Using administrative child welfare data to identify sibling groups

Abstract

California law requires that child welfare agencies place siblings together in foster care whenever possible. Such decisions depend on how siblings are identified. Siblings are usually identified when children are removed from the same household, while non-coresident siblings can be missed and may not be considered in placement decisions or analyses. This exploratory study examines a cross-section of children in the California foster care system, comparing four different sibling classification schemes to determine how well each method identifies siblings and discusses how each strategy might apply to meeting legislative mandates for placing siblings together. Findings suggest that while the current sibling identification method is effective at capturing most sibling relationships, the addition of other search criteria would offer a more comprehensive understanding of sibling placement activity, leading to a broader array of children identified as siblings and a greater potential for children to be placed with one or more of their siblings.