Kinship Care

Kinship carers may be raising the children under various legal arrangements including:

• Kinship foster care, where children become formally looked after in the care system but live with their kinship carer
• Children who are subject to a special guardianship order, child arrangements order or residence order and
• Children living in an informal arrangements which do not involve the Family Court making a court order and may involve limited, if any, contact with children’s services. This includes private family arrangements and private fostering arrangements.

Facts about kinship care:

• Children raised by kinship carers feel loved and secure and report high levels of satisfaction
• Kinship care placements offer more stability than placements with carers with whom the child has no prior relationship (‘unrelated care’)
• Kinship carers show a high level of commitment
• Children in kinship care have experienced similar adversities to those in the care system but they and their carers receive much less support
• Many kinship carers live in impoverished circumstances, and this impacts on the children.

If you are searching for advice in relation to kinship care, see our range of advice resources here.