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Sibling Issues in Foster Care and Adoption BULLETIN FOR PROFESSIONALS January 2013 Sibling Issues What’s Inside: • Defining a sibling relationship • Legal framework for protecting in Foster Care sibling connections • The importance of siblings and Adoption • Sibling relationships in abusive or neglectful families • Benefits of placing siblings together Child welfare professionals can make a critical contribution to the well-being of • Barriers to placing siblings together children who enter care by preserving • Practices for keeping siblings their connections with their brothers and together in placement sisters. Approximately two-thirds of children • When siblings cannot live in the in foster care in the United States have a same home sibling also in care. For a variety of reasons, • Maintaining ties between many of these siblings are not placed separated siblings together initially or become separated over • Sibling issues within the time (Webster, Shlonsky, Shaw, & Brookhart, foster or adoptive family 2005; Wulczyn & Zimmerman, 2005). Foster youth describe this experience as “an extra punishment, a separate loss, and another pain that is not needed” (YLAT, 2002). Child Welfare Information Gateway Children’s Bureau/ACYF 1250 Maryland Avenue, SW Eighth Floor Washington, DC 20024 800.394.3366 Email: [email protected] Use your smartphone to https://www.childwelfare.gov access this bulletin online. Sibling Issues in Foster Care and Adoption https://www.childwelfare.gov This bulletin will explore research, intervention • Other close relatives or nonrelatives living strategies, and resources to assist professionals in the same kinship home in preserving connections among siblings. • Foster children in the same family • Orphanage mates or group-home mates Defining a sibling with a close, enduring relationship Relationship • Children of the partner or former partner of the child’s parent The identification of siblings can be • Individuals conceived from the same sperm challenging, especially when children have or egg donor lived in more than one family. Children’s While laws and policies may have restrictive definitions of their siblings often differ from definitions of siblings that typically require those of caseworkers or official legislative a biological parent in common, child- and definitions. Children are less formal than family-centered practice respects cultural adults in their view of who is a brother or values and recognizes close, nonbiological sister. Research indicates that biological relationships as a source of support to the relatedness was not associated with young child. In these cases, the child may be one of children’s perceptions of closeness to the best sources of information regarding who siblings; being a full, half, or step-sibling did is considered a sibling. not influence their perception of closeness (Sturgess, Dunn, & Davies, 2001). Children in foster care may live with and develop ties to children with whom they may or may not Legal Framework for have a biological relationship. In child welfare, Protecting Sibling the term “fictive kin” has been introduced to recognize types of relationships in a child’s life Connections where there is no legal or biological tie, but a strong, enduring bond exists (Casey Family Even when professionals believe that Programs, 2002). maintaining sibling relationships is in children’s best interests, laws and policies must be in There are many types of relationships that place to support these connections, both in might be defined as sibling relationships: foster care and when permanency is achieved. • Full or half-siblings, including any children It was not until the mid-1990s that State who were relinquished or removed at birth legislatures and courts initiated regulations regarding sibling placement and visitation, • Step-siblings and in 2004 the Child and Family Services • Adopted children in the same household, Reviews began to consider efforts to place not biologically related siblings together. By 2005, sibling placement policies (28 States) and visitation statutes • Children born into the family and their (32 States) had been established in over half foster/adopted siblings the States (Patton, 2009). This material may be freely reproduced and distributed. However, when doing so, please credit Child Welfare 2 Information Gateway. Available online at https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/siblingissues/index.cfm Sibling Issues in Foster Care and Adoption https://www.childwelfare.gov State sibling statutes vary considerably in (B) in the case of siblings removed from their definitions of sibling relationships, in their home who are not so jointly placed, to the scope of activities they regulate, and provide for frequent visitation or other ongoing in whether siblings have legal standing to interaction between the siblings, unless that file suit for access to each other. In 1993, State documents that frequent visitation or California was one of the first States to other ongoing interaction would be contrary to pass legislation promoting sibling visitation the safety or well-being of any of the siblings. for foster children, and several additional While the Federal Government through statutes have expanded legal protections of the Fostering Connections Act has taken sibling relationships. The California Welfare a leadership role in mandating reasonable and Institutions Code, Section 16002, is efforts to maintain sibling relationships, it is recognized by many as offering the strongest up to the States to vigorously support these statutory protections for the needs of siblings connections. Between 2009 and 2011, 13 in foster care and adoption among existing States passed statutes regarding sibling State statutes. It liberally defines a sibling as placement and visitation (National Conference a child related to another person by blood, on State Legislatures, 2012), and many others adoption, or affinity through a common legal already had such statutes. There is often a gap, or biological parent. California’s law allows however, between what is considered best any person, including a dependent child, to practice or what the law requires and what petition the court to request sibling visitation, happens in day-to-day practice. Ultimately, including postadoption sibling contact or the State courts will help define reasonable placement with or near a sibling (Patton, 2009; efforts by their decisions as to whether the McCormick, 2008; Christian, 2002). requirement has been met in specific cases Fostering Connections Act (Gustavsson & MacEachron, 2010). The Fostering Connections to Success and Legal scholars assert that there is still a need Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008 is the first to fortify statutory protections of siblings’ Federal law to address the importance of rights to have contact after adoption (Patton, keeping siblings together. This law requires 2009; Mandelbaum, 2011). The Fostering States to make reasonable efforts to maintain Connections Act sends a clear message that sibling connections in order to receive Federal sibling relationships are critically important funding. The provisions of section 206 provide to preserve, but it is unclear as to whether that reasonable efforts shall be made: the reference to “adoptive placement” in the statute refers to the postadoption period (A) to place siblings removed from their home as well. Mandelbaum (2011) recognizes in the same foster care, kinship guardianship the placement of this phrase after the term or adoptive placement, unless the State “kinship guardianship,” which clearly is a documents that such a joint placement would permanent arrangement and can infer that be contrary to the safety or well-being of any “adoptive placement” also refers to the child’s of the siblings; and life in a permanent adoptive home. This material may be freely reproduced and distributed. However, when doing so, please credit Child Welfare 3 Information Gateway. Available online at https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/siblingissues/index.cfm Sibling Issues in Foster Care and Adoption https://www.childwelfare.gov Currently, only a minority of States provide during middle childhood (depending on a legal foundation for postadoption contact the level of warmth in the relationship), and between siblings; seven States – Arkansas, less sibling closeness in adolescence when Florida, Illinois (relative adoptions only), teens are focused on peers. An extensive Massachusetts, Nevada, Maryland, and South body of research addresses issues of birth Carolina allow a court to order postadoption order, gender, age spacing, and other contact without the consent of adoptive influences on sibling relationships. Research parents, and another 16 States allow for such has demonstrated that warmth in sibling a court order with the consent of adoptive relationships is associated with less loneliness, parents (Mandelbaum, 2011). fewer behavior problems, and higher self- worth (Stocker, 1994). State-by-State information regarding postadoption contact agreements can be Marjut Kosonen (1996) studied the emotional found in Child Welfare Information Gateway’s support and help that siblings provide and Postadoption Contact Agreements Between found that when they needed help, children Birth and Adoptive Families (https://www. would first seek out their mothers but then childwelfare.gov/systemwide/laws_policies/ turn to older siblings for support, even before statutes/cooperative.cfm). These laws pertain they would go to their fathers. She also found not just to sibling contact but to contact with that for
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