whole lot ofcountries. But I would say,
particularly in the USA, and theUK, where local conditions and
(25:29):
events have led to many peopleand many organizations really
wanting and trying hard to dobetter on these types of issues.
I think the most common focus insibling support organizations is
to try and do better on culturaldiversity. So particularly
covering better covering thesupport needs of siblings of
(25:49):
color, or ethnic minoritysiblings. The terminology varies
depending on what country you'rein. But there's also sibling
support organizations trying todo things to address gender
diversity, and class or socioeconomic diversity as well.
Different sibling supportorganizations are trialing a
whole bunch of different thingson this front, some as
(26:13):
individual organizations andsome has collaborations across
organizations as well. Sothere's a lot of organizations
who are really foregroundingthis as an issue and being
really intentional aboutencouraging greater diversity.
Some examples of how they'redoing that is purposefully
seeking diverse participants fortheir initiatives, offering
(26:36):
sponsorship to cover attendancefees and events, providing
multilingual resources,educating their leadership on
diversity issues, and thenhaving that flow down into that
programming, trying to findoutreach workers at outreach
events so that they reachsiblings who they might not
easily reach or who might notcome to them. And also
(26:59):
specifically conducting eventsto address greater
representation, sometimes incollaboration with each other.
The reality is, there's still alot more work to do on all of
these issues. And as I say, it'sa live issue that a lot of
people are trying really hard onat the moment, also with the
international community ofpractice. I think it's also
(27:22):
notable that the sibling supportcommittee as a whole is now
trying to create a lot moreconnections with sibling support
organizations in non Englishspeaking countries. And I think
that helps as well. And theCommunity of Practice will be a
critical piece in trying tomaintain that conversation
across languages, although as Isaid, we do need to grapple with
(27:46):
the language barrier ourselves.
Um, I guess the final thing thatI'd say on this topic is that
one of the long term challengesspecific support is whether or
how or to what extent peoplewith disability are included in
sibling support initiatives aswell. And I think this is an
area where we're really startingto see a few changes as well.
(28:07):
There are a couple of siblingsupport organizations recently
who have been running events forsiblings, both with and without
disabilities together, eitherdiscussion events, or kind of
recreational socializing events.
And that's something new that'spushing on the agenda. That's
(28:28):
nice to see. I think there's oneor two sibling support
organizations who are alsoreally trying to foreground the
idea that it's not either ormany people who identify as
siblings of people withdisabilities may also have
various disabilities themselves,which, over the course of their
lifetimes, may have receivedmore or less attention,
(28:51):
depending on their familycircumstances and how LinkedIn
to services and how enlightenedeverybody was about multiple
health and disabilityexperiences in the family. But I
think the idea that, that it'snot a binary between who has a
disability and who doesn't, isalso starting to be a subject of
(29:11):
of conversation, which is quiteimportant as well.
Chris Berstler (29:15):
in your opinion, and based on your research
findings. What supports does theinternational sibling community
really need most in order tothrive? And how can we get
involved to ensure that thishappens?
Ariella Meltzer (29:29):
That's the million dollar question isn't
that it's such a hard one. Andespecially the bit about how to
ensure that it happens. That'sthe really, really hard bit
because so much about thecircumstances of sibling support
depends on external agencieslike governments and
philanthropists and otherfunders. And so it's hard to
(29:52):
know what's needed. And it'seven harder to do what's needed.
Having said that, I had to chipoff This question was coming in.
So I did have a think about it.
And I've got four things that Ithink sibling support around the
world needs. The first one issibling support really needs
consistent recognitioneverywhere off the importance of
(30:15):
sibling support as a distinctservice type that needs to be
funded separately to support forother people, such as people
with disabilities, or parents,or more general carer support.
So often, sibling support hasthe misfortune of governments,
funders, big service providers,wanting to subsume it under
(30:37):
support for other people aswell. And that's really tricky.
There are some aspects of thatsupport that we really benefit
from. And absolutely, there aretimes where we want to
collaborate and be included inother group support initiatives.
And we can't do it alone.
Because you know that if yousupport one person in the family
(30:57):
without supporting all theothers, that's useless, but
consistent recognition thatsibling support needs to also be
available. There's somethingdistinct, and consistent
recognition of that everywhereacross the globe. That's one
thing that's really, reallyneeded. Another thing is
consistent and ongoing funding.
