The use of kinship care within child welfare has increased over the last decade, including using Special Guardianship Orders (SGOs) for children leaving care. In Wales, in 2022, 285 children left care for adoption, and 295 on an SGO. SGOs are also granted through private law proceedings.
There are some indications that Special Guardians, like other kinship carers, may face challenges supporting the children in their care, and children might need support based on their experiences prior to the SGO being granted. However, there is limited understanding of factors within SGOs that could be protective for children.
The UK government published the first ever kinship care strategy at the end of 2023 and announced tailored support and training for kinship carers. Within Wales, the Welsh government has affirmed their commitment to developing an improved and consistent needs-based approach to supporting Special Guardianship families across Wales. There is an existing framework for Special Guardianship support services. However, the lack of evidence base regarding characteristics, circumstances, and needs of these families makes it difficult for local authorities and national government to know which services to prioritise.
This project provided an opportunity to draw on expertise in a multidisciplinary collaboration comprising the Neurodevelopment Assessment Unit (NDAU) at the Cardiff University Centre for Human Developmental Science (CUCHDS; School of Psychology), The Children’s Social Care Research and Development Centre (CASCADE) and the Secure Anonymised Information Linkage (SAIL) Databank. This enabled the application of methods used with adopted children and their families, children in care, and families in the general population to address our aims.
The project is groundbreaking in the focus on the methods used, and has the potential to make a step-change in our understanding of structural, social, and psychological factors that could impact on long-term outcomes for children subject to SGOs.
This Summary Report provides a high-level summary of the key findings. This will give you a good understanding of what was studied, and what the implications are.
