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The kinship local offer
Family Rights Group successfully campaigned to secure a kinship local offer to improve information and support available to kinship families. This page explains why it matters and what this policy means for children, families and practitioners.
What is the kinship local offer?
Local authorities should publish a ‘kinship local offer’. This is where they set out what support children in kinship care and their family can get.
A new law, soon to come into force, will help make sure all local authorities do this. Family Rights Group is proud to have secured this landmark change for kinship families.
Some local authorities already have a kinship local policy, but they should be replacing this with their new local kinship offer.
What difference will the kinship local offer make?
Am I a kinship carer? What support is available for families like mine in our area? These are questions that kinship families find themselves asking, often with mixed success in finding an answer.
Currently, there is no clear definition of kinship care in law. As a result, kinship carers can face many challenges including not being recognised in their caring role by hospitals, schools, or employers. Central government, local authorities and other public agencies also struggle to understand kinship care in all its forms. The result is a postcode lottery in the support available to kinship families.
Shockingly, our research found that over a third of local authorities do not have a local kinship care policies, despite statutory guidance requiring them to have one.
The kinship local offer is an important step toward enabling more children who cannot live at home, to be raised by family and friends. It should also improve the information and support available to kinship families.
To ensure it is a meaningful tool, local authorities should work with families in their area to develop their kinship local offer.
What does the law say about local authorities having a kinship local offer?
Since 2010, statutory guidance has required local authorities to publish information about the services they offer for children in kinship care and their families—formerly known as a local family and friends care policy. This statutory guidance was updated in October 2024, and this is now called a kinship local offer.
The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, currently before Parliament, will make this a legal duty and, for the first time, define kinship care in law.
The kinship local offer must cover all forms of kinship care. It must also address a range of types of support, as set out in statutory guidance. This includes:
- support groups and training
- financial support
- supporting kinship carers to stay in work
- housing
- education
- supporting family time
- family group decision making
- legal support
- therapeutic support
How did Family Rights Group help to bring about the kinship local offer?
Family Rights Group has long worked to secure support and recognition for children and their kinship carers.
We were pivotal in persuading government to introduce the first statutory guidance on kinship care in 2011. This required local authorities to have a family and friends care policy.
Our research has since revealed many local authorities had poor quality kinship care policies, with missing information or no policy at all.
Our Time To Define campaign, launched in 2022, called for a clear, inclusive definition of kinship care to be written into law, to end confusion and misunderstanding about kinship care.
Then, in 2023, we proposed a new local offer for kinship families, with a new legal duty to ensure an offer is developed and published in every area in England.
Our campaigning paid off when the first ever national kinship care strategy was published with a clear, inclusive definition. New Working Together guidance extended the definition further to other agencies.
Our proposals then made it into the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill currently going through Parliament. We are working to persuade Government to strengthen the new Bill to make meaningful change for children and families.
What should local authorities consider when developing their kinship local offer?
Questions to consider
- Does the local authority have a kinship local offer? If so, when was it last reviewed? If not, when does the local authority expect to have one in place?
- How is/has the local authority meaningfully engaged with families, including carers, children and parents, to develop the kinship local offer?
- What is the local authority doing to understand the local kinship care population?
- How is the local authority ensuring the local offer will address the support needs of kinship families with all types of kinship care arrangement?
- Is the local authority ensuring all the categories of support set out in statutory guidance are addressed?
- Will the local authority make clear where it contributes to legal support, for example the costs of applying for a special guardianship order? Will it signpost families to Government funded advice services including Family Rights Group’s advice service?
- How does the local authority support children in kinship care to have contact with siblings?
- Has the local authority identified any gaps in local support provision and how is it working to address them? Are there areas identified where national government could be doing more?
- How does the local authority support children in kinship care to return home, where that is safe and appropriate?
- Some local authorities have appointed a local kinship care ambassador to champion kinship care in their area. Is this something the local authority has or is considering?
- How is the local authority ensuring the kinship local offer meshes with those in place for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and care leavers?
- The virtual school head role has been expanded to champion the overall attendance, attainment, and progress of all children in kinship care. What consideration is the local authority giving to the educational needs of children in kinship care, and ensuring that all children, including those in informal arrangements, can benefit?
August 2025.
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