And that's hard all over theworld. And it's hard for a whole
(31:18):
range of different reasons thatrelate to the surface systems of
different countries. But it is acommon theme everywhere.
fundings just needed to fund theinitiatives that sibling support
wants to do. And to pay thepeople who run sibling support,
you know, there's always goingto be volunteers who want to get
involved. And that's reallyimportant, and it's really good.
(31:38):
And it's really appropriatebecause people want to support
their own communities. But it'salso important that sibling
support in the majority isn'tbeing done out of pocket or
isn't being done only out ofgoodwill, it needs to be
supported, recognized sector, Iguess related to those first two
things is the third thing isthat I think there needs to be a
(31:59):
pipeline of new and ongoingleaders or staff or volunteers
to share the workload withinsibling support, and a way to
support them and train them. Andin some cases, pay them if
they're not volunteers, they'llalways be the volunteering
(32:20):
component, but but some peoplewill always need to be paid. And
the reality is that siblingsupport can't be run by a tiny
group forever, it needs to havelots of people involved so that
that's sustainable. I think theSLN is really lucky that it has
so many people involved. Butcurrently in many countries,
there's lots of sibling supportorganizations who are one or two
(32:43):
person show, or who havestruggled to maintain ongoing
funding to be more than that,even if they have been at
certain points in time. And sofinding a way to have that
sustainability is reallyimportant. Because otherwise,
you know, we're going to keepgetting into the situation where
new sibling support initiativesare established. And then they
(33:05):
they can't continue becausethere's not the people or
resources there to back them.
And then the fourth thing, thereneeds to be ways to share
information and skills withnewly established sibling
support organizations, or oneswho want to grow and expand. And
this is the one that we can dosomething about, because this is
what the community of practiceis trying to do. And if we can
(33:28):
do that, well, I think it'llprobably help the previous one
about the pipeline of new peopleas well. You know, the more
opportunities there are to shareinformation, support each other,
help each other, not have toreinvent the wheel every time
just because you happen to be ina different country to where the
thing you need was established,the better we all can be. So I
(33:49):
think that's really excitingthat more international
discussion is happening aroundsibling support, I think is
really timely. And it's probablyin ours we were talking about in
the in the code and siblingdiscussion, it's probably one of
the great benefits of thepandemic. Because suddenly,
everybody's comfortable withvideo technology, we can have an
(34:14):
international community in a waythat I think was never as
possible. When the culture wasmore that things had to be done
in person. I think I think it'san exciting time for sibling
support, particularlyinternational sibling support.
And then there'll be, it'll begood to see what comes as a
(34:34):
community practice. I think ithas real, real potential, and
it's exciting.
Chris Berstler (34:38):
Thank you so much for sharing all this
information with us. Anyresources that Ariella has
shared with us can be found inthe podcast description below.
Thank you so much for joining usfor another episode. And
Ariella, thank you so much forsharing all of your information
with us.
Ariella Meltzer (34:56):
You're welcome.
Thanks for having me today.
Chris Berstler (34:58):
Find the resources tools and information
about the sibling experience onsibling leadership dot board the
sibling Leadership Network is anonprofit and we rely on support
from our audience find thedonation button on our homepage
and contribute to the evergrowing sibling movement
Welcome to the sibling Leadership Network
podcast. The sibling LeadershipNetwork is a national nonprofit
whose mission is to providesiblings of individuals with
disabilities the informationsupport and tools to advocate
with their brothers and sistersand to promote the issue is
important to us and our entirefamilies.
(00:22):
Hello, and thank you for joiningus for another episode of the
SLN Podcast. Today I am joinedby Ariella Meltzer to talk about
international sibling support.
Ariella, Thank you for joiningus today.
Ariella Meltzer (00:35):
Thanks so much.
It's great to be here.
Chris Berstler (00:37):
So I'd like to kick things off by asking you to
please tell us about yourselfand your experience working with
and researching sibs fromdifferent countries.
Ariella Meltzer (00:46):
First and foremost, I am a sibling myself.
