Using Philosophical Dialogues with Children to Understand Care and Wellbeing for Siblings of those with Life-Limiting Conditions

The project will engage siblings of those experiencing life-limiting/life-threatening conditions (LLTCs) in philosophical dialogue about wellbeing and care. Through this novel approach, it aims to generate understanding of siblings' perspectives on wellbeing and care to provide recommendations and advice to practitioners and families on the care and wellbeing of this unheard group.

The group is over-looked and under-represented in the current research and practice fields, and their emotional wellbeing is a research and practice priority. The project involves a group of ten children, aged between seven and twelve, throughout and takes a rights-based approach. It culminates in the co-creation of a series of recommendations and advice for practitioners and families presented through a leaflet, a film, blog and podcast.

The project builds on our research on: philosophy and children's voice and participation, including those who are marginalised; philosophy and wellbeing; philosophy as a research method; emotion-focused therapy and empathic compassion responses; and care for children with LLTCs and their families.

The project adopts research methods that are innovative and creative: philosophical dialogue and arts-based methods. This involves workshops that include philosophical dialogue and complementary art activities to generate recommendations and advice for those working with or caring for those with LLTCs and their families. Using a structured approach to philosophical dialogue, Community of Philosophical Inquiry (CoPI), the siblings will explore key ideas relating to wellbeing and care, such as: What does it mean to be well?

What is a good life? What does it mean to care and be cared for? What is love?

What makes life meaningful? What makes a good relationship? What is compassion?

Using CoPI as a research method enables children's views to be heard. Its structure facilitates meaning-making through surfacing definitions, assumptions and tensions between ideas, while offering opportunities to draw on experiences. It is important to gauge how care and wellbeing are conceptualised to advance recommendations and advice for practitioners and families.

The project is also novel as it brings together creative methods to inform the recommendations and content of the film made with the siblings. The creative approaches will also ensure the siblings' engagement and participation throughout. Philosophical dialogue is not only innovative as a research method, it is inherently creative as participants must collaborate to create meaning and shared understanding.

They do this through connecting ideas, using analogies, and humour. Additionally, there is evidence that this kind of approach may act as a vehicle to promoting positive health and wellbeing. Further, engagement in art activities has been shown to enhance children's psychosocial wellbeing.

Arts-based participatory research methods can strengthen young people's wellbeing and enhance their capacity to engage in decision-making.

The siblings will attend five Saturday (10am-3pm) workshops. During the workshops they will participate in CoPI dialogues on the types of questions noted above. As a form of analysis, they will participate in art activities designed to capture key elements of the dialogue they consider important.

The dialogues, recordings and transcripts, will be analysed to identify themes to generate recommendations. The team will analyse transcripts between workshops and take their analysis to the workshops to discuss with the siblings who will work with the team on the recordings and artwork. The artwork and elements of the recorded dialogues may form part of the film.

The project outcomes of recommendations and advice for practitioners and families will be produced in a leaflet, film, blog and podcast to be disseminated widely with practitioners working in a range of settings with children who have LLTCs and their families.