A Wiltshire fostering couple have helped reunite a group of five siblings after adapting their home through a new initiative designed to keep brothers and sisters together.
Sarah and Pete Banks, who foster with TACT Fostering in Salisbury, were already caring for four brothers. However, their sister had been placed in a separate home due to a lack of space, as fostering regulations require each child to have their own bedroom.
Determined to bring the children back together, Sarah applied for support through TACT’s ‘Making Spaces’ initiative, a scheme launched in February 2026 to help foster carers create additional bedrooms within their homes.
The grant funded renovations to provide the extra space needed, allowing the siblings to be reunited under one roof.
Sarah said, “I asked TACT if it was something they could help with, as I did not want their sibling going anywhere else. Two weeks later, I was able to tell the boys their sister was coming to live with them. They cheered and jumped up and down, and it was a very emotional time.
“Their relationships with each other have grown stronger every day. Just watching them together drawing or building forts and using their imaginations is heart-warming and without a doubt it was the right thing to do. They are typical siblings who laugh together and argue – but who clearly love each other and will be there for each other.”
TACT Fostering, the UK’s largest dedicated fostering charity, introduced the Making Spaces scheme to help carers adapt their homes so they can support more young people, with a particular focus on keeping siblings together wherever possible.
Andy Elvin, CEO of TACT Fostering, said, “As a not-for-profit fostering charity, we reinvest any surplus we make back into supporting our carers and the young people we care for.
“Through the ‘Making Spaces’ scheme, we have used that surplus to provide grants that help carers adapt their homes, repurpose existing space and create new rooms to enable them to continue fostering with us, and keep siblings together in a family environment.”
He added that the organisation is committed to improving outcomes for children and supporting foster carers to provide the highest quality of care.
TACT’s Making Spaces initiative is part of a wider programme of support offered by the charity, which also includes in-house education and health services, as well as a community network for care-experienced young people.
Stories like this highlight the life-changing impact fostering can have, not just for individual children but for entire families, particularly when brothers and sisters are able to grow up together.