So I have a twin sister with aphysical and intellectual
disability. And I've been areally long time member of
siblings support communities. Sosince I was a really, really
young teenager back in the daywhen SickKids existed and was
run by the sibling SupportProject, that's now turned into
(01:08):
into sub teen. More recently,though, I'm also a social policy
researcher working for theCenter for Social Impact at the
University of New South Wales,in Sydney, Australia. So in my
role there, I do a bunch ofresearch about a range of
topics. My core interests aredisability and young people
(01:31):
sometimes combined, andsometimes separately. But I also
do research about a range ofother related topics such as
Families, Housing, and thedesign and implementation of
Human Services. But one of thetopics that I've always been
interested in researching, Iguess, based on my own
experience is relationshipsbetween siblings where one has a
(01:54):
disability. My research in thatarea started with a study of the
sibling relationship duringyoung adulthood. And notably, in
that research, I focused on theperspective of both the sibling
with and without disabilities.
So I spoke to people withdisabilities, about their
relationships with theirbrothers and sisters, as well as
the siblings themselves. Morerecently, though, I've been
(02:19):
working on some research abouthow sibling support is provided
around the world. So I startedwith a small pilot study of just
five countries. So thosecountries were the USA, the UK,
Canada, and New Zealand andAustralia. And I'm now expanding
it out globally, to look at morecountries as well. So my current
(02:43):
piece of follow on research,include some of those original
five countries, but also includesome other places as well, such
as Japan, Peru, Nigeria,Portugal, Italy, Ireland, the
Netherlands, and, and Taiwan. Soit's been really interesting to
see how siblings what isprovided around the world. And
(03:05):
I'm kind of working on two setsof findings from that research.
One is a typology of differenttypes of sibling support. And
one is also looking at theconditions for the organizations
who run sibling support, becausethere's a whole lot of sibling
support organizations around theworld. And, you know, aside from
(03:26):
actually providing support tosiblings, they need to think
about how they run themselves.
So what their business model is,how they get funding, who their
staff and volunteers are, whattheir leadership and governance
is like. So I've been lookinginto that. And as far as I'm
aware, it's it's the first pieceof research of that type. So
(03:47):
it's been, it's been really,really interesting to see how
sibling support has beenprovided around the world and
how many similarities there arebetween countries, but also how
many differences
Chris Berstler (03:59):
in your experience, what similarities
Have you seen in sibling supportfrom country to country?
Ariella Meltzer (04:05):
So I think that's a really, really strong
similarities across siblingsupport organizations from from
country to country. The firstsimilarity is that there's kind
of two different types oforganizations who provide
sibling support in a whole lotof countries across the world.
One type is dedicated siblingsupport organizations which are
(04:29):
there to service siblings only.
That's their primary focus. Andif they provide services for
others, such as parents orprofessionals, then the services
that they provide for thoseother people are always still in
the service of siblings, so it'seducating parents or
professionals about siblingissues. The second type of
(04:51):
sibling support organization areorganizations who have a broader
remit but income Doing siblings.
So that might be, you know, abig disability service provider,
or a big family service provideror a carer organization, or a
caregiver organization whoservice other people as well,
(05:13):
maybe people with disabilitiesor parents or caregivers more
generally. But siblings are onegroup within the broader set of
cohorts that they that theyservice and across different
countries, you can see thatthese two different types of
sibling support organizationsrecur time and time again, one
(05:35):
of the other really bigsimilarities, I think, between
the sibling supportorganizations across countries,
and this is particularly thecase for those organizations
that primarily serve assiblings. but not exclusively
the case for them is thatthey're all not for profits,
they're all charities. Andthey're mostly operating with
(05:58):
really minimal funding andstaffing. So they've got really
small grants small amounts ofmoney to do their work with. And
they often have only a reallysmall amount of paid staff. But
those staff are often siblingsof people with disabilities
themselves. And they're superpassionate. And so the
(06:21):
organization's are running onminimal resources, but huge
amounts of, of passion andpersonal experience. So what
that means is that often thatorganizations are conducting
really great work, but doing itwith minimal resources, and
often struggling in thebackground to gain recognition
or gain ongoing funding, whichis this really interesting
(06:43):
dynamic assign that they want tokeep going. And they they always
seem to, but it's going fromGrant to grant or donation to
donation. And kind of havingstability is always the
challenge.
