 How can we best support the siblings of a young person who has a mental health issue? Now the first thing is you're watching this video and so you're already onto a winner because the most important point here is that siblings matter. Siblings are really vulnerable and this can be a really, really difficult time for them. Often a lot of emphasis is placed on the young person who's unwell. They get a lot of attention and support. Everything might feel like it's somewhat revolving around them, particularly if they're very unwell and that can make life really, really hard. And so sometimes the sibling gets forgotten, left behind, or they feel that they don't matter or just no one has time for them. And that's not because they're not cared for, they're not loved. It's just that when a young person has got significant mental health issues, that absorbs a lot of time, effort and energy and can just mean that other things fall by the wayside, including siblings sadly, but siblings really matter. Now there's lots of reasons why they matter. They matter in their own right, but actually they're really vulnerable for developing their own mental health issues or unhealthy coping strategies such as self-harm if we don't give them the right environment in which to open up and access support in a healthy way. So that's important too. So number one is that siblings matter. We need to do something. We need to enable them to feel heard. The next thing is that they need to understand that they may experience a whole range of different feelings and that's okay. Often they will feel angry with their sibling for being ill or for worrying their parents or for the difficulties that they're causing for the family or for putting them through this or whatever it might be, they might feel angry, they might feel sad, they might feel scared, they might be terrified, they might have all sorts of questions about their sibling's illness that they haven't had answered. And so allowing them to feel those feelings, giving them the space to talk about them, to open up about them, to realize that they're not gonna be judged for thinking and feeling those things, it's really important. Often they feel like they've got to be shiny and bright and happy all the time because they're the well one and it's their job to be this. And actually giving them space and saying, this must be really tough, do you wanna talk about it? It can be so, so important. So listen, allow them to open up and do not be afraid to allow them to ask the difficult questions too. Obviously you need to talk with a family about what's it's appropriate for them to know and think about the appropriate age and stage, appropriate way to have these discussions, but what can often happen is that we don't spend enough time talking with siblings about what's going on with the unwell sibling. And so they imagine different eventualities. It's the same if a parent's unwell as well actually and it doesn't have to be with a mental health issue. This is true if someone has cancer, for example. And so they'll imagine all these different eventualities and so often what they imagine is worse than the actual truth. So being open and honest and allowing that young person to explore their questions is really, really important. This might be something that families do, but again it can be a really important role for the school or other trusted adults in that child's life too. The next thing is that you can support families and encourage families to spend time with the well sibling maybe away from the unwell sibling or maybe as a family spending time thinking about stuff that's completely different. Again, we can get really absorbed when someone's unwell that can take up a lot of capacity in the family both mentally and physically. And actually we need to have some time off from that every now and then. Sometimes away from the sibling that's unwell if it's difficult to include them and the well sibling then can be looked after and made to feel special and have a bit of one-to-one time if that's possible. But sometimes we all need to step away actually from the illness and to remember that there's so many other things about our family that is special, that is fun and we can have other things that take up our time other than just worrying and doing ill type things. So yeah, do other things and where possible have that sibling spend one-to-one time with trusted adults outside of their sibling's illness. And kind of linked to that is that it's okay to have fun. So we talked before about how a sibling might have all sorts of different feelings but actually one of the things that can sometimes happen is they feel they have to put this brave face on and they're doing smiley smiley but they feel like they can't enjoy themselves because their sibling is ill, okay? Their sibling is ill so how can they possibly be having a nice time that's not okay. And actually they need to understand no, it's fine. You can have fun, you can have a life. It might be really tough for your sibling right now and maybe they're not able to do all the things that you can but that does not mean that you should not. You are entitled to your own life to have fun, to have friends, to do all the things that you want and hope to do. You're allowed to do that, it's okay. And then finally, it's important for the family as a whole just not to lose themselves in the illness to think about the other things that they value as a family and to spend time doing those, thinking about those, to think about happy memories, to think forward to happier times as well but also to find joy in the moment where they can now as well even when things are really, really desperate. Every now and then there'll be a moment when everything feels just that little bit more okay and those are moments to really cherish. But yeah, siblings, it can be really, really tough being the sibling of someone who is unwell in any way and it's really important that we look out for siblings and that we help them to feel loved, cared, supported and enable them to feel all the different feelings that they need to feel and give them space and time to do that. Good luck and thank you for caring. Bye.