Helping Practitioners Respond to Sibling Sexual Behavior

Source: Alexis Fotos/Pixabay

This post was co-authored by Sophie King-Hill, Ph.D., an Associate Professor at the Health Services Management Centre, School of Social Policy at the University of Birmingham, UK.

Sibling sexual behavior (SSB) is a common yet underrecognized form of harmful and/or problematic sexual behavior between children and young people. Despite the frequency with which it occurs, many practitioners lack the resources and training to address it. Sophie King-Hill, the co-author of this post, and colleagues at the University of Birmingham (UK) have developed a free resource, the Sibling Sexual Behavior Mapping Tool, for practitioners to guide conceptualization of these cases.

We define “siblings” broadly as children who self-identify as being from the same family, usually due to genetic relatedness or co-residence. This can include biological siblings, step-siblings, foster or adoptive siblings, or sometimes other family members like cousins. SSB is a distinctly different form of harmful or problematic sexual behavior due to the complexities that surround it, including that the children involved typically share a household and family context.

SSB appears to exist on a spectrum of behaviors that vary in severity. It does not just refer to penetrative acts but encompasses other behaviors such as forced pornography viewing, watching a sibling undress, and making them engage in sexual acts with another child. Due to the proximity and access of one sibling to another, SSB is more likely to be prolonged, rather than a single incident.

Like other forms of harmful and problematic sexual behavior in children and young people, SSB is linked to negative impacts on mental and physical health and interpersonal relationships across the lifespan. An essential component of assessing SSB is consideration of the impact (or likely future impact) on the harmed child, those who carry out the harm, and the wider family system.

Lack of Practitioner Training

Research highlights that there is a distinct lack of practitioner training in SSB, despite it requiring specific and individualized interventions. King-Hill and her colleagues found that practitioner confidence in addressing SSB often came from experience rather than training. Unfortunately, relying on their instincts and experience often resulted in minimizing or catastrophizing the SSB, or exaggerating the behaviors involved to gain access to services.

A further limitation to current practitioner responses to SSB is the difficulty of accessing specialist services. Rather than through separate “victim” and “offender” services, SSB requires a whole-family, child-centered, comprehensive response. SSB affects not only the harmed child and the child who causes harm, but also parents, other siblings, and extended family members. Practitioners in a variety of disciplines need access to training and resources so they are prepared to tackle this issue when it happens within a family.

The Sibling Sexual Behavior Mapping Tool

Due to the complexities highlighted in relation to SSB and the sparse nature of professional resources, King-Hill and colleagues developed the Sibling Sexual Behavior Mapping Tool (SSBMT). The development of the tool was guided by research showing that assessment and response to SSB requires consideration of relationships among all family members, and the siblings’ wider social context including schooling, housing, and health.

The SSBMT supports practitioner thinking when working with cases of SSB and helps with planning effective, multi-agency interventions. It is intended to steer thinking around work with the whole family across a number of areas. The SSBMT guides practitioners to consider not only the behaviors that occurred, but also areas of potential strength and challenges for all family members in differing areas of their lives. The SSBMT contains the following sections:

1. Sibling Sexual Behaviors: Explores what behavior has occurred and how this was discovered and/or reported.
2. Family Dynamics and Parenting: Considers the wider family dynamics and how they may affect children.
3. Home Circumstances and Housing: Explores the physical environment of the home and living circumstances of the family.
4. Education: Explores the children’s engagement in education, the role of school, and risk and safety factors within the context of school.
5. Health and Development: Explores the role of any health or developmental issues in shaping the behavior.
6. Social Context: Explores the “pathway” to SSB by looking at the wider social context around the children and what might influence them. This can include consideration of peer groups, social media use, pornography exposure, community involvement, and other sources of support.
7. Summary of Actions and Outcomes: Summarizes the action steps to be taken, by whom, and when.

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The SSBMT explores sources of strength and dysfunction within a family to form a picture of what is needed and by whom. The SSBMT is not intended to be used directly with children and families but to aid professional thinking when planning multi-agency interventions. The SSBMT can also be utilized in professional supervision to provide evidence of thinking and planning.

Pilot testing of the SSBMT found that the SSBMT promotes practitioner confidence and a holistic, whole-family approach to work with children and families affected by SSB. By taking a broad lens when assessing SSB, practitioners can best assess which services children and families need to heal after SSB has become apparent.