Compassion and our church partners aim to assist as many children living in poverty as is practical. Our Child Sponsorship Program helps to provide for children's spiritual, physical, socio-emotional and economic needs, meaning there are inherent benefits to families of registered children. Therefore, Compassion recommends that the number of registered children within a single family should be limited in order that more of the community can be reached.

While Compassion provides guidelines for registration, the decisions of which children are registered are ultimately made by local staff and the church within the community, who have in-depth and intimate knowledge of the community's needs. Local staff also meet with the families of children before they are registered and often have relationships with the family members through local church partners. They are able to form a good understanding of a child's everyday circumstances and needs and take those factors into account. Local staff therefore sometimes register siblings if that's in their best judgment.

When supporters express a desire to sponsor siblings, we understand their motivation is to provide the most help they can to their sponsored child's family. While Compassion Australia can't arrange for siblings to be registered, we encourage you to give family gifts (100 per cent of which will be given to the child's family) to help them meet their most pressing needs.

We also encourage you to include sponsored children's siblings in your letters of encouragement, prayers and any paper-based gifts you might send (such as stickers, postcards and posters, activity books and other paper-based gifts).

Find out more:

Does child sponsorship cause jealousy among children who are not registered?

How does Compassion decide which children receive support?

How does Compassion support the families of registered children?