| The current study examined the question: What are the effects of separating siblings in foster care? In recent years, there has been legislation requiring child welfare agencies to place siblings together in foster care whenever possible. However, there has been little research addressing the effects of separating siblings in foster care. The literature review revealed mixed findings on the effects of separating siblings in terms of psychological effects, permanency outcomes, and number of replacements (i.e., children in foster care moving from one placement to another placement). Additionally, there have been methodological difficulties studying siblings as siblings cannot be considered independent from each other. Therefore, many of the traditional statistical methods do not allow for multiple siblings to be assessed in the same study. The current study utilized hierarchical linear modeling and hierarchical generalized linear modeling to account for the nested data. Data was collected from a child welfare agency in southeast Michigan. The sample was comprised of families consisting of three siblings who received services by this agency for at least 4 months. The results of the current study did find support for the hypothesis that separating siblings in foster care was related to higher replacement rates. There was no support for the remaining hypotheses that separating siblings was related to mental health stability, the individual's average mental health score, or permanency outcomes. |
