ABSTRACT
Dunn emphasizes the importance of sibling relationships, which may well be the most long-standing relationships people have in life - longer than those with parents, partners, or children. Reviewing the social work literature in relation to this topic, in the late 1970s and 1980s there were a scattering of papers that raised questions about the need to assess whether siblings should be placed together or separately and highlighted the lack of knowledge in this area of child care. The Child Behaviour Checklist, a standardized form to be completed by the foster parent or carer prior to the children being seen, was designed by Achenbach and Edelbrock and is aimed at obtaining descriptions of the competencies and behavioural/emotional problems of 4- to 18-year-olds. Within the psychotherapeutic assessment sessions, sequences of play were observed and thought about in terms of their potential symbolic meaning.
