Need help - realities of foster & adoption system.

Exir

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Okay, I seem to be pestering everybody here a lot, but I am afraid right now the whole premise of my story is challenged! I need help.

Well, it involves two siblings being separated during the adoption process, at the age of three. The brother gets passed from foster home to foster home, while the sister gets adopted. My question is - is this possible? Cause the law will require siblings to stay together. It is not allowed to break a family during adoption, right? But the story depends on the siblings losing contact completely. Can there be a realistic workaround?
 

HeronW

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Everything is done to keep siblings together but circumstances can change that: foster care is more likely to be able to keep them together. If there's an adoption and the family can only take one child, sometimes they try to place the second close, locale wise to the first. There could be lots of reasons: they prefer a girl, the boy is difficult, one child has mental/medical problems that the family can't handle, etc.

Space and appropriate people to care for children is limited.
 

Exir

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And do I have to go into any lengthy details as to how he was separated? Or perhaps, since he was separated so early, and only 10 in the story, and I'm writing in his POV, I could just make a statement "I was separated" - he probably is just as confused as to the exact WHY.

BTW, they would still have communications, like letters and stuff, right? How would I solve that?
 
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Keyan

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They wouldn't necessarily have communication. It would be preferred, but the adoptive parents would pretty much have the right not to have it as long as the girl is a minor. And if the boy is "lost" in the system, and shifts foster homes a few times, they might not be able to keep track. The system is inefficient, so some of the things it wants to do just don't happen. Anyway, if they were separated when he was 4 and she was even younger, he probably wouldn't even know why or how.
 

frimble3

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If they were separated when they were too young to write, all it would take is the adoptive parents not encouraging contact and the assorted foster parents not being interested. At that age they have no control over their own lives, if they can't write their own letters (or even write down names and addresses) and make phone calls on their own, they are pretty much at the mercy of adults around them.
 

JamieFord

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I've been a foster parent.

As much as the system wants to keep siblings together, in many many cases (possibly the majority) it doesn't happen. Many foster families just don't have the room to take in 3-4+ siblings. Even if it's just two, there may be emotional issues with those kids and counselors may advise keeping them apart. We had a little five-year-old girl who had anger issues and was considered a threat to her three-year-old sister, so they were kept apart, but had weekly visits.

The goal is always to reunifiy those children with the parents, but after 18 months, if the parents don't get their act together, the children are then essentially put up for adoption. But...there are more kids than parents wanting to adopt, so they might stay in the foster care system for years, even until they reach adulthood.

There are no laws requiring adoptive parents to keep them together.
 

jrelkins

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Separating siblings used to be much more common than it is now. It may be more common with international adoption than US adoptions too. When siblings must be separated in US foster care, it is more likely to be because one of them presents a danger to the other(s) than any other reason. Another likely reason might be that children were living with different family members. For example, I know a young lady whose two younger half-brothers are living with their bio-father. My impression is that large sibling groups may become separated because they are so difficult to place together. If the children are old enough, one or both may choose not to be adopted together. A friend of ours adopted a young boy, and the boy's older brother does not want to be adopted.

The child may have plenty of confusion as to why he was separated. Or he may have seeming clarity, but not be willing to accept it. I know a young lady whose older sister was violent toward her and sexually abusive toward her -- she can state that these are the reasons, but then in the same breath ask why they can't live together. The child may also have confusion about why he was removed from his home of origin. This same young lady has made up a fantasy about her birth mother and claims not to understand why she can't see her.

While the child is in foster care, the state can request that there be contact and may be able to enforce that contact, but once the adoption is final, the adoptive parents have the final say and can (and have) cut off communication (for right or wrong reasons).