Its #TimeToDefine kinship care – here’s why and how we might start

by Caroline Lynch, Principal Legal Adviser at Family Rights Group

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?

The status quo

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.

Our 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.

footnotes

1. Our proposed definition for private family arrangement is where a close family member who does not hold parental responsibility, raises the child without there being prior involvement of the local authority and without matters being considered by the Family Court.
2. Language in current statutory guidance in particular the Family & Friends Care Statutory Guidance, 2011; language and meaning of key terms in the Children Act 1989 and the Care Planning, Placement and Case Review (England) Regulations 2010.