Chris Berstler (06:59):
So what differences have you noticed
from country to country forsibling support?
Ariella Meltzer (07:04):
Um, so one of the big differences is that
there's only a couple ofcountries that have multiple
organizations that focus onsiblings only. So the USA, for
example, has multiple differentorganizations that focus
primarily on siblings, and Japandoes as well. But many or IDSA,
(07:26):
most other countries only haveone organization focus primarily
on siblings. And so theimplication of that, in terms of
that cross country comparison,is that where there are multiple
sibling focused organizations ina particular country, I think
they can differentiate andspecialize a lot more. Whereas
(07:49):
when there's only one sibling,focused organization, and a
country that's primarilyservicing siblings, that
organization has to do a lotmore, they have to do a bit of
everything. And there's not theopportunity to specialize and
focus on one product orspecialize and focus on one
group. I guess the other bigdifference is, you know, across
(08:09):
all of the different countries,they sibling support
organizations are operatingwithin the service systems of
the particular country they'rein. And all of those service
systems are a slightly differentwith different conditions that
make it easier or harder forthem to provide services and get
(08:31):
the resources and support theyneed to do so. So an example of
this is that in Australia, inthe UK, there's currently a
really big focus in thedisability sector on what's
called direct budgets andpersonalization in services for
people with disabilities. Sothis means that money goes
directly to a specific personwith disability, and is not
(08:55):
provided to a service providerorganization in a more wide
scale way to just do with whatthey want. And so when the money
is provided directly to a personwith disability, it makes it
really hard to then shave off abit to run sibling support. On
the side, for example, for oneof those bigger organizations
(09:17):
who serve as much multiplecohorts and makes it harder to
do sibling support. And it alsomakes it harder for the
dedicated sibling supportorganizations to get money or or
get space to do their work.
Similarly, some countries aroundthe world have more of a focus
on carers or caregivers thanothers in terms of just their
(09:41):
social policy. And for thecountries that have a really big
focus on carers or caregivers,often, government and other
funders will subsume siblingsunder that broader caregiver
label. And think that siblingshave been catered for and
policy, when perhaps people likeyou and I who know more about, I
(10:05):
guess the specificity of thesibling experience. Know that,
you know, we can benefit fromsome caregiver supports and
services. But we need somespecific stuff that sibling
specific as well. And so incountries where that is that
care focused, it's a particulardynamic of navigating, you know,
(10:25):
where do we collaborate and joinwith caregiver organizations?
And where do we need to dosomething specific? And then in
the places where we need to dosomething specific? How do we?
How do we get the resources weneed when a lot of it is going
to broader social policysettings around carers?
Chris Berstler (10:47):
Currently, the SLN and other organizations
around the world are part of anew initiative, called the
International Community ofPractice on supporting siblings
of people with disabilities. Canyou tell us a little bit about
that initiative?
Ariella Meltzer (11:00):
Sure, so that community practice is a really
exciting initiative, which isone of the first really
sustained or long term attemptsto create a conversation between
siblings support providers indifferent countries. So for
listeners of the podcast whomight not have come across the
idea of a community of practicebefore, a community of practice
(11:23):
is a group that shares commonconcerns and interests, and they
come together to share with eachother and learn from each other
and support each other. In thecase of the international
community of practice forsupporting siblings, people with
disabilities, a very long name.
The idea for this came fromdiscussions between a few
(11:45):
members have different siblingsupport organizations who had
been on some conference panelstogether talking about
international sibling support.
And we kind of worked outthrough the conversation on the
on those panels that it wasreally time for something to be
(12:07):
created. Some representativesfrom Sibling organizations in
the US, UK, Canada, India, andAustralia, got together and
decided to create the communitypractice. And it's for
organizations, groups onnetworks whose primary mission
(12:27):
is to support siblings forpeople with disabilities. So
it's that first type of siblingsupport organization I was
talking about earlier. And theintent is really to create a
space for people working insibling support to share and
learn from each other. We've hadone meeting so far. So it's
early days. And in that firstmeeting, we're really just
(12:48):
introducing ourselves and thedifferent organizations that
that were present. And hearingabout some of the background to
be successes and challenges thatthey've had over the years, is a
really democratic group. So weplan to share leadership of the
group and rotate who facilitatesthe meetings and come up with
the agenda. So there's no oneleading the group per se,
(13:11):
everyone who's involved is is aleader of it, which is a really
nice feature. Obviously, workinginternationally comes with some
challenges, though, so it'sreally hard to find a timezone
that works for everyone. There'salso some other challenges. So
particularly from an inclusivityperspective. So at the moment,
the meetings are in English, we,as we progress, and we become
(13:36):
more established, we really wantto think about how to expand
that to other languages, or howto work in other languages as
well, because that will open updoors for others.
