Foster care and siblings

Since the 1980s, researchers have explored the role of sibling relationships and the way that they influence child development, including understandings of emotional closeness, attachment, loyalty, identity, relationships, and conflict. Over time, the seminal work of Rebecca Hegar and Audrey Begun focused this scholarship on the losses and negative consequences associated with sibling separation for children and youth entering foster care. Additional research followed echoing and expanding upon this premise, informed by the personal accounts of children, caregivers, and child welfare professionals. Drawing upon the availability of administrative and other data, scholars ultimately began to document the prevalence of conjoint sibling placements in foster care systems all over the world, and the factors associated with decisions to place brothers and sisters together or apart. Common predictors of sibling placements include whether or not children entered foster care at the same time, the age and sex of sibling sets, the size of sibling groups, and the availability of placements that could accommodate siblings, as well as whether relatives were available for placement. In the United States, the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008 codified the importance of sibling relationships and required that child welfare agencies make reasonable efforts to keep siblings together or in contact while in care. Similar stipulations were also developed in other counties, including the United Kingdom and Australia. Research on sibling relationships, conjoint placements, and connections for children and youth in foster care has grown over the last three decades, with increasing attention on sibling abuse and violence, as well as child and case outcomes associated with conjoint sibling placements. Of particular note is recent scholarship documenting the effectiveness of interventions that support positive sibling relationships.