This report, from the UK All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Kinship Care, shines a spotlight on the experiences of children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) who are raised by kinship carers. The report reveals that both the child welfare system and the SEND system were not designed with kinship families in mind. This leaves around half of all children in kinship care, who are estimated to have SEND according to survey evidence, and their carers, navigating two complex systems simultaneously that frequently fail to recognise or respond to their needs.
Kinship care – where children are raised by grandparents, aunts, uncles, older siblings or other relatives or friends when they cannot live with their parents – provides stability, continuity and better outcomes than many other forms of non-parental care. There are over 130,000 children raised in kinship care across England. Many would be in foster care or children’s homes without their families or friends stepping in. Yet kinship families consistently describe fighting for recognition and support across every system they encounter.
The report draws on evidence from children and young people, kinship carers, and frontline organisations. It examines the Government’s proposed SEND reforms published in Spring 2026 and sets out practical opportunities to ensure that the reform programme does not overlook this group.
