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Children’s advocates press committee to keep siblings together in foster care and expand parenting time authority
Summary
Advocates, children with lived foster-care experience and the Committee for Public Counsel Services urged the committee to support House Bill 268 and related measures to prioritize sibling placement, expand judges’ authority to order parenting time, and require facilitated sibling visitation when placements are separate.
Children, attorneys and child welfare advocates urged the Joint Committee on Children, Families, and Persons with Disabilities to advance House Bill 268 and companion measures that would prioritize placing siblings together in foster care and, when joint placement is not possible, require regular sibling visitation. “For many of us, including children experiencing foster care, our relationship with a sibling will be the longest relationship of our lives,” said a speaker representing HopeWell, describing research that links joint placement to better mental health, educational outcomes and higher rates of reunification.
Young people with lived experience described the emotional cost of separation. “In October 2022, my 2 siblings and I were placed in 3 separate households,” said Tia Dalmashaney, a 17-year-old student. Her brother Ethan Shaney added: “The 3 of us were put into 3 separate households when DCF took custody of us a few years ago.” Witnesses said those placements fragmented support networks, increased trauma and interfered with schooling and trust-building.
Legal advocates urged statutory change. Andrew (Ian) Cohen, Director of Appeals for the Committee for Public Counsel Services’ Children and Family Law Division, said: “No children should lose their brothers and sisters just because their parents were alleged to have been abusive or neglectful.” Cohen and other witnesses asked the committee to require that judges be able to set specific parenting-time schedules in care-and-protection cases (House Bill 269), require concerted efforts to place siblings together (H.268), strengthen sibling-visitation requirements when separation is necessary and ask DCF to create plans to expand placement options for large sibling groups.
Evidence and numbers discussed: Witnesses cited DCF records indicating that fewer than two-thirds of sibling groups are placed together in Massachusetts and that roughly 70 percent of children in foster care have at least one sibling. Testimony said that the likelihood all members of larger sibling groups are placed together declines as group size increases. Advocates noted that 35 other states have statutory joint-placement or visitation requirements and recommended Massachusetts align with those states.
Questions from committee members focused on the reasons DCF separates siblings; witnesses pointed primarily to shortages of suitable foster homes and placement capacity as the frequent cause. Witnesses recommended that the department increase recruitment and training for homes willing to accept sibling groups and that judges be permitted to order visitation frequency and duration when it is in the child’s best interest.
No formal votes or amendments were taken during the hearing. Advocates asked the committee to report the bills favorably to allow further legislative consideration and to request data from DCF on placement rates and visitation frequency as follow-up evidence.
