Background

Efforts to place sibling groups together in foster care have long been considered best practice and are required under federal law. Practice and policy guidance are based in part on the belief that sibling placement is in the best interests of children. In this article, we first review literature reviews on this topic to assess the extent to which prior efforts to characterize this body of research are thorough, objective, and based on research specific to the foster care population. We then assess the quality and volume of empirical evidence on the effects of sibling placement for the stability, permanency, and wellbeing of children in foster care to ascertain whether existing reviews accurately reflect the empirical evidence or extend beyond it without adequate empirical support.

Methods

We conducted a scoping search of reviews of published research from the year 1990 to 2019 using Google Scholar, PsycInfo, EBSCO, and PubMed (Medline). From the search results, we extracted all review articles, quantitative studies, and qualitative studies on sibling placement in foster care. We identified 16 literature reviews on sibling placement in foster care. In addition, we identified 27 longitudinal quantitative studies measuring the association between sibling placement and child placement stability, permanency or wellbeing in foster care, and nine qualitative studies on the role of sibling placement or relationships for child wellbeing in foster care.

Results

Many of the literature reviews relied on research evidence from non-foster care samples and studies with weak methodologies. Moreover, although the research evidence is inconclusive – with studies reporting positive, negative, and null effects –most literature reviews concluded that the practice of sibling placement was supported by research evidence.

Conclusion

Although there are moral reasons to support sibling placement, the research evidence does not consistently support the practice of placing siblings together. Further research is needed to identify when sibling placement poses a risk to children and when sibling placement is likely to facilitate positive outcomes.

中文翻译：

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回顾传统智慧：从 30 年寄养兄弟姐妹安置的研究中我们知道了什么？

 背景

长期以来，将兄弟姐妹群体放在寄养家庭中一直被认为是最佳做法，也是联邦法律所要求的。实践和政策指导部分基于这样的信念：兄弟姐妹的安置符合儿童的最大利益。在本文中，我们首先回顾了有关该主题的文献综述，以评估先前描述该研究主体的努力的彻底性、客观性以及基于针对寄养人群的研究的程度。然后，我们评估了关于兄弟姐妹安置对寄养儿童的稳定性、永久性和福祉影响的经验证据的质量和数量，以确定现有的评论是否准确反映了经验证据，或者在没有足够经验支持的情况下超出了经验证据。

 方法

我们使用 Google Scholar、PsycInfo、EBSCO 和 PubMed (Medline) 对 1990 年至 2019 年已发表研究的评论进行了范围界定搜索。从搜索结果中，我们提取了有关兄弟姐妹寄养安置的所有评论文章、定量研究和定性研究。我们找到了 16 篇关于寄养兄弟姐妹的文献综述。此外，我们还确定了 27 项纵向定量研究，衡量寄养中兄弟姐妹安置与儿童安置稳定性、永久性或福祉之间的关系，以及 9 项关于寄养中兄弟姐妹安置或关系对儿童福祉的作用的定性研究。

 结果

许多文献综述依赖于非寄养样本的研究证据和方法论薄弱的研究。此外，尽管研究证据尚无定论——研究报告了积极、消极和无效影响——但大多数文献综述得出的结论是，兄弟姐妹安置的做法得到了研究证据的支持。

 结论

尽管有道德理由支持兄弟姐妹安置，但研究证据并不总是支持将兄弟姐妹安置在一起的做法。需要进一步的研究来确定何时兄弟姐妹安置会给儿童带来风险以及何时兄弟姐妹安置可能会促进积极的结果。