DiGiovanni Anna, Font Sarah
Department of Sociology and Criminology, Penn State University.
Child Youth Serv Rev. 2021 Jul;126. doi: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2021.105943. Epub 2021 Jan 15.
Efforts to place sibling groups together in foster care have long been considered best practice and is 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.
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.
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.
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.
长期以来，将兄弟姐妹安置在一起进行寄养的做法一直被视为最佳实践，并且是联邦法律所要求的。实践和政策指导部分基于这样一种信念，即兄弟姐妹安置符合儿童的最大利益。在本文中，我们首先回顾关于这一主题的文献综述，以评估先前对这一研究主体进行特征描述的努力在多大程度上是全面、客观的，以及是否基于针对寄养人群的具体研究。然后，我们评估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实证证据的质量和数量，以确定现有综述是否准确反映了实证证据，或者是否在没有充分实证支持的情况下超出了实证证据的范围。
我们使用谷歌学术、PsycInfo、EBSCO和PubMed（Medline）对1990年至2019年发表的研究综述进行了范围界定搜索。从搜索结果中，我们提取了所有关于寄养中兄弟姐妹安置的综述文章、定量研究和定性研究。我们确定了16篇关于寄养中兄弟姐妹安置的文献综述。此外，我们确定了27项纵向定量研究，测量兄弟姐妹安置与寄养儿童安置稳定性、永久性或福祉之间的关联，以及9项关于兄弟姐妹安置或关系对寄养儿童福祉作用的定性研究。
许多文献综述依赖于来自非寄养样本的研究证据以及方法薄弱的研究。此外，尽管研究证据尚无定论——研究报告了积极、消极和无影响的情况——但大多数文献综述得出结论，兄弟姐妹安置的做法得到了研究证据的支持。
尽管有道德理由支持兄弟姐妹安置，但研究证据并不一致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对儿童构成风险，以及何时兄弟姐妹安置可能促进积极的结果。
