When Mars Presswood was 15 years old, he and his younger sibling were placed together in foster care. Despite being moved from an urban setting to a small rural town and enduring many other changes and uncertainties over the next three years, one thing remained consistent: the siblings had each other.

“Being placed together gave us the opportunity to have one person who knew every aspect of our story,” Presswood said. “We were able to understand the situation better because we were going through it together.”

Placing siblings together provides children with a sense of stability and comfort at a time when they are separated from family, community, and other familiar aspects of life. Looking back at his own situation, Presswood is certain that living with his sibling helped him better manage the many transitions he faced. Being a good older sibling also meant standing up to injustices and racism he and his sibling experienced, which allowed him to seamlessly transition into the strong advocate he is today. Now an adult trying to make sense of his difficult childhood, Presswood reflects: “Getting to experience the foster care system with my sibling is one thing that I am eternally grateful for.”

The Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008 was the first federal law to address the importance of keeping siblings together in all placement types: adoption, foster care, kinship care, and guardianship. The law requires states to make reasonable efforts to maintain sibling connections in order to receive the funding made available through the act. In general, child protection agencies have embraced approaches that support placing siblings together, with 37 states, the District of Columbia, and Guam having statutes requiring agencies to make reasonable efforts to place siblings together unless a joint placement (also commonly referred to as co-placement) would not be in the best interest of one of the children, such as when one sibling poses a risk to another. In addition, 39 states and Puerto Rico have statutes requiring agencies to make provisions for siblings who cannot be placed together, including opportunities for visits and other forms of contact or communication.¹

A lack of reliable national data on the number of children in foster care who are placed with their siblings makes it challenging to assess progress and examine outcomes. But data from one state, Pennsylvania, suggests room for improvement: A 2021 study revealed how often children in foster care who have at least one sibling were in a placement with all their siblings. Children were placed with all their siblings less of half (47%) of the weeks they were in foster care (61% of placement-weeks for children with only one sibling and 35% of placement-weeks for children with more than one sibling).²

Informed by the experiences of people with lived expertise in the child welfare system, this brief describes the many benefits of placing siblings together and the negative consequences of keeping them apart, along with strategies to overcome the challenges surrounding sibling joint placement and examples from three jurisdictions making strides toward keeping siblings together.

Benefits of placing siblings together in foster care

Co-placing siblings can buffer the adverse experiences of foster care. Research indicates that placement with siblings is associated with:

• Fewer placement disruptions.^3,4
• Higher rates of achieving permanency.^5,6,7
• Increased sense of belonging and connection to family and culture.⁸
• Fewer emotional and behavioral difficulties.⁹
• Increased mental well-being.¹⁰
• Improved school performance.¹¹
• Greater resilience in young adulthood.¹²

These benefits resonate with lived experts who shared with Casey Family Programs their own experiences.¹³ “If one of the siblings was acting up, other siblings would help calm him down,” recalls Kathy Coleman, a resource caregiver from Louisiana. Kimberly Fowler, a resource caregiver¹⁴  from Georgia, says she appreciated that older siblings were able to help their younger siblings with homework and also babysit. Even now that the older siblings live on their own, “they still come by to do homework with their younger siblings or go outside and ride bikes with them.”

Negative consequences of sibling separation

In addition to citing the benefits of placing siblings together, the lived experts related real-life struggles that result from keeping them apart.

Presswood had other half-siblings from whom he was separated: “There was no effort to connect with the rest of my family. It was this complete disconnect that wasn’t talked about during my three years in foster care. It was just like, ‘If you figure out how to find your siblings, we can make it happen.’ But it wasn’t a topic that was adequately brought up.” Even now that he is older, Presswood says reconnecting with those siblings – and making up for lost time – remains a challenge.

Fowler shared her experience as a resource caregiver: “If one sibling is in a group home, and the other is in a traditional home, it’s very difficult for the two to have visits. There are a lot of rules and group homes are very strict. There’s only a small window of time that siblings can meet.”