Chris Berstler (13:46):
So far, what countries are involved in the
community of practice?
Ariella Meltzer (13:49):
So far? The first meeting that we have are
countries who were representedwhere Australia, India, the USA,
Korea, Nigeria, Indonesia,Canada, there was a
representative from Peru therewhose organization services,
other Spanish speaking countriesas well. We also have links in
(14:12):
with UK sibling groups as well.
Chris Berstler (14:16):
Do you see the group expanding a lot more in
the future?
Ariella Meltzer (14:20):
We're open to whoever wants to come. From my
own research. I think that thereare few countries, for example,
that were included in myinternational sibling study, who
aren't yet at the Community ofPractice and vice versa. So I
think that there's opportunitiesto expand definitely. However, I
(14:43):
think that you know, therearen't yet sibling organizations
in every country around theworld. And so, at this stage, we
wouldn't be expanding infinitelyto, you know, a lot more
countries, but we're open to it.
You know, as Many countries thathave siblings support and want
to be involved can and I guessone of the intents of the group
(15:04):
as well as to help foster newsibling support organizations,
in countries where there mightnot be one already. And so
hopefully, by the very existenceof the group, we might actually
expand, which countries aremembers as well,
Chris Berstler (15:21):
what are members of the community of practice
hoping to learn from each other?
Ariella Meltzer (15:26):
I mean, really, we just want to learn about what
each other are doing. We want tosee the scope of what's being
done internationally, and learnabout what's been successful in
one place. And think aboutwhether that might be also
successful in another place, ifthe idea was was done somewhere
else as well. I think there'salso opportunity to benefit from
(15:47):
the lessons learnt already byothers. You know, as I said
earlier, a lot of siblingsupport organizations operate in
really hard conditions. And so,if one organization has learnt a
way to solve a problem, orlearnt the hard way, how to deal
with a particularly difficultresourcing problem, or
(16:10):
implemented new program thatworks really well, in particular
circumstances, it's great forothers to learn about that and
not have to learn the hard wayas well. I think also, as I
said, we want to support smallor new or emergent groups, and
some of the bigger or siblingorganizations who have more
resources, maybe haveopportunity to help some of the,
(16:34):
you know, one person show typeorganizations who are struggling
a bit more, and could benefitfrom some some shared resources.
Chris Berstler (16:43):
If any listeners out there know of a group that's
primary focus is to supportsiblings of people with
disabilities, and you think theywould be interested in learning
more about this community ofpractice, please feel free to
reach out and contact us atinfo@siblingleadership.org.
How has COVID-19 impactedsibling support around the
(17:04):
world? Were there any countriesthat had sibling organizations
that were hit especially hard?
Ariella Meltzer (17:10):
So when I take the first part of my
international sibling research,so that was the section with the
USA, UK, Canada, New Zealand andAustralia, I collected the data
for that research in 2020 andearly 2021. So COVID was, you
know, a really new experiencethan it was at its height, it
was really hard for a lot ofpeople and a lot of
(17:33):
organizations. And so,inevitably COVID was something
that came up in my discussionswith sibling support providers.
