Items 7 and 8:
The target child was separated from her siblings upon entry into care because a foster home could not be identified that would take a sibling group of four. This was determined to be a resource issue and Item 7 was rated as an area needing improvement. The agency worked to identify a home for the sibling group and they were placed together after 8 days. There were no face-to-face sibling visits during those 8 days, although the agency did facilitate phone calls. We wanted to rate sibling visits as NA for Item 8, but the OMS would not allow an NA response because the children were separated for a very brief time. We thought that NA would be appropriate, extrapolating from the guidelines for rating short-term foster care cases, which state that a child should have visits arranged within 1 to 2 weeks of being placed in foster care.
In this scenario, because the child was only placed apart from her siblings for 8 days during the PUR, and at the time of review the siblings were placed together, the reviewer should check “No” in Item 8 under Applicable Cases in response to “[t]he child has at least one sibling in foster care who is in a different placement setting.” In doing so, visitation for siblings would not need to be assessed in Item 8.