April 26, 2012

Keeping Siblings Together

A recent article on Thisisnottingham.com told the story of Katrina and Richard Kelly of England who adopted a little girl, Chloe, when she was almost 2, and then adopted her little brother Jack  at 10 months upon learning that they were siblings. It’s a beautiful story, filled with the narrative of their happiness as a family and the support they’ve received from their family and friends.

They are now calling on other couples to consider adopting to help deal with the 812 children currently in care.

She said: “We had always talked about starting a family and, as soon as we found out we couldn’t have children ourselves, we instantly thought of adoption. There wasn’t any doubt in our mind that we would adopt – we both knew it would be a big commitment, but we just wanted to have a family of our own.

“We spoke to the adoption agency and went through all the training and we were thinking of either having one or two children, but when we found out Chloe had a brother, we thought it was important for them to stick together.”

But it also brings up another issue: the reality that in many places, older children (ie: non-newborns) are not only waiting to be adopted, but they’re waiting to be adopted with their siblings. Although many in the adoption world are aware of this reality, it’s not something that gets as much focus as it deserves.

If you’re someone who is looking to adopt multiple children, adopting siblings might be an avenue you want to look into. Not only do you get to expand your family with multiples, but you give the gift of keeping a family together, as well as presenting yourself with the opportunity to raise biological siblings. There are certainly challenges to this route, but the reward of helping to keep siblings together is a rare opportunity to share and experience love that shouldn’t be ignored.

For more information about adopting siblings, this video is beautifully made and comes from the perspective of adoptive families who have adopted siblings: