To ask the Minister of Health, Social Services and Public Safety what steps his Department is taking to work with Health and Social Care Adoption and Fostering to ensure that, where possible, siblings who are placed into foster care are not separated.

The Children (NI) Order 1995 and associated guidance promotes that siblings, as far as reasonably practicable, are accommodated together in foster care placements.

In circumstances where an emergency placement is required for a sibling group of children and a placement is not available that can accommodate all the siblings together, steps are taken to ensure that sibling relationships are maintained through regular contact or a future change of placement. Where it is determined that separate placements are in the children’s best interests, robust sibling contact arrangements will be established and the case monitored through the Looked After Children’s review process where changes to these arrangements can be made if deemed necessary.

The Regional Adoption and Fostering Service continues to actively promote the benefits of fostering with the aim of recruiting and supporting suitable foster carers and kinship carers for children, including siblings, throughout Northern Ireland.