It is sad, but I think they also have to be very careful about security. The nurses, technicians and support staff might be trusted not to reveal things when the young people are patients, but they may feel less of an obligation to keep phone numbers and whereabouts secret. Even if they didn't deliberately disclose where the young people could be found, they might be followed by the press.
There is no reason to believe that the young people won't be allowed to skype the hospital and check in with their friends at the hospital, and it is possible that they will return for visits if they get outpatient care at Corona.
Hospital staff, like teachers, are used to having to say good bye to people they become attached to. And the young people need to learn that modern life is about relationships that get interrupted. All of us who went to school, to summer camp, to whatever, have known that every stage (small or large) in our lives brings new relationships and ends old ones. These kids have lived in isolation from this rhythm. If they have good support in their new home, I trust they will grow from the experience.
Yes, but...for most people when they move on to a different school or leave school there will be continuity of other relationships. These young people have gone from a home with all their siblings together every day and night, to being split into two groups in different hospitals, they've developed special relationships with the staff that would not normally develop due to these young people needing a totally different type of care, compounded by them not having visits from a loving family. Then they're split into three groups. These splits are going to be a lot to cope with. All these changes in a short period of time are going to be mindblowing. They're also facing the prospect of telling details of what happened to the attorneys as well as to therapists and possibly having to stand up in court and tell people and face cross-examination. On the one hand they should have therapists helping them with validation, and then they might have cross-examination which is about invalidation.
Apparently some of the hospital staff were willing to work with the siblings for a while in a transition period, surely they would be willing to sign non-disclosure agreements? And wherever the siblings go, surely someone can show them how to hide the originating phone number? Or they could use a burner phone rather than a landline.
Having a trustworthy outsider could be very important for them in a lot of ways. Aside from that I'm sure the hospital staff will want to send cards for birthdays and Christmas for years to come.
Like Gitana's saying, we need these young people to be able to learn to forge healthy relationships in the future; they haven't had a good example in this from their parents. We've heard of possible fear of loss issues already existing. It's only going to compound any problems by doing the same thing with loving people that their parents may have done with toys. I couldn't read the article Gitana linked to (problem my end) but Gitana said something about them trying to get out of the cars and run back to the staff? They're supposed to be easing issues like anxiety, loss, ptsd, trust issues when they've apparently grown up with a lot of mental cruelty directed at them. They need to learn hard and clear that those things are wrong. Repeating mental cruelty in this way is giving them a mixed message, that it was wrong for their parents to do something like that, but it's okay when it comes to the new guardian?
I had thought maybe the psychologists had thought this was a good idea. I hadn't thought it through then, I had only my own issues as a lens through which to interpret it. I thought maybe the attorney wanted control of those who the siblings open up to in order to gather information for court? That would be a cold reason in itself, but I don't really think that would be hampered by having someone call them and say "I hope you're okay, I'm still here, I still think about you, I still care about you even at a distance, and I would love to chat for ten minutes and hear some of your news." These people are medical professionals, they're outside the wider family structure, they have no biases other than wanting what's best for the siblings.
We've all been trying to reassure each other through these threads that the siblings won't be let down again. And now it feels like they have been.
There's nothing I can do about it but to note my discomfort with the decision.
