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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The Effects of Relatedness, Age and Orphan Status on Child Discipline

Annie Edwards & Jini Roby - Brigham Young University BYU ScholarsArchive - Family, Home, and Social Sciences, 31 Mar 2015

This one-page presentation outlines the research questions, data, methods, results, literature review, discussion and implications of a study that looked at the effects of a child’s relationship to head of household, age, and orphan status on the severity of discipline they receive in Ghana, Iraq, Costa Rica, Vietnam,and Ukraine.

Out of Care, into University: Raising Higher Education Access and Achievement of Care Leavers

Dr Andrew Harvey, Dr Patricia McNamara, Lisa Andrewartha, and Michael Luckman - LaTrobe University Access & Achievement Research Unit , 01 Mar 2015

This report aims to provide the basis for an agenda to improve university attendance among care leavers in Australia by highlighting the nature and extent of the problem, and suggesting practical solutions within both the education and community service sectors.

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Support Matters: Lessons from the Field on Services for Adoptive, Foster, and Kinship Care Families

AdoptUSKids, 01 Mar 2015

This guide is intended to equip State, Tribal, and Territorial child welfare managers and administrators — as well as family support organizations — with current information about effective strategies for developing data-driven family support services and research findings to help them make the case for implementing and sustaining these services.

Alternative Care for Children in Uganda

Ministry of Gender Labour and Social Development, Uganda , 20 Feb 2015

This easy to use resource from the Ministry of Gender Labour and Social Development in Uganda, in consultation with civil society, outlines a continuum of care framework for responding to vulnerable children.

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Family Preservation in Udaipur, Rajasthan India: Rapid Assessment of 366 Palanhar Yojana Families

Sophia Gardner, Bhagyashri Bhandakkar, Rajesh Sharma, Ian Anand Forber-Pratt - Foster Care India , 18 Feb 2015

In January and February of 2015, in order to create an evidence-based foundation on which to design community-oriented family preservation services, FCI conducted a rapid assessment survey of 366 Palanhar Yojana beneficiary families in the city of Udaipur, