Understanding the sibling trauma bond

This training is designed to equip professionals with the knowledge, practical skills, and reflective awareness needed to understand, assess, and respond effectively to sibling trauma bonds that can develop in the context of family violence, neglect, or chronic adversity. Participants will explore how these complex dynamics impact safety, attachment, and emotional development, and learn how to support healing while promoting healthy relationships for all children involved. This training is suitable for professionals working across care, education, and support settings, including residential staff, foster carers, social workers, and school staff.

What does the course cover?

The course begins by exploring what sibling trauma bonds are and how they differ from typical sibling attachment or rivalry. It examines how these bonds develop in the context of family violence, neglect, or chronic adversity, and how shared traumatic experiences shape sibling relationships over time.

Participants will explore the psychological and neurobiological mechanisms that underpin trauma bonding, including identification with the aggressor, attachment dysregulation, and fear-based dependency. The course also examines the developmental impact of shared trauma and the ways children internalise family dynamics.

This section focuses on recognising key indicators of sibling trauma bonds in younger children. Participants will explore controlling, caregiving, and submissive relational patterns, and how these dynamics can emerge within sibling relationships affected by trauma.

The course examines how separation, placement decisions, and different intervention approaches can influence attachment security and emotional regulation. Participants will explore how decisions about safety, protection, and connection impact both children involved.

Participants will be guided through trauma-aware approaches to assessment and intervention with siblings affected by trauma bonds. This includes developing safety and support plans that balance protection from harm with the preservation of meaningful sibling connection.

The course covers approaches to therapeutic or supervised sibling contact, with a focus on promoting healing rather than re-traumatisation. It also explores collaboration with caregivers, schools, and wider systems to maintain consistency and shared understanding around sibling trauma dynamics.

Participants will be supported to reflect on their own responses to child-on-child aggression and sibling harm. The course explores how bias, emotional reactions, and professional judgment can shape responses, and emphasises adopting a compassionate, non-blaming stance toward both the controlling and submissive child.

The course concludes by focusing on promoting safety, healing, and healthy attachment. Participants will explore approaches that support relational repair and resilience, and how trauma-aware, attachment-based thinking can be integrated into multi-agency decision-making and care planning.

Exercises, activities, video clips and discussions are used throughout the course to enhance the teaching and content.

Training is delivered by a highly qualified clinical psychologist and/or therapist with many years’ experience working with trauma and attachment.

Course details:

Level: Advanced

Days: Half-day

Session length: 3 hours

Cost: £60 + VAT

Maximum participants: 12 (please contact us if you require a larger group)

Location: This course can be delivered virtually (Zoom) or at our specialist training facility in Stoke-on-Trent. If you would prefer us to deliver the course at your facility, additional travel and accommodation costs will be incurred.

Dates: Please contact us to book this course for yourself or your team. Alternatively, please view our upcoming events.

Learning objectives

  1. Define what a sibling trauma bond is and how it differs from typical sibling attachment or rivalry.
  2. Describe the psychological and neurobiological mechanisms underpinning trauma bonding, including identification with the aggressor, attachment dysregulation, and fear-based dependency.
  3. Recognise key indicators of sibling trauma bonds in younger children, including controlling, caregiving, and submissive patterns.
  4. Understand the developmental impacts of shared trauma and the ways children internalise family dynamics.
  5. Explain how separation, placement decisions, and intervention approaches can influence attachment security and emotional regulation.

Intended outcomes

  1. Have a trauma-aware framework for understanding sibling relationships impacted by family violence, neglect, or chronic adversity.
  2. Be able to understand, assess, and respond effectively to sibling trauma bonds in ways that promote safety, healing, and healthy attachment.
  3. Be able to design safe, developmentally appropriate interventions for both children involved in sibling trauma bond cases.
  4. Feel more confident and less reactive when working with complex sibling dynamics involving both love and harm.
  5. Be able to contribute to compassionate, informed decision-making within placement planning, therapeutic work, and multi-agency case planning.

What professionals think about our CPD courses

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“Informative and helpful course. Engaging and educational, with practical tips to apply to real life situations.”

“Very informative. Great to learn about things that relate to daily struggles and having strategies to try to support the children.”

“Very very interesting, informative, useful and engaging. Couldn’t have gone any better. Taking a lot from it. Best training I’ve been on. Thank you!!! :)”

“The best CPD training, will definitely recommend.”

“Powerpoint and discussions all directly linked to what we hoped to achieve. Engaging from start to finish. Thank you.”

“Having light bulb moments and being able to think of specific children and now understand how to help more and support them.”

Upcoming CPD courses

Preverbal Trauma Training for Professionals (Jan 2026)

26 January 2026 @ 09:30 - 16:30

Trauma Informed Classrooms (Feb 2026)

2 February 2026 @ 09:30 - 16:00

The Ties That Bind: Sibling Trauma Bonds

26 March 2026 @ 09:00 - 12:00

Understanding Blocked Care Training for Professionals (June 2026)

15 June 2026 @ 09:30 - 16:30

FAQs

There are a variety of ways to access our training services. If you wish to book on to a session as an individual, please view our upcoming events. You will find more details on how to apply on the specific event page.

If you want to book a dedicated training course for your team, please get in contact with us for a quote. It would be helpful for us to know if you would prefer us to deliver your training programme face-to-face or virtually, and your expected numbers.

For our live, interactive courses, each participant will need a laptop or tablet device, webcam, microphone and an internet connection. Mobile phones can be used, but they do not offer the best possible experience for the participant.

We typically host our live virtual courses on Zoom.

Please contact our team to discuss your requirements. We will discuss feasibility with you, and provide an outline of costs.

Yes, we offer a range of options to help provide ongoing support to your team.

Please get in touch with us to talk about your consultation requirements, such as frequency, your goals and the type of families your organisation works with (or the difficulties they typically experience). We will work with you to create a bespoke consultation package that works for your needs.

Cost is dependent on the type of course you are accessing, in addition to the length and number of clinicians presenting. Please take a look at the individual course pages for more information.

Bespoke courses may involve a higher cost, as development time will need to be included. We will work with you to find a pricing structure that works for your needs.