Siblings in Adoption and Foster Care: Traumatic Separations and Honored Connections

by Deborah N. Silverstein (Editor), Susan Livingston Smith (Editor)

Normally, our relationships with our brothers and sisters are the longest relationships in our lives, outlasting time with our parents, and most marriages today. The sibling relationship is emotionally powerful and critically important, giving us a sense of continuity throughout life. So what happens when a child loses contact not only with his or her parents, but with siblings too? That is what happens in thousands of cases each year inside the child welfare system. Children are surrendered by parents - or taken by the government - and placed in the foster care system. There, they are often separated and sent to different foster families, or adopted by different couples. In this work, a team of top experts details for us how this added separation futher traumatizes children. This stellar team of internationally known researchers - some of whom are themselves adoptees - shares with us hard, poignant, and personal insights, as well as ways we might act to solve this widespread problem.

Contributors address not only the importance of nurturing sibling bonds and mental health strategies to support those relationships, but also the legal rights of siblings to be together, as well as issues in international adoptions. Emerging and standing programs to encourage and facilitate adoptions that keep siblings together are featured, as are programs that at least enable them to stay in contact.

Genres: Adoption

216 pages, Hardcover

First published December 30, 2008

Reviews

[Sandeep Sudhakaran · Rating 5 out of 5]

An informative read for those embarking on the adoptive parenting journey

[Natasha Lane · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book was an interesting read. It offered both research statistics and personal stories from the authors (who experienced the foster care system) and children in the system. Being able to see both the quantity and quality of foster care and adoptive homes was interesting. It allowed me to see the system on an overall larger scale, while also getting down to the micro-individual level.

Additionally, as a newcomer to the field and someone who does not plan on entering the field professionally (I just have an interest in it), this was a pretty good book. There were several aspects of this issue I was not fully aware of or had no knowledge of and this book helped me answer several questions.

With that said, there were also several issues I had with this read. The biggest one being the redundancy. I'm not sure if this was done on purpose but the authors repeated several sentiments and facts multiple times in the novel. Sometimes this happened within the same chapter. Not to mention, though the book answered several small questions for a newbie like me, it didn't definitively answer larger questions about how ti improve the siblingship issue in foster care which I felt like it said it would in the introduction. That is not so say the book was not helpful but I feel like it over-promised and under-delivered.

Finally, some of the advice or tips given were common sense or general knowledge. Not something you expect to be repeated in a book tackling an issue with little research. All in all, I recommend this book but I'd buy it with another book on the topic, as well, to fill in the holes.

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thorough almost to the point of repetitive. More a collection of essays than a book, which only adds to the repetitiveness.