Strained System Often Splits Up Siblings in Foster Care
By Rebecca Cook for The Associated Press
Originally published by The Associated Press, July 22, 2001
ABERDEEN — After JoAnn McGuckin was arrested and charged with child neglect in Bonner County, Idaho, her six children feared being split up and parceled out to live with strangers.
Armed with weapons and a ferocious mistrust of outsiders, they held sheriff's deputies at bay for five days in a bizarre standoff that captured national attention.
They had a point.
While most children lack the guns or the gumption to resist the authorities, many siblings in foster care can probably empathize with the McGuckins. Foster care is supposed to be a temporary step before family reunification or adoption, but often it tears children apart from their strongest allies ‹ their siblings. Nationally, an estimated 75 percent of siblings are placed in different homes when they enter foster care.
The official policy in most states, including Idaho and Washington, is to keep siblings together in foster care when possible. But the issue often gets overlooked as more pressing crises strain the overloaded system.
Former foster child Joe Sinnett of Aberdeen knows how it feels to have your family fall through the cracks. The police took Sinnett and his siblings away from their mother when he was 8, and the state scattered them through different foster homes.
Now 21, he searches endlessly for the younger brothers and sisters he lost in the system. "They thought that by separating us we would forget things that happened. You just don't forget things like that," he said.
Officials say the problem is simply space. Few foster families are prepared to take more than two children at a time. And those who are licensed to take four, five or six often see each opening filled as soon as it appears. Social workers don't have the luxury of "holding" spaces in foster families for groups of siblings.
For people such as Sinnett, who has contact with only two of his seven siblings, that means a lifetime of worry.
"You're always wondering what they're up to, how they've been, what they're doing," said Sinnett, swiveling restlessly on an office chair as he talked about his past. "My brothers and sisters were so young at the time. We really didn't get a chance to do much together. Now I wish we did."
Growing up in the sporadic care of Sinnett's alcohol- and drug-abusing mother was chaotic, but at least he had his brothers and sisters. They're the ones who remember wandering the streets of Aberdeen at night to buy food. They're the ones who remember Sinnett's childhood nickname, "Little Tomato."
Now he doesn't even know some of his brothers' and sisters' names.
Two were adopted by families who changed their names. Sinnett has no hope of finding them. One teenage sister lives in a group home in Arkansas. A younger brother was adopted by a family in Western Washington who forbade Sinnett to contact him.
Occasional supervised visits with some siblings during his decade in foster care only left Sinnett more keenly aware of what he was missing.
"When you go to see them you don't know what to say to them," he said softly. "You feel like you've been cast away for so many years."
Compared with Sinnett's family, the McGuckin children were lucky, in a way. After their standoff with police ended peacefully, a family friend licensed as a foster parent gave them a temporary home. They have since switched foster homes but have stayed together.
"In some ways I'm proud of them," said Lynn Price, director of a summer camp for siblings separated by foster care. "They lost their father, they lost their mother in a way ‹ that's all they had left."
The issue is slowly gaining attention. Colorado passed a law last year requiring social-service agencies to try to place siblings together. New York City settled a class-action lawsuit in 1993 by agreeing to keep siblings together when it is in their best interest. Chicago and the state of Alabama are both operating under consent decrees requiring that siblings be placed together when possible.
Washington state embarked this spring on a crusade to recruit and retain more foster parents. Officials with the state Department of Social and Health Services say the state could use 1,000 more foster homes. Without more parents, the policy of placing siblings together will likely continue to fall by the wayside in the rush to get children into the first home available.
Ginny Smith, a foster-care placement coordinator in Thurston County, said she never has more than one or two homes at a time with room for more than one foster child. She tries to arrange visits for siblings who are placed in separate homes, but between court dates, counseling sessions and supervised parent visits, there isn't always time for bonding with siblings.
And an hour with a sibling under the watchful eye of a case worker is no substitute for a normal family life.
"They worry all the time," she said. "I think there's a hole in their hearts."
