Should you keep sibling groups together? I used to think so. Before I had a sibling group of foster children. Two of the three siblings lived with us for a number of months. We took in the third sister from time to time as well. The caseworker asked me if we should keep them together or separate them. I saw how they played together, and how bonded they were, and emphasized they should stay together.

That was before I knew better.

I’ve since learned there are many reasons to separate siblings - if maybe only for a short time.

Going back, I would have separated all three of these foster children to give them a sense of self and time to heal. The therapist said they had ‘trauma bonds’. I agree.

I can see now, in hindsight, how the RAD chid could have done so much better had she been given a chance in a home without other siblings. Maybe with some extra attention she could have begun to heal. I couldn’t even begin to scratch the services with these children.

On the very last day of foster care for these children I had all three of them. They’d been going back and forth with Mom, spending weekends with mom and weekdays with me. On this, the last day they were going home - hopefully forever.

They were playing and I heard lots of screaming and laughter as I was in the kitchen. Then suddenly, the noise changed. I couldn’t put my finger on the noise, but I knew it wasn’t right. I ran into the next room and caught the five year old boy sexuality assaulting his two year old sister.

In all these months I hadn’t seen any of this behavior - not even a glimmer.

I called the caseworker, the mom, DHS. I filled out paperwork, wrote up a report.

And then I cried.

These children went home as planned. They had extra monitoring put in place by DHS and extra therapy ordered for the family. They are still together, with their mom. Should they ever go back into foster care, or ever come up for adoption, the new mother needs to know about this behavior.

Clearly these siblings should have been separated from day one to give them a chance to heal.


More on this subject later today..........