About Kate Strohm
After careers as a hospital scientist, health educator, counsellor and preventative health print/radio journalist, Kate began exploring her experiences growing up with an older sister with cerebral palsy. She interviewed other siblings both here and overseas and weaved their stories alongside her own into her book Siblings. Published in Australia in 2002, then the UK and US (as Being the Other One), the book was also translated into Korean. A revised edition was published in 2015.
In 1999, she established the Sibling Project in the Dept of Psychological Medicine at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital in Adelaide, which grew into Siblings Australia and since then Kate has developed a national and international reputation for her work with families and professionals.
She has presented webinars and workshops around the world including in the US, UK and several times in Italy. She has advocated long and hard for siblings to be recognised and sibling relationships to be supported.
She co-authored the peer support program, SibWorks, for young siblings which, after a recent review, now includes an online training program for facilitators. Over many years, she has also provided avenues for older siblings to access peer support, both online and in-person.
In 2022 she decided that it was time to hand over the leadership of Siblings Australia. Sibs Consulting allows her to carry out the work she loves the most – working directly with families and service providers to increase the recognition of siblings and the understanding of how to support them.
“Within disability support in Australia, siblings are largely overlooked, despite having one of the longest relationships of any with a person with disability.
When people with disability are still facing social exclusion, I do hope that the importance of this relationship will eventually be better understood.
When supported, not only do siblings fare better, but they can also play a huge role in ensuring the lifelong wellbeing, inclusion and safety of a person with disability.”
- Taken from Kate’s guest post for Wakefield Press: Twenty Years of SIBLINGS by Kate Strohm