SIBS-ONLINE: Pilot of an online program for siblings and parents of children living with chronic illness

The SIBS-ONLINE intervention consists of four sessions delivered through a secure, password-protected video conferencing software on the Internet (e.g. Zoom, Skype, WebEx) by group leaders and two homework and feedback sessions at home. These sessions will be conducted over the course of 4-5 days in a row. Groups The homework and feedback sessions will be conducted using ‘break out rooms’ in the videoconferencing platform so that the parent-sibling dyads have privacy from the rest of the group, and so the group leader can intermittently drop-in on the conversation and provide guidance and feedback. The first siblings-only and parents-only sessions will last for 80 minutes. The second such sessions will last 60 minutes. The joint parent-sibling sessions will last approximately 50 minutes, with the group leader joining each dyad for approximately 10 minutes each. We will pilot SIBS-ONLINE with N=30 families (30 siblings and 30 of their parents), conducting five groups with six participants in each group. Fully trained staff from UNSW and Canteen will conduct the group sessions. Training will consist of two full days of learning about the intervention and role playing. These training sessions will be conducted either face-to-face or via video-conferencing and led by Prof Fjermestad and Dr Vatne. CanTeen Australia are a community organisation who offer individual and group counselling to adolescents and young adults (aged 12-25) with cancer and their families. They have world-class expertise in the provision of tailored counselling services, and have worked extensively with siblings of young people with cancer (please see: https://www.canteen.org.au/young-people/my-brothersister-has-cancer/). Parents and siblings will engage in sessions with group leaders separately from each other, while homework and feedback sessions will be conducted together. The sibling sessions will focus on discussing their emotions, thoughts, and feelings about their brother or sister’s chronic illness and writing down questions they have about those illnesses for their parents. The parent sessions focus on communication training, using video examples of real sibling-parent dialogues and open-exploratory communication as basis for discussion. Parent sessions also comprise psychoeducation about sibling challenges, and introduction to cognitive-behavioural principles about emotional coping. Each group’s first session will involve an introduction to the intervention and the other participants in their respective groups. For siblings, the first sessions will also focus on sharing thoughts about their brother/sisters’ illness and writing any question(s) they have for their parents. For parents, the first session will overview and provide information about the intervention as well as exercises which will encourage parents to listen, explore, and validate the siblings’ thoughts about the disorder. After each group has had their first session, a joint session will be conducted by the parents and siblings at home. The joint sessions will incorporate integrated sibling-parent dialogues in which siblings present their questions and, in turn, parents practise communication skills learned in initial session. Group leaders will intermittently join these conversations, and provide each parent with personalized feedback on their communication skills. After the joint session, parents and siblings will reconvene in their groups for one more separate session. Siblings will focus on challenging emotions and feelings they have about their brother/sisters’ illness and writing them down to express to their parents. Parents will focus on listening, exploring, and validating emotional challenges. A second joint session will then be held where the siblings present their challenges to the parents who further practise their learned communication skills. Each group has two group leaders. In SIBS-ONLINE, the same two group leaders will run the sibling and parent groups. Group leaders will 1) be an employee or student of either UNSW or Canteen; 2) hold at least a Bachelor’s degree in psychology or social work, with work experience with mental health; and 3) be trained by the lead investigator to run the groups. Group leaders, in addition running the SIBS-ONLINE groups, will be involved in collecting research data through the completion of templates after each group session Adherence will be monitored by using attendance checklists. Each group leader will also complete the Competence and Adherence Scale for Cognitive Behavioural Therapy after each session. They will rate themselves for each CAS-CBT item on a 0-6 scale (“none” to “thorough” for adherence, “poor” to “excellent” for skills).