Interestingly, though, while thecircumstances of COVID were
absolutely awful, it created afew opportunities for sibling
support organizations that wereactually useful. So one of the
(17:54):
really interesting things thatseveral organizations told me
and I did that first round ofthe research in 2020 2021, was
that. And the pandemic actuallycreated more awareness of the
role of siblings in the lives ofpeople with disabilities. So as
everyone stayed home inlockdown, and people were
(18:15):
confined to their homes confinedto whoever they were living
with, and governments and otherbroader organizations in the
disability and family supportsectors have had to think about
how to provide servicesremotely, suddenly, that dynamic
really shone a spotlight onsiblings, you know, people were
(18:36):
like, Whoa, who's at home withthe person with disability are
their parents, their siblings,their immediate family, ah,
siblings might be a similar ageto people with disability. It's
like peers, it's like friends,you know, maybe we should be
looking at what siblings andchildren and teenagers with
(18:56):
disabilities can do together,you know, maybe we should be
supporting the siblings. It waslike, you know, this light bulb
went off for different fundersand bigger organizations. And so
for a few organizations, it wasactually quite helpful in
helping to show others whysiblings are important, what
(19:17):
role they play in the lives ofpeople with disabilities, and
was also helpful in findingfundings and resources for a
sibling focus during that reallyheightened pandemic time because
there were, you know, newstreams of funding available to
address community isolation andsocial cohesion and family
(19:38):
support. And severalorganizations were able to get
short term programs in tosupport siblings in a way that
they just never would have beenoutside the pandemic conditions.
And then it's interesting forpeople like us who follow the
sibling interest really closely,they're like, well Of course,
(19:59):
siblings are at home, with theperson with disability, they
always have been. But thepandemic circumstance created
the conditions for other peopleto see it, the ones who don't
normally see it. And that wasreally quite a big change. The
other thing that happened inthat 2020 2021 period of
(20:19):
pandemic was that everythingwent online. And it created a
lot more online opportunitiesfor sibling support. So people
who are really involved in thesplink, communities will know
that there's always been onlinesibling support. You know, for
example, subnets in 2017,they've always been online, and
(20:40):
they've always been some of thecornerstones of the sibling
support community. But the COVIDpandemic also saw others
specific, smaller peer support,and individual wellbeing
programs run online for thefirst time, or ran more
intensively than they ever hadbeen, by a whole range of
different organizations. And inmodels that were quite different
(21:04):
to the SIP net, for example,experience. So, you know, small
groups of people coming togetheronline for a chat, or more
education sessions being runonline and more well being
programs being run online. Andthat I that I think was quite
beneficial. And if you look now,it's it's stayed. One of the
(21:24):
challenges of sibling support, Ithink, has always been getting
enough people together in aspecific location to run a
program. And so the opportunityto do it online, and you know,
lots of people in high incomecountries in particular,
becoming really second naturewith Zoom or, or other video
(21:45):
platforms created thatopportunity. I think,
unsurprisingly, this wasespecially the case in countries
that had really long andprotracted lockdown periods. And
those were the countries inparticular that soar, government
funding becoming available fordoing online programming as
well. Obviously, not everythingwas a benefit about the
(22:08):
pandemic, though, you know, Ithink it was really hard for
both siblings and siblingsupport communities to contend
with COVID being a really bigdanger to the people with
disabilities that we love and toour families and, you know,
extended lockdown and shieldingarrangements to make sure that
(22:29):
we could keep people safe. Ithink it also meant that the
sibling community really had tograpple a lot more with grief
and loss, then, you know, thosehave always been an issue, but
it was suddenly pushed onto theagenda and in such a dramatic
kind of way. And in a reallyrenting type of way when, you
(22:50):
know, people in the onlinecommunities soar outcomes of the
pandemic for other people thatthey were really fearful of for
themselves and their ownfamilies as well. In terms of
your original question, also,you asked about organizations
who were hit the hardest. And Ithink the organizations who were
(23:11):
hit the hardest were those whowere just trying to get off the
ground at the time when COVIDhit. So in my current piece of
research, where I've, I'veexpanded that sibling support
study out to more countriesaround the globe, there's a
number of countries in thatstudy who were really just
(23:31):
starting their sibling supportorganizations at the time when
COVID hit and really struggledto sustain the momentum both as
countries locked down asresources constricted, as
economic conditions cost ofliving have become harder in
this kind of era of the pandemicwere in now. And as the support
(23:51):
of parent organizations orbroader disability support
providers who might have beenfostering a small sibling
support organization, have driedup as those organizations have
had to focus on their corebusiness a little bit more, some
of the organizations who werejust starting around the time
(24:12):
the pandemic hit, managed topivot, the great buzzword of the
pandemic, at least in Australia,I don't know if that's the case,
elsewhere as well, but theymanaged to pivot and really
benefit from the the onlineexperience that it created. But
the really small ones who werelike a one or two persons show,
(24:33):
I think they really struggledand particularly those in
countries who had really severepandemic conditions as well. And
those organizations now justthinking in various ways about
what how can we try andreestablish where we left off.