Coleman, the resource caregiver, described how the child protection agency advised her against taking in a group of four siblings, expressing skepticism that the joint placement would work out. Later, when the siblings were divided into different homes, “It was a nightmare,” Coleman recalls. “They would call me crying. They wondered why they were being kept apart.” The sibling group used their shared connection with her as a means to stay in touch with one another.

Bernadine Atchison, a kinship caregiver from Alaska, recalls: “When the four grandkids I took in were later split between three different families for six months, I witnessed how even that short amount of time separated had impacted them. The continuity wasn’t there, and they often got confused about who the people were in their lives. We had to show them photos to help them straighten out in their heads who was who.”

Strategies for keeping siblings together

Placing siblings together poses logistical challenges, which can be even more daunting when working with larger sibling groups, siblings with significant age gaps or different needs, siblings entering foster care at different times, or caregivers whose homes lack sufficient sleeping space. These challenges, however, should never justify separating siblings when placing them together is in their best interest.

The following proactive strategies can help child protection agencies prioritize and promote joint placements for siblings:

Prioritize placement with kin and provide kinship caregivers necessary supports. Kinship placement increases the likelihood of children living with or staying connected to their siblings. Relatives are generally more open to taking in sibling groups and offer the additional advantage of preserving other family connections. One study found that siblings placed together with kin were the least likely to experience placement changes.¹⁵ Many kinship caregivers will need financial resources and other supports to care for the children they take in. In addition to the foster care maintenance payments required for all licensed and approved kinship caregivers, families taking in a large sibling group may need additional funds to purchase household necessities, including beds and bedding.

Utilize targeted foster and adoptive parent recruitment strategies to recruit more foster and adoptive homes specifically for sibling groups, including caregivers whose racial and ethnic backgrounds reflect those of the children in their care. Providing a thorough assessment of the sibling group as a whole — as well as each individual child — can help foster and adoptive parents address any needs and concerns prior to placement.

Be proactive in asking resource caregivers to care for sibling groups. Child protection agencies should not assume resource caregivers are unwilling to take a full sibling group. “It’s a simple question to ask foster parents: ‘You might not be able, but could you take the full sibling group?’ Give us the opportunity to take a sibling group. Don’t assume we can’t,” Coleman says. Fowler adds: “Instead of placing my foster daughter with her twin, the agency assumed it would be easier to find placements if they put them in separate homes. We would have taken her sibling.”

Implement clear policies promoting joint placements. Many states have laws, regulations, and policies that support joint placements. Some, including Massachusetts and Oregon, have codified the importance of sibling relationships in a Sibling Bill of Rights, emphasizing the importance of sibling relationships and stipulating that every child in foster care should be placed with siblings when possible, and in cases where siblings are placed separately, they should maintain regular contact with one another. Other key policies and practices include:

• Training for caseworkers, lawyers, and foster/adoptive parents about the importance of sibling connections.
• Assignment of sibling groups to a single caseworker, regardless of when each sibling enters foster care.
• Systems to locate and track siblings — including those in foster care, those still in the home, and those who have been adopted or who have aged out of the system — to ensure that all siblings are considered throughout the case.
• Case reviews within one week to plan for joint placement, if siblings must be separated due to an emergency placement.

Involve children in placement decisions. Children should be included — in ways appropriate to their age — in the decision-making process about placement with their siblings.¹⁶ “Instead of placing siblings wherever it is convenient for the agency to place them, let’s let them have a say,” Fowler says. “Do they want to live together or be apart? Ask that first, then find the placement.” Presswood adds: “If siblings have already been separated from each other, we need to ask them, ‘Do you miss your sibling? Is your relationship with them important to you?’”

Always maintain connections. In 27% of sibling groups in which at least one child was placed in foster care, not all children were removed from the home.¹⁷ In these cases, it is important to determine how best to promote and maintain sibling ties. It is equally important to maintain those connections when siblings are in different placements. Placing siblings in the same city, community, and/or school district makes it easier to plan visits and outings, and give siblings opportunities to spend as much time together as they desire. Connections can be supported further through phone calls, video calls, and social media.

