(1) When a child is placed for adoption by the county department, if the child is part of a sibling group, as defined in section 19-1-103, the county department shall include in the adoption report prepared for the court the names and current physical custody and location of any siblings of the child who are also available for adoption; except that the names of children, parents, caretakers, and adoptive parents and any means of identifying such persons must not be made available to any party to the adoption proceeding except upon order of the court or as otherwise permitted by law. (2) If the child is part of a sibling group, the county department shall make thorough efforts to locate a joint placement for all of the children in the sibling group who are available for adoption. If the county department locates an appropriate, capable, willing, and available joint placement for all of the children in the sibling group, it shall be presumed that placement of the entire sibling group in the joint placement is in the best interests of the children. Such presumption may be rebutted by a preponderance of the evidence that placement of the entire sibling group in the joint placement is not in the best interests of a child or of the children. (3) If the child is part of a sibling group, as defined in section 19-1-103, and is being placed for adoption by a child placement agency in either a circumstance involving siblings who are the result of a multiple birth or a circumstance in which a parent has relinquished parental rights to the children to a child placement agency, the child placement agency shall make thorough efforts to locate a joint placement for all of the children in the sibling group who are available for adoption. If the child placement agency locates an appropriate, capable, willing, and available joint placement for all of the children in the sibling group, it is presumed that placement of the entire sibling group in the joint placement is in the best interests of the children. Such presumption may be rebutted by a preponderance of the evidence that placement of the entire sibling group in the joint placement is not in the best interests of a child or of the children. If an entire sibling group is not placed together in an adoptive placement, the child placement agency shall place as many siblings of the group together as possible, considering their relationship and the best interests of each child. (4) Consideration of the placement of children together as a sibling group shall not delay the efforts for expedited permanency planning or permanency planning in order to achieve permanency for each child in the sibling group.
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