Kinship Care | Better Care Network

Kinship Care

Kinship care is the full-time care of a child by a relative or another member of the extended family. This type of arrangement is the most common form of out of home care throughout the world and is typically arranged without formal legal proceedings. In many developing countries, it is essentially the only form of alternative family care available on a significant scale.

In the context of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, kinship care is the primary mechanism that has enabled a vast majority of children who have lost both parents to remain in family care in their community.

Kinship care offers many advantages over other forms of care for children not able to live with their parents. It allows family relationships to continue, maintains the child within her culture and community, and avoids the anxieties related to placements with unfamiliar adults.

Kinship care is more successful with immediate family members, rather than distant relatives. Children may be treated differently than the caretaker’s own children, and exploited, abused or denied access to education and health services. Kinship care has also been shown to result in the delayed reunification of a child and parents, either because the family is comfortable with the situation, there are financial disincentives for returning the child, or social services are less active in moving the case forward.

In order to reduce the incidence of such problems, the use of kinship care should be appropriately monitored by the local authority or a protection agency. Children in kinship care have a right to protection and family support services. However, it must be recognized that kinship care has a positive effect on many children's lives. Placing requirements on kinship arrangements that unnecessarily intefere with or interrupt this traditional caretaking practice should be avoided.

Kinship care may be an option for child protection agencies to consider when a child is without adequate family care. The decision to use kinship care will depend on what is in the child’s best interests, and should involve a careful assessment of the child’s opinions, the family’s ability to care for the child, and permanency planning in order to work towards timely family reunification. Financial support is an area for debate since, while it can enable a family to care for a child, it may also encourage relatives to keep a child for monetary gain.

The resources found in this section provide policy guidance and country examples on the use of kinship care.

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Supporting children and families affected by a family member’s offending – A Practitioner’s Guide

Lindsay Sutherland and Polly Wright - Barnardo's, i-HOP, Department for Education, 01 Feb 2017

The aim of this guide is to enable practitioners to support children affected by a family member’s offending within a whole family approach.

Sexual Behavior Among Orphaned Adolescents in Western Kenya: A Comparison of Institutional and Family-Based Care Settings

L. Embleton, J. Nyandat, D. Ayuku, E. Sang, A. Kamanda, S. Ayaya, W. Nyandiko, P. Gisore, R. Vreeman, L. Atwoli, O. Galarraga, M. A. Ott, P. Braitstein — Journal of Adolescent Health, 16 Jan 2017

The attached study compared the care environments of family-based care and institutional care to determine if care environment contributed to differences in sexual behavior and/or sexual exploitation of orphaned and separated adolescents.

Placing Children with Relatives: The Case for a Clear Rationale for Separate Foster Care Licensing Standards, Background Check Procedures, and Improved Relative Placement Statutes in Alaska

Courtney Lewis - Alaska Law Review, 2017

This Article argues that Alaska should adopt a threestep approach to achieve better outcomes based on the American Bar Association’s model licensing standards, which are narrowly tailored to evaluate whether a child should be placed with a relative.

Study on alternative care community practices for children in Cambodia

Carolyn Hamilton, Kara Apland, Maurice Dunaiski and Elizabeth Yarrow - Coram Children’s Legal Centre, 2017

This study commissioned by the Ministry of Social Affairs, Veterans and Youth Rehabilitation of the Kingdom of Cambodia and UNICEF Cambodia sheds light on how different forms of alternative care are being used in the community.

Growing up in Kinship Care: Experiences as Adolescents and Outcomes in Young Adulthood

Sarah Wellard, Sarah Meakings, Elaine Farmer and Joan Hunt - Grandparents Plus, 2017

The aims of the study were to examine the experiences and outcomes of young adults, aged 16-26, who had lived, or continued to live, in kinship care in the UK.

Study on alternative care community practices for children in Cambodia (Khmer Language)

Carolyn Hamilton, Kara Apland, Maurice Dunaiski and Elizabeth Yarrow - Coram Children’s Legal Centre, 2017

The ‘Study on Alternative Care Community Practices for Children in Cambodia, including Pagoda-based care’ (published in Khmer) is the first of its kind which sheds light on how different forms of alternative care are being used in the community.

Federal and State Advances to Support Grandfamilies

Ana Beltran, Generations United’s National Center on Grandfamilies - Contemporary Journal of Research, Practice and Policy, 2017

This policy brief highlights the work of the Grandfamilies Advocacy Network Demonstration to advocate for policy reforms for grandfamilies in the US.

Foster and kinship carer recruitment and retention: Encouraging and sustaining quality care to improve outcomes for children and young people in care.

Giovanna Richmond & Morag McArthur - Institute of Child Protection Studies, 2017

The subject of this report is to present the findings of stage two of a project aimed to address the anticipated risk to the foster care workforce by identifying and disseminating the most effective strategies to attract, support and retain foster caring families across all states and territories in Australia.

Prevalence and Characteristics of Children Growing Up with Relatives in the UK: Briefing Paper 003, Characteristics of children living with relatives in Scotland

Dinithi Wijedasa - Hadley Centre for Adoption & Foster Care Studies, University of Bristol , 2017

This briefing paper, which is the third in a series, provides a brief overview of the characteristics of the children growing up with relatives in Scotland.

Briefing Paper 002: The Prevalence and Characteristics of Children Growing up with Relatives in the UK: Characteristics of children living with relatives in Wales

Dinithi Wijedasa - Hadley Centre for Adoption & Foster Care Studies, University of Bristol , 2017

This briefing paper, which is the second in a series, provides a brief overview of the characteristics of the children growing up with relatives in Wales.