WHERE DID MY SISTER GO?

1. WHERE DID MY SISTER GO? DEENA MCMAHON MSW LICSW deena.mcmahon@gmail.com

2. PAST PRACTICE • The agency would make a recommendation. • It often had to have the opinion of a mental health professional. • Significant documentation about how. separation would or would not serve the child(ren). • The Commissioner of Human Services decided.

3. CHANGES IN OUR PROCESS • Each case is evaluated by the county agency. • There is no requirement that the agency have the professional opinion of an expert. • Department of Human Services no longer exercises the decision making authority. • The district court makes the decision.

4. WHAT THE STATUTE SAYS • Place siblings together whenever possible. • Right of the parents trump the rights of siblings. • Strong consideration to kinship and relative homes is given. • We can separate: • If they are not safe together • If there is not a home that will take all of them • If the needs of the sibling group is too great for one home

5. FACTS • 70% of foster children also have a sibling in placement. • 35,000 sibling separations occur on an annual basis nationally. • 75% of all foster children lose a sibling permanently as a result of removal from their home. • 80% of us has (had) siblings growing up.

6. MORE FACTS • Joint sibling placements increase the likelihood of reunification with parents. • Girls who are removed from their siblings experience significantly poorer mental health and socialization than girls who are placed with their siblings. • Concurrent planning and shorter timelines have increased sibling separations because it takes longer to find a skilled home.

7. WHY IT MATTERS • Sibling relationships are central to the theme of attachment and enhance the child’s ability to develop positive parent/child attachment and life long relationships with others. • Placement stability is more often than not strengthened by placing siblings together.

8. GOOD OUTCOMES • Children have higher levels of distress and negative outcomes more often when separated from siblings. • Shlonskyand Arron, 2005

9. COMMON REASONS WE SEPARATE • Sexualized behaviors. • The parentified older sibling. • Too many kids for one home. • Sibling violence.

10. WHAT MATTRS MOST? • In general, parent/child attachment relationships trump the sibling relationship, in making placement decisions. • The harm created by disrupting an attachment is often significant and can have long term implications. • The loss of the sibling attachment is still present but typically not as critical or harmful as the parent/child attachment disruption.

11. REASONS TO SEPARATE • The child has resided for a significant period of time and formed an intense attachment to current caregivers. • Therapeutic interventions have not diminished high risk sibling interactions, either physical or emotional. • Risk of disrupting due to family being overtaxed and under prepared. • When dueling sibs undermine the attachment process.

12. SEXULIZED CHILDREN • It used to be a foregone conclusion that children who had been sexually acting out with each other needed to be separated. That is not necessarily true. • Sexualized behavior needs to be seen in the context of the child’s development.

13. CONSIDERATIONS • Is one child traumatized, fearful or easily victimized by a sibling? • Are the adults able to provide sufficient supervision? • Is there cruelty, coercion, force, violence involved? • Does one child have predatory or perpetrator features?

14. THE PARENTIFIED CHILD • Removing the older, parentified child is often harmful to both the older child and to the younger siblings. • The loss of roles, the message of failure, and a pervasive state of fear/worry about the absent siblings is detrimental.

15. CONSIDRATIONS • When possible, it is helpful to maintain the birth order for children as it is familiar and comforting to them and part of their identity. • Sometimes we see children already in the home experience significant regression and worry with the addition of a new sibling or with a returning sib who they have negative memories of.

16. CONSIDERATIONS • When there is a tremendous age gap, and the older child is asking to stay in a familiar kinship or foster home to ‘launch’ and there is an adoptive family for the younger siblings. • When the older sibling is hateful and abusive to the younger children and services have not alleviated this dynamic.

17. THERE IS NO GOING BACK • Sexualized children are interested and activated by things of a sexual nature. You can’t stop it. You educate, supervise and manage the child’s behaviors. • The parentified child is and will always be the ‘big girl’. Telling her/him to just ‘be a kid’ simply won’t work.

18. TOO MANY CHILDREN • There is a good deal of controversy about how many is ‘too many’. Some adoptive parents enjoy building large families and are extremely capable of managing many children with many various special needs. • Most are not.

19. STRETCHING THE “PACKAGE” DEAL • It is common in a sibling group for one child to be especially challenging. IF this child’s needs are overly difficult, the family may feel ill prepared to commit long term. They are capable parents to the other two children. Do we move them all? • A family should not be ‘forced’ to take more than they feel they can manage.

20. CONSIDERATIONS • The state of MN allows for separation when there is a large sibling group and two separate relative homes agree to ongoing contact. • If the family is not experienced, prepared, highly trained, with realistic expectations and generous supports, they will be overwhelmed with a large sibling group.

21. HOW TO SORT IT OUT • Sometimes the agency is compelled to ‘push’ towards permanency and over ride the resistance or hesitation of the adoptive parents. • When parents say it is ‘too much’ we need to pay careful attention. • The older, naïve, in experienced adoptive parent should not be asked to push their limit.