Jurisdictional examples

Given the many priorities child protection agencies must address, prioritizing joint sibling placements and connections requires an intentional focus. This section highlights policies and procedures that child protection agencies have implemented to promote sibling placements in three jurisdictions: Connecticut, Idaho, and New Jersey.¹⁸ In all three states, maintaining sibling connections is the priority, and permanency planning for siblings begins as early as possible.

Connecticut

Recognizing the importance of maintaining sibling connections, the Connecticut Department of Children and Families (DCF) adopted a Sibling Bill of Rights, developed by its Youth Advisory Board with support from the agency. It outlines policies for sibling visitation for those who are separated, including the expectation that siblings will be able to visit one another at least once every two weeks. Each year, DCF reports its compliance rate on sibling visitations to the state Legislature and includes the barriers encountered to meet the visitation expectations.

DCF treats sibling visitation with the same importance as parent visitation, understanding that preserving the sibling bond helps support children’s sense of identity and well-being. When placement or permanency changes occur for a child not with a sibling, their siblings must be notified of those changes, similar to grandparents and other close relatives. While visitation cannot be enforced after legal permanency has occurred, DCF stresses the importance of maintaining sibling and familial connections in its training and licensing classes for caregivers and foster families. In caseworker training, DCF emphasizes that placing siblings together, when possible, is a priority.

When adoption is the permanency goal, DCF uses its Permanency Resource Exchange, which can match eligible adoptive families to a sibling group. After the caseworker and supervisor identify the five best matches, a permanency planning team identifies the one best for the children.

Idaho

Large families are statistically high in Idaho when compared to other states, making it easier for the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare (DHW) to find placements for sibling groups of three or more children.

When children have been separated from their siblings in foster care, a sibling priority Permanent Placement Committee meeting is held to develop a plan that supports permanency for all siblings. One of the committee’s guiding principles explains the importance of prioritizing sibling placements: “A key component of a child’s well-being is their continued connection to relatives. Siblings are relatives; and joint sibling placements are relative placements.”

The siblings’ caseworker and supervisor attend the placement committee meeting, as well as other stakeholders, such as resource caregivers, peer partners, and community partners. Biological parents may also be invited, depending on case circumstances. Meeting attendees consider sibling and family preferences, examine sibling relationships, and review and address safety concerns. When adoption is the goal, the committee decides whether siblings should be adopted together. If so, the members consider only those families willing to adopt all of the siblings. DHW created a decision structure for the committee to use to guide the placement process.

New Jersey

New Jersey’s Department of Children and Families (DCF) prioritizes sibling placements when children first enter foster care and has successfully placed about 80% of sibling groups together, an impressive number that speaks to this commitment. When identifying placements for siblings, DCF seeks out potential kinship caregivers first, followed by unrelated resource families. Those caregivers are required to support sibling connections, even if the siblings are not placed together. The ability and willingness to support sibling connections also is a major consideration when selecting an adoptive family. While DCF cannot guarantee that adoptive parents will support the connection, it strongly encourages all families to do so.

New Jersey’s Siblings’ Bill of Rights, developed by the agency’s Youth Council, states that children in placement should be supported in maintaining meaningful connections with their siblings, regardless of placement type or distance. The Youth Council advocated strongly to formalize guarantees for frequent, unrestricted contact between siblings, including in-person visits and virtual communication. The bill also allows for sibling participation in family team meetings and permanency court hearings.

DCF also provides a Siblings in Best Settings incentive to families that accept large sibling groups. Non-relative resource families willing to foster four or more siblings receive a $200 a month retainer, even when they are not fostering children. The incentive has been successful in helping DCF build and maintain a list of resource families who are willing to take in large sibling groups. In addition, both relative and non-relative families fostering or adopting large sibling groups can access a higher foster care subsidy to help with logistics and needs.