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Are you a parent, kinship carer relative or friend of a child who is involved with, or who needs the help of, children’s services in England? We can help you understand processes and options when social workers or courts are making decisions about your child’s welfare.
Our advice service is free, independent and confidential.
To speak to an adviser, please call our free and confidential advice line 0808 801 0366 (Monday to Friday 9.30am to 3pm, excluding Bank Holidays). Or you can ask us a question via email using our advice enquiry form.
Our online advice forums are an anonymous space where parents and kinship carers (also known as family and friends carers) can get legal and practical advice, build a support network and learn from other people’s experiences.
Our get help and advice section has template letters, advice sheets and resources about legal and social care processes. On Monday and Wednesday afternoons, you can use our webchat service to chat online to an adviser.
In April 2022 Family Rights Group published Time To Define – a campaign for legal reform to create a clear, simple definition of kinship care written into primary legislation. All the different types of kinship care arrangement would then be anchored to that definition, gathered in one place. Time To Define calls for a definition to be the first step in establishing an improved framework for supporting children raised in kinship care and kinship carers.
Time to define struck a chord. In May 2022, in a major milestone for our campaign, the Independent Care Review of Children’s Social Care in England recommended there should indeed be a clear definition of kinship care enshrined in primary legislation. Organisations and individuals including the Local Government Association, Kinship Carers UK, and Buttle UK all endorsed our call for a definition of kinship care. As did former Home Secretary, the Rt Hon Alan Johnson. The proposal featured in Liberal Democrat MP, Munira Wilson’s Kinship Care Bill. In November 2022 the Labour Front Bench endorsed it too.
But why is defining kinship care so important?
At present, primary legislation does not include a definition of kinship care in England.
There are several types of kinship care arrangement. From kinship foster care and special guardianship through to private fostering and private family arrangements. The law provides for some of these arrangements in scattered provisions across different sections of the Children Act 1989. These provisions are often buried within sections of the law which apply more broadly, making it particularly difficult for families and non-specialist practitioners to find and understand their relevance to kinship care. Nothing in the primary legislation makes plain the link between these provision – that these are all ways in which a child can be raised in kinship care. In the case of private family arrangements1 this is only contained in statutory guidance for local authorities which does not apply to other public bodies.
This may sound like simply an argument to ‘tidy up’ up the legal framework. But it is contributing to a wider, systemic problem that kinship care is too often overlooked and undervalued. With significant, real-world consequences for children and families.
When it comes to government policymaking, this means the unique circumstances and characteristics of kinship care are often not considered. It’s no surprise then that in local practice, kinship care is often an afterthought rather than the first thought when the state has concerns that a child cannot remain with their parents.
On the ground, kinship carers can quickly run into a myriad of confusion and misunderstanding. At the very moment when the child they are caring for needs stability and support, kinship carers find they are having to constantly explain who they are and what they need – including in hospitals and in school. Clare, a member of our kinship carers panel, shared her experience of trying to get her kinship care arrangement recognised by the hospital when seeking treatment for her nephew.
Today, Family Rights Group has published its second paper in our Time to Define series. The paper provides a draft definition of kinship care. We have drawn on our legal and social work expertise and direct work with families to do this. We've worked with members of our kinship carers’ panel to test out and think through language and practicalities. Our new paper is a starting point for developing a definition of kinship care for primary legislation.
DownloadOur focus has been on a definition broad enough to ensure that no kinship carers or kin children are left out. But sufficiently precise so families and practitioners are clear about relevant detail, rights, and duties. We have reviewed and drawn on the existing domestic legal and practice framework2 and a wider body of material including language used within the UN Guidelines on the Alternative Care of Children.
We are calling on the Government, in its forthcoming response to the Independent Review, to commit to publishing a draft definition of kinship care and to carry out a wide and inclusive consultation on it. This should ensure that all those with a stake in or impacted by the child welfare and family justice sectors with insights relevant to kinship care can contribute. Thereafter, legislation should be brought forward and accompanying statutory guidance. Our proposal can serve as a solid foundation on which Government can begin to construct, and consult on, new legislation.
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April 2022
We launched the Time to Define Kinship Care campaign.
May 2022
The Independent Review of Children’s Social Care adopts our proposal for a new legal definition of kinship care, as part of a “fundamental shift in the children’s social care response”.
The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Kinship Care’s Legal Aid Inquiry described the legal aid system for kinship carers as a ‘labyrinth’ in which criteria for support is opaque and confusing and recommended a legal definition of kinship care as a crucial step.
June 2022
Clare, a member of Family Rights Group’s kinship carers’ panel, publishes an article in the Metro showing the cruel absurdity of having no formal legal definition of kinship care.
July 2022
Liberal Democrat MP, Munira Wilson, introduces the Kinship Care Bill in the House of Commons. The Bill would provide a statutory definition of kinship care and make it easier for kinship carers to access support.
October 2022
The incoming government of Rishi Sunak confirms that the Government will publish its response to the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care in 2023. We remain hopeful that this will include a commitment to defining kinship care, a credible and inclusive consultation on a draft definition and commitment to bringing forward new legislation to bring it into law.
Meanwhile, kinship carers around the country share their stories to mark Kinship Care Week, demonstrating their love for and commitment to their children – a stark contrast to the political paralysis at Westminster.
November 2022
In a big step forward for our campaign, Baroness Chapman confirms that the Labour front bench is backing a single legal definition of kinship care.
Debates on kinship care in Parliament showed growing momentum among MPs and peers to act on support for kinship care. Highlights included:
January 2023
We publish our draft definition and call on the Government to include it in their forthcoming response to the Independent Review.
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