This report examines opportunities and challenges in co-producing research on kinship care, providing insights for kinship carers, researchers, research organisations, funders, children’s services, NGOs, commissioners, and policy-makers. The report and accompanying toolkit were co-produced by Lancaster University and Kinship, building on a long-standing partnership and funded by an ESRC Impact Acceleration Account and the Department for Education. The study, conducted between 2022 and 2025, addresses concerns that current research often treats kinship carers and their families as subjects rather than equal partners, despite longstanding research capturing their perspectives. While prior studies have documented kinship carers’ experiences, they have rarely applied the principle of co-production, which is well established in other fields such as health and disability research. This project advocated for a new approach involving kinship carers from the outset, leveraging their lived experiences to generate research that is highly relevant to practice and policy. Although the research initially focused on special guardians, recent policy and legislative developments led to broadening the scope to include all kinship carers, ensuring inclusivity and a research strategy that does not prioritize legal status. The linked toolkit builds on these findings to provide practical guidance for co-produced research in the kinship care sector.