Can we get back to where we wereor is it all too hard? And I
(24:53):
think, particularly the reallymicro small organizations are
asking themselves thesequestions at the moment?
Chris Berstler (25:01):
How are sibling support organizations tackling
issues of discrimination?
Ariella Meltzer (25:06):
It's a really interesting question. And I
think it's something that'sreally pushing onto the agenda
of sibling support organizationsat the moment. Like it's a
really current big issue for alot of organizations across the
world in a whole lot ofcountries. But I would say,
particularly in the USA, and theUK, where local conditions and
(25:29):
events have led to many peopleand many organizations really
wanting and trying hard to dobetter on these types of issues.
I think the most common focus insibling support organizations is
to try and do better on culturaldiversity. So particularly
covering better covering thesupport needs of siblings of
(25:49):
color, or ethnic minoritysiblings. The terminology varies
depending on what country you'rein. But there's also sibling
support organizations trying todo things to address gender
diversity, and class or socioeconomic diversity as well.
Different sibling supportorganizations are trialing a
whole bunch of different thingson this front, some as
(26:13):
individual organizations andsome has collaborations across
organizations as well. Sothere's a lot of organizations
who are really foregroundingthis as an issue and being
really intentional aboutencouraging greater diversity.
Some examples of how they'redoing that is purposefully
seeking diverse participants fortheir initiatives, offering
(26:36):
sponsorship to cover attendancefees and events, providing
multilingual resources,educating their leadership on
diversity issues, and thenhaving that flow down into that
programming, trying to findoutreach workers at outreach
events so that they reachsiblings who they might not
easily reach or who might notcome to them. And also
(26:59):
specifically conducting eventsto address greater
representation, sometimes incollaboration with each other.
The reality is, there's still alot more work to do on all of
these issues. And as I say, it'sa live issue that a lot of
people are trying really hard onat the moment, also with the
international community ofpractice. I think it's also
(27:22):
notable that the sibling supportcommittee as a whole is now
trying to create a lot moreconnections with sibling support
organizations in non Englishspeaking countries. And I think
that helps as well. And theCommunity of Practice will be a
critical piece in trying tomaintain that conversation
across languages, although as Isaid, we do need to grapple with
(27:46):
the language barrier ourselves.
Um, I guess the final thing thatI'd say on this topic is that
one of the long term challengesspecific support is whether or
how or to what extent peoplewith disability are included in
sibling support initiatives aswell. And I think this is an
area where we're really startingto see a few changes as well.
(28:07):
There are a couple of siblingsupport organizations recently
who have been running events forsiblings, both with and without
disabilities together, eitherdiscussion events, or kind of
recreational socializing events.
And that's something new that'spushing on the agenda. That's
(28:28):
nice to see. I think there's oneor two sibling support
organizations who are alsoreally trying to foreground the
idea that it's not either ormany people who identify as
siblings of people withdisabilities may also have
various disabilities themselves,which, over the course of their
lifetimes, may have receivedmore or less attention,
(28:51):
depending on their familycircumstances and how LinkedIn
to services and how enlightenedeverybody was about multiple
health and disabilityexperiences in the family. But I
think the idea that, that it'snot a binary between who has a
disability and who doesn't, isalso starting to be a subject of
(29:11):
of conversation, which is quiteimportant as well.
Chris Berstler (29:15):
in your opinion, and based on your research
findings. What supports does theinternational sibling community
really need most in order tothrive? And how can we get
involved to ensure that thishappens?
Ariella Meltzer (29:29):
That's the million dollar question isn't
that it's such a hard one. Andespecially the bit about how to
ensure that it happens. That'sthe really, really hard bit
because so much about thecircumstances of sibling support
depends on external agencieslike governments and
philanthropists and otherfunders. And so it's hard to
(29:52):
know what's needed. And it'seven harder to do what's needed.
