Most of the children in foster care have at least one sibling and a lot of siblings are not placed together. There are legitimate reasons for why some siblings cannot be placed together. Safety for both children can be an issue. There are cases that children do abuse each other, and the only choice is to separate them. The reality is that some sibling relationships cannot be a normal loving sibling bond. Usually the foster home already has foster children living there, so foster homes may not have the openings for a large sibling group. It is also easier to find placements quicker in emergency placements when they are looking for a smaller sibling group or individuals. The system can only work with the foster homes that they have. This is another reason that they are always looking for additional foster families.

When the foster children are really young sometimes they are separated and then may not end up back together. This happens more when foster children have different fathers. One father of the sibling group steps up to the responsibility of his child, another child may go to a family member and one or more foster children are left in the system to age out or hopefully be adopted. The baby that we are fostering now is the third in a sibling group. The father received custody of the older one (around five years old and is now living in California), a cousin is raising the middle child, and now it is believe biological mom is pregnant again.

Sometimes the choices that are in the best interest of the foster children are not always easy ones to make. Caseworkers can get focused on doing what they think is the overall right thing for the child, instead of what actually could be best for the child.

I hope to write a few postings on siblings in foster care. The next blog will pick up with a sibling group faced with the reality of staying together, or being separated, if it would be in their best interest.



Foster Adoption Blog: Should sibling groups stay together?