Challenges of fostering siblings and overcoming them

Being separated from their biological family and potentially from each other can cause emotional distress and feelings of loss. Siblings may experience grief and confusion as they adjust to new family dynamics and living arrangements.

Siblings who enter foster care often have experienced trauma, neglect, or abuse. They may carry emotional wounds and exhibit challenging behaviours because of this. Meeting the unique emotional needs of multiple children and helping them heal requires sensitivity, patience, and specialised support.

Siblings may have experienced competition for limited resources or attention in their previous environment, leading to conflicts and strained relationships. They may have developed defensive mechanisms or learned patterns of behaviour that hinder positive interactions.

Trauma and instability can hinder the development of secure attachments between siblings, making it difficult to form trusting relationships. Children in foster care may have experienced neglect, abuse, or inconsistent caregiving, which can impact their ability to form healthy attachments with their siblings, foster parents and other people around them. Building trust and fostering healthy attachments can be a complex process that requires consistency, reassurance, and understanding.

Each sibling within a group may have unique needs, personalities, and challenges. It can be a challenge for foster parents to address these individual needs while also fostering a sense of equality and fairness. Balancing attention, resources, and support among siblings requires careful consideration and flexibility.

Finding a foster placement that can accommodate all siblings together can be challenging. In some cases, siblings may be separated, leading to additional emotional distress and adjustment difficulties. Maintaining sibling connections and ensuring regular visitation can be crucial but may face logistical barriers if it’s deemed in the children’s best interests to remain apart. At Fosterplus, we have a very careful and considered approach to the matching process and placing children into foster homes, which means we have a very low rate of unplanned endings. We only want the best outcomes, and we believe that starts with the best possible placement match.

Engage siblings in shared activities that promote teamwork, problem-solving, and cooperation. This could include playing cooperative games, engaging in group projects, or participating in shared household chores. By emphasising collaboration, siblings learn to work together, respect each other's contributions, and develop a sense of unity.

Siblings in foster care often come from complex family backgrounds. Navigating the dynamics of their biological family relationships, including contact with parents or other relatives, can be challenging. Foster parents must manage these complexities while providing stability and nurturing sibling relationships.

Looking after siblings may mean you need to deal with different schools at the same time. Coordinating school placements, individualised educational plans and extracurricular activities can be demanding and require effective communication and advocacy. At Fosterplus, we ensure our foster parents are supported by education advisors and know where to turn to if they have a query or concern about their young person’s education.

Older siblings who had to take on a caregiver role to their younger siblings may find it difficult to transition back to being in a parent-child dynamic. You need to build trust so that they feel comfortable allowing you to be their foster parent, and that they don’t need to be the caregiver anymore. On the other hand, there might be a large age gap between siblings, which creates emotional distance. This means you may need to teach older kids how to engage with and support their younger siblings so healthy bonds can be made.