Imagine the horror of being awakened in the middle of the night, taken from your parents and dropped off at the home of a stranger. Then imagine the despair of being torn apart from your brothers and sisters. Neighbor To Family, Inc. (NTF) was created to keep abused and neglected siblings together to reduce their feelings of fear, loss and abandonment. NTF, a 501(c) (3) community-based child welfare agency, is designed to meet the needs of sibling groups, birth parents, and foster caregivers. We keep siblings together through strong partnerships with families and communities while striving to reunite foster children with their parents in less time than the states mandate.

The sibling bond is unique - it may be the longest lasting relationship in a lifetime. Yet more than 50% of the children entering America's foster care system are separated from at least one of their siblings. Research strongly indicates that children are more likely to remain in their first foster placement without disruption if they are placed with their siblings. When they are not placed together, the chance of reunion in a permanent placement is greatly diminished.  Further, siblings help diminish the trauma associated with out-of-home placement and offer a sense of history and identity that is especially threatened in multiple foster placements.

While federal legislation now mandates keeping siblings together in foster care, many states are unable to find effective solutions or have been slow to implement the changes necessary to accomplish this. Neighbor To Family's evidence-based sibling foster care model fills the gap in care for this particular under served population and their families.