Sibling connections are vital, especially when the family dynamic has been disrupted by the absence of parental figures. Maintaining the sibling bond provides children with a sense of safety, familiarity, and belonging. It reinforces the idea of family, even in the face of separation. Every child deserves a safe and loving environment, and keeping siblings together helps uphold that right.
I remember being placed in an adoptive home, and at some point, the visits with my siblings just stopped. My caregiver at the time didn’t honor that relationship, and honestly, it felt like nobody was checking to make sure we stayed in contact. That responsibility shouldn’t have been left up to whether or not the caregiver wanted me to see my siblings. That should have been implemented and protected by the agency.
I’m not just a foster care alumni. I’m also a human services professional who has worked within the child welfare system. I’ve had the opportunity to co-facilitate Model Approach to Partnerships in Parenting (MAPP) classes, the certification process for individuals seeking to become foster parents. During these sessions, I often witnessed potential foster parents struggle with the idea of taking in siblings. Many were open to fostering, but only under certain conditions, such as preferring the younger child or feeling unequipped to care for older siblings.
While I don’t believe this makes them unfit to foster, it does raise an important issue: many caregivers feel unequipped to care for sibling groups, especially when there’s a significant age gap or when one child requires more intensive support. This often leads to siblings being separated in placement. I would never choose to place one sibling in a home while separating them from the other. Instead, I would advocate relentlessly to find a placement that keeps them together and honors their bond.
People often romanticize sibling bonds without acknowledging a harsh truth — many siblings in the system are separated. They are not separated because it’s what’s best, but because agencies prioritize placing kids quickly over finding families willing and equipped to keep siblings together. The urgency to move cases forward too often comes at the cost of breaking bonds that children shouldn’t have to lose.
Agencies should invest more time in finding placements that honor sibling relationships, not just check off the box of getting a child into a home. For many youth, it’s the one constant that reminds them of who they are, where they come from, and that they’re not alone in the world. Over the years, I’ve talked to and mentored a lot of youth in care, and the story is almost always the same — they don’t know where their siblings are, or they feel like the bond isn’t there anymore because they’ve been living separate lives for so long. That connection matters. It’s more than just keeping siblings together. It’s about preserving a sense of family when everything else has been disrupted. Sibling connections shouldn’t be treated like an optional detail.
We can no longer allow the system to separate what was never meant to be broken. Reuniting with my siblings gave me a sense of belonging — and that bond continues to grow even now. Every child deserves that same chance at connection, closeness, and the safety of knowing they’re not alone. We owe it to them to protect that.