Having said that, I had to chipoff This question was coming in.
So I did have a think about it.
And I've got four things that Ithink sibling support around the
world needs. The first one issibling support really needs
consistent recognitioneverywhere off the importance of
(30:15):
sibling support as a distinctservice type that needs to be
funded separately to support forother people, such as people
with disabilities, or parents,or more general carer support.
So often, sibling support hasthe misfortune of governments,
funders, big service providers,wanting to subsume it under
(30:37):
support for other people aswell. And that's really tricky.
There are some aspects of thatsupport that we really benefit
from. And absolutely, there aretimes where we want to
collaborate and be included inother group support initiatives.
And we can't do it alone.
Because you know that if yousupport one person in the family
(30:57):
without supporting all theothers, that's useless, but
consistent recognition thatsibling support needs to also be
available. There's somethingdistinct, and consistent
recognition of that everywhereacross the globe. That's one
thing that's really, reallyneeded. Another thing is
consistent and ongoing funding.
And that's hard all over theworld. And it's hard for a whole
(31:18):
range of different reasons thatrelate to the surface systems of
different countries. But it is acommon theme everywhere.
fundings just needed to fund theinitiatives that sibling support
wants to do. And to pay thepeople who run sibling support,
you know, there's always goingto be volunteers who want to get
involved. And that's reallyimportant, and it's really good.
(31:38):
And it's really appropriatebecause people want to support
their own communities. But it'salso important that sibling
support in the majority isn'tbeing done out of pocket or
isn't being done only out ofgoodwill, it needs to be
supported, recognized sector, Iguess related to those first two
things is the third thing isthat I think there needs to be a
(31:59):
pipeline of new and ongoingleaders or staff or volunteers
to share the workload withinsibling support, and a way to
support them and train them. Andin some cases, pay them if
they're not volunteers, they'llalways be the volunteering
(32:20):
component, but but some peoplewill always need to be paid. And
the reality is that siblingsupport can't be run by a tiny
group forever, it needs to havelots of people involved so that
that's sustainable. I think theSLN is really lucky that it has
so many people involved. Butcurrently in many countries,
there's lots of sibling supportorganizations who are one or two
(32:43):
person show, or who havestruggled to maintain ongoing
funding to be more than that,even if they have been at
certain points in time. And sofinding a way to have that
sustainability is reallyimportant. Because otherwise,
you know, we're going to keepgetting into the situation where
new sibling support initiativesare established. And then they
(33:05):
they can't continue becausethere's not the people or
resources there to back them.
And then the fourth thing, thereneeds to be ways to share
information and skills withnewly established sibling
support organizations, or oneswho want to grow and expand. And
this is the one that we can dosomething about, because this is
what the community of practiceis trying to do. And if we can
(33:28):
do that, well, I think it'llprobably help the previous one
about the pipeline of new peopleas well. You know, the more
opportunities there are to shareinformation, support each other,
help each other, not have toreinvent the wheel every time
just because you happen to be ina different country to where the
thing you need was established,the better we all can be. So I
(33:49):
think that's really excitingthat more international
discussion is happening aroundsibling support, I think is
really timely. And it's probablyin ours we were talking about in
the in the code and siblingdiscussion, it's probably one of
the great benefits of thepandemic. Because suddenly,
everybody's comfortable withvideo technology, we can have an
(34:14):
international community in a waythat I think was never as
possible. When the culture wasmore that things had to be done
in person. I think I think it'san exciting time for sibling
support, particularlyinternational sibling support.
And then there'll be, it'll begood to see what comes as a
(34:34):
community practice. I think ithas real, real potential, and
it's exciting.
Chris Berstler (34:38):
Thank you so much for sharing all this
information with us. Anyresources that Ariella has
shared with us can be found inthe podcast description below.
Thank you so much for joining usfor another episode. And
Ariella, thank you so much forsharing all of your information
with us.
Ariella Meltzer (34:56):
You're welcome.
Thanks for having me today.
Chris Berstler (34:58):
Find the resources tools and information
about the sibling experience onsibling leadership dot board the
sibling Leadership Network is anonprofit and we rely on support
from our audience find thedonation button on our homepage
and contribute to the evergrowing sibling movement
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