Recent Efforts
CAC Seeks to Establish Sibling Rights
This article appeared in the Fall 2009 CLINIC NEWS. Click here to read about recent efforts of other Rutgers clinical faculty and students.
There are more than 550,000 children in foster care in the United States at any given time. Roughly 60% to 70% of these children also have siblings in the foster care system. While child welfare policies long have encouraged the placement of siblings together, child welfare laws and practice show different results: Only about 40% of these children are placed with a sibling.
The Child Advocacy Clinic (CAC) recently became involved in a case that raises the issue of whether the Family Court should and could preserve a bond between foster siblings. The CAC represents three children who, in late 2005, were removed from the care of their mother due to severe neglect caused by the mother’s long-standing substance abuse addiction. The oldest and youngest children have been placed with a family friend for the last three years. The middle child, a boy with exceptional needs, currently resides in a residential treatment facility for children with profound disabilities.
Psychological experts have found that the children have a very strong bond with one another. Largely due to the CAC’s advocacy, twice per month the Division of Youth and Family Services (DYFS), New Jersey’s child welfare agency, transports the youngest and oldest children to the facility where the middle child resides.
Because the parents have not been able to care for the children for almost three years, the State moved for an order terminating their parental rights. The plan was for the oldest and youngest children to be adopted by their current caregiver, and the middle child by a yet unknown adoptive parent or parents. On the eve of trial, the parents surrendered their parental rights as to the youngest and oldest children, as long as they were adopted by their long-term caregiver. The State then changed its position with regard to the middle child. In order to maintain sibling relations and because of the difficulty in finding an adoptive home in the tri-state area, the State recommended that the middle child remain at the institution so that the visits between the children could continue. In other words, the State concluded that to maintain sibling contact, it had to abandon efforts to find a family for the middle child.
Two CAC students, Alnisa Bell and Ireneo Bartolome, both Class of 2009, argued that the State should not have to choose between permanency and maintaining the sibling relationship, where both are important and in the best interest of a child. Rather, courts should be able to order both – the termination of parental rights and post-adoption sibling contact. In the end, the judge terminated the parental rights of the middle child and ordered DYFS to provide sibling visitation every other week, until the oldest and youngest children are adopted. However, the judge declined to order that sibling contact be maintained post-adoption, finding that he did not have authority to do so under current law.
This case raises the fundamental question of whether children who have had their ties to their biological parents severed due to abuse and/or neglect, and who are adopted by new parents, have the right to continue their relationships with one another. If so, is that right in conflict with the right to permanency? How can these conflicting interests be balanced or reconciled?
In New Jersey, the balance tilts toward permanency; however, the issue remains unresolved. Through an appeal, which is pending, the CAC hopes to change the legal landscape in favor of maintaining sibling relationships.
This article appeared in the Fall 2009 CLINIC NEWS. Click here to read about recent efforts of other Rutgers clinical faculty and students.
There are more than 550,000 children in foster care in the United States at any given time. Roughly 60% to 70% of these children also have siblings in the foster care system. While child welfare policies long have encouraged the placement of siblings together, child welfare laws and practice show different results: Only about 40% of these children are placed with a sibling.
The Child Advocacy Clinic (CAC) recently became involved in a case that raises the issue of whether the Family Court should and could preserve a bond between foster siblings. The CAC represents three children who, in late 2005, were removed from the care of their mother due to severe neglect caused by the mother’s long-standing substance abuse addiction. The oldest and youngest children have been placed with a family friend for the last three years. The middle child, a boy with exceptional needs, currently resides in a residential treatment facility for children with profound disabilities.
Psychological experts have found that the children have a very strong bond with one another. Largely due to the CAC’s advocacy, twice per month the Division of Youth and Family Services (DYFS), New Jersey’s child welfare agency, transports the youngest and oldest children to the facility where the middle child resides.
Because the parents have not been able to care for the children for almost three years, the State moved for an order terminating their parental rights. The plan was for the oldest and youngest children to be adopted by their current caregiver, and the middle child by a yet unknown adoptive parent or parents. On the eve of trial, the parents surrendered their parental rights as to the youngest and oldest children, as long as they were adopted by their long-term caregiver. The State then changed its position with regard to the middle child. In order to maintain sibling relations and because of the difficulty in finding an adoptive home in the tri-state area, the State recommended that the middle child remain at the institution so that the visits between the children could continue. In other words, the State concluded that to maintain sibling contact, it had to abandon efforts to find a family for the middle child.
Two CAC students, Alnisa Bell and Ireneo Bartolome, both Class of 2009, argued that the State should not have to choose between permanency and maintaining the sibling relationship, where both are important and in the best interest of a child. Rather, courts should be able to order both – the termination of parental rights and post-adoption sibling contact. In the end, the judge terminated the parental rights of the middle child and ordered DYFS to provide sibling visitation every other week, until the oldest and youngest children are adopted. However, the judge declined to order that sibling contact be maintained post-adoption, finding that he did not have authority to do so under current law.
This case raises the fundamental question of whether children who have had their ties to their biological parents severed due to abuse and/or neglect, and who are adopted by new parents, have the right to continue their relationships with one another. If so, is that right in conflict with the right to permanency? How can these conflicting interests be balanced or reconciled?
In New Jersey, the balance tilts toward permanency; however, the issue remains unresolved. Through an appeal, which is pending, the CAC hopes to change the legal landscape in favor of maintaining sibling relationships.