How to grieve for living siblings?

I heard of this exact same situation from a cw in my area, only the brother & sister are actually twins. They were a little older, early teens, when the worker became involved. The only thing they were able to do was at age 19 register with the state to release their info to family members who might inquire. Turns out both twins did register as soon as they were legally able to do so, and were reunited soon after when the brother returned home from active duty in the Middle East. Not much comfort for a 7 yr old. It's just so wrong to tear these kids apart.

I have to agree that it is wrong to tear children apart like this. I am an adult adoptee who was adopted with my older sister when I was 5 and she was 7. She struggled and my adoptive family let her go back to her foster family who then adopted her but the damage had been done. She and I recently reconnected and it was terrible. Now we don't speak and as much as I want to reach out to her (she contacted me) I can't bring myself to do so as she has many, many issues. Also, I have to comment that any social worker or case worker who actually adopts a child--it seems like a conflict of interest to me. I say this because this is what happened with my family and it has always felt as though my adoptive mother was treating me like one of her cases...Now, she and I don't speak. I feel like she could care less if I were alive or not. And the rest of the immediate family (adoptive) they follow suit.

As a CPS worker who has adopted 3 children from the foster care system I have to disagree that it is a conflict of interest. In fact, I have to say that that comment is quite a generalization and offensive to me. I am sorry that your mother treated you the way that she did but I can not agree with your statement. The fact that I am a CPS worker not only gives me a better understanding of what my children have been thru, it also gives me the resource background to help my kids. I have done everything for my kids including quitting my job at the end of March after my leave is up to care for them. I have NEVER treated my kids as they were a case/client in fact, I am more likely to treat my clients as "my kids". I guess that is what has made me such a great worker over the past 10 years. I really do care about the people and kids that I have worked with.I would also add that splitting siblings is a horrible thing to do to the kids. I have had it happen twice in my career and both times I strenuously disagreed with it. It has hurt those kids. I still have contact with two of the families that have adopted only part of the sibling group and those kids are hurting terribly. The ironic thing is that the very youngest of a 4 sib group looks exactly like her birth mother and older sister. These 2 kids do not live that far from each other (the adoptive mom is very good at finding things/people) and some day they will come across each other -- and see someone who looks exactly like them. How are those other parents going to explain that she is adopted (no they are not acknowledging that), that they gave up her sibs just to keep her and that they have kept her sibs from her. I think that is just horrible and tragic to happen to a child.