questions

Not sure i follow.... but yes you can have an open adoption even when the children were adopted as foster children. Once those kids are yours you can do what you want!!! If the sister was responsible for the infant coming into care why are they so quick to put them together? Why can't the sibling come live with you to be fostered? If the baby leaves your home to go live with his sister in the other foster home....the chance for you to adopt them will pretty much be lost. Even if the mother choose to surrender her rights it would be up to DHS at this point who the adoptive parents would be!!!

The sister sib is 5 y/o and her parents are very slow mentally. The sib was removed because she has not thrived mentally, just to much for us to take on in our opinion. I also think that there is a rush to put these 2 together, and have raised concerns about it. At least we managed a 2 week transition instead of immediate unification. What I am asking is about the possibility of asking the parents if they would consider an adoption to us; IMO they children will not be returned to them. We can only take the girl, but we want it to be of an open nature where the parents and sister will know him. I hope that clears it up a little.

Very difficult situation!!! First off your job as a foster parent is to support re-unification. Adoption is only possible once the court terminates the parents rights or they volutarily surrender. By making this suggestion to the birthparents you might actually get into some trouble. If they did agree to surrender their rights then they will be doing so to DHS. Since the children are both now in custody. DHS will be the ones to determine who the child will be adopted by. In most cases the court would like to keep the siblings together(even if they have never met and have never bonded....they are still siblings), I would assume they would find an adoptive placement that would except both children. The longer you have the child in your home the more likely your chances may be that they would consider your bond with the child over the sibling bond(that they would have if placed together). I really don't believe 5 months will be enough to prove that child should stay with you at this point. And really you only have 2 weeks before your fs will be moved. Even if the birthparents agreed the child would have already been moved before they could even go to court or anything....so you would have already lost that child(once the child leaves...it will most likely be for good). Obviously they have taken into consideration what the 5 yr old did to the baby and still feel it appropriate to have them placed together(just under different circunstances). I would think your only options at this point is to either let your fs go(knowing you wouldn't adopt his sibling, and they should be placed together), or ask that the 5yr old be placed with you(since you do have a bond with the baby and the 5 yr old just came into care and hasn't established that kind of a bond with her foster family yet). Take both kids and see how things go. You may find you really are able to handle both children and that you may want to adopt her as well, or you may see behaviours that are inappropriate (between the siblings) and the decision can be made at that point wether it is better for the 5 yr old to move and for them to be seperated. Or you may find that while you still love your fs, and he and his siter get along, but you still don't want to adopt her...then you may have to decide to let them both go to be adopted together by someone else. Then there is that other possibility.....they both may be re-unified with their family or an extended family member....5 months really is still just the begining of a case and anything can happen. In my experience kids are usually in foster care for 1 1/2 to over 2 years before becoming adoptable.