Kinship Care Week 2025

Kinship Care Week 2025 ran from the 6th to 12th October.

Every year Kinship Care Week raises awareness, and recognises the contribution of kinship families across England and Wales. In 2025 we celebrated good news from Parliament for kinship carers in England, and Wales, heard directly from kinship carers, and highlighted how our Advice and Advocacy Service helped kinship carers.

Three reasons we celebrated in Kinship Care Week 2025

We hear from many kinship carers through our kinship carers’ panel and our Advice and Advocacy Service. As well as the joy and satisfaction of stepping in to raise a child who cannot remain with their parents, kinship carers tell us about the barriers and challenges they face. Together we raise these issues with government, and in 2025 their voices helped to secure landmark changes for kinship care:

1. Government considers employment leave for kinship carers

Kinship carers tell us how hard it can be to manage financially. Our Same Love, Same Leave campaign called on the Government to introduce a right to paid employment leave for kinship carers similar to that provided to adopters. Now the Government will include kinship carers in a review of parental leave and pay.

2. The ‘kinship local offer’

A new Bill going through Parliament gave local authorities a legal duty to set out the support available in their area to children and their kinship carers. This should make it easier for kinship families to get the help they need.

3. A definition of kinship care in law

The new Bill also defined kinship care in law. This was important because it was intended to make it easier for kinship carers to be recognised in their caring role, for example, when dealing with schools and hospitals. See our Time to Define campaign for more information.

Every year thousands of kinship carers contact our Advice and Advocacy Service. Many enquiries centre around the lack of support for kinship families, and the complex rules about different types of kinship arrangements. We are glad that om 2024-2025 86% of advice line callers surveyed told us that they had a better understanding of what to do, as a result of contacting the advice line.

But we have always known that it would be much better if the barriers and complexities that kinship families face were removed. And that is why we do everything we can to raise up the voices of kinship carers to government.

So, that is why in 2025, whilst there was still more work to do, we took a moment in Kinship Care Week to celebrate the contribution of kinship carers, including those who have contacted our advice service, and members of ours kinship carers’ panel, for the year’s landmark legal changes for kinship families.

From Family Rights Group:

Events from partners:

In Scotland Kinship Care Week takes place in March.

September 2025