22. CAN YOU HAVE 1/2 OF A SISTER? • How children view sibling relationships is quite different from how the statute views siblings. • Are sisters with different mother’s still sisters? • Are non-biological siblings still related if their adoption is vacated? • Are step-sisters siblings? • If two siblings are separated for adoption, are they sisters?

23. PSYCHOLOGICAL SISTERS • We were raised together. • I called your father ‘dad’. • I never met my dad. • Mom is leaving, and she is only taking me. • My worker told me that he is not really my dad. • I thought she WAS your ‘'real' mom.

24. FIVE CHILDREN, FOUR DADS • Unfamiliar or long absent parents claim children they do not even know. • There is no obligation to maintain contact. • Children who have always lived together are losing the ‘dad’ they had, their mom, and then each other.

25. FIVE CHILDREN, TWO DADS • The children are raised together. The middle child was conceived during an absence of the father. • The parents separate and mom takes four of the children and gives one away for adoption. • Mom loses custody due to drug use and all the children go to a maternal uncle. • The pre-adopt family wants child # 2.

26. SEPARTION UP FRONT • When children enter the foster care system and siblings are separated at that point, they often remain separated. • You can ask for and ensure regular contact. • You can ask that a home be found that will take them all.

27. SHE NEVER ASKS ABOUT HER SISTER • After a while apart, children stop asking. This is not an indication they do not care. • After a while, the children ‘normalize’ the loss. • After a while, with no contact, the children grow rapidly and become unfamiliar with each other. • After a while, they no longer have enough shared experiences in common.

28. SIBLILNG COMPETITION • When siblings are in competition for limited emotional support and resources, they learn to compete for negative attention. They collect attention and the biggest trouble-maker wins. • There are times when this child is simply unable to relax, or the other children are so fearful/angry, that they need different homes.

29. THEY DID NOT GET ALONG ANYWAY • How well the children get along should not be a factor in the decision to separate them. • Sibling conflict is often present. • The scapegoat in the family needs to be protected but not necessarily separated.

30. BONDED BY TRAUMA • These are extraordinarily hard decisions to make because the children trigger each other, remind each other of past hurts and horrors, and hurt each other out of anger and resentment. • Sometimes they have had to sacrifice their sibling to get their own basic needs met. The competition was too damaging.

31. TWO BOYS • Brothers, 4 and 6. Horribly disfigured by an accident. The older boy saved his brothers life but probably caused the accident. The older boy experienced pervasive sexual abuse from dad and others… Foster home will take the 4 year old but not both. There are concerns about sexual boundaries and reports of touching and threats from the 6 year old.

32. ARE ADOPTED CHILDREN SIBLINGS? • Two boys unrelated by birth, adopted into a family who has a birth child also. TPR on all children occurs. Relatives want the biological child only.

33. ABOUT THAT NEW BABY SISTER? • Three siblings adopted by the same family. Bio mom has a new baby. No father on ‘record’. Mom can’t safely parent. Maternal grandmother get’s licensed to do foster care and wants this baby. She does not like the adoptive family. • Adoptive family wants this baby

34. THE BABY YOU DON’T WANT TO MOVE • Three children in foster care. Two older kids move to fabulous pre-adoptive home five hours away. They are highly skilled and already successful adoptive parents. They initially agreed to the two older children but would agree to take the baby also. • The baby has been in the same placement since birth. The foster placement wants only her.

35. THE UNKNOWN SIBLING • I never knew I had a sister from my dad. • She friended me on Facebook. • My foster family wants to adopt me but I want to live with my sister. • My foster family wants to adopt me but I have to move in with a sister I do not even know.

36. WHAT KIDS TELL US • They do not like it when their caseworker or parent leaves it up to them to ask, coordinate and facilitate sibling contact. They want an adult to do that. • They do not like it when the adoptive parents won’t allow contact with other siblings. • They do not like NOT having someone to ask for help.

37. WHAT ELSE? • They do not like it when all of their sibling contacts are supervised. It feels weird and sends the message that they are naughty or dangerous or untrustworthy. • They do not like it when they are given no explanation for why the separation happened and why there is no contact.

38. THE AGENCY’S JOB • Reunify or place children with parents • Place children with kinship/relatives • Follow the timelines

39. THE GUARDIAN’S JOB • Evaluate Best Interests • Follow the timelinesfor permanency • Consider relatives and kin who are ‘appropriate’. • Support reunification with parents and siblings when it serves the child best.

40. WHAT ABOUT RACE AND CULTURE? • Four siblings become wards of the state. They have lived together their entire lives. Third child is part Native American and part African American. The other children are African American. The tribe has intervened. • There is a couple willing to adopt all of them. • What do you do? • What if the couple were Black? White? Native?

41. THE RELATIVE SEARCH • A relative search should include looking for siblings. Many times, an older step or half sibling is totally unaware of the situation and is often willing to be a permanency option. • Many times, an adoptive family for one of the siblings is open to more children but is not aware of them.

42. MITIGATING EFFORTS • Place the children in close proximity, same school system or town. • Have them exchange phone calls, pictures, letters, maybe email and Facebook. • Have both families exchange respite times. • Use the same summer camp for all children. • Assign one worker and one GAL to all children. • Use the same therapist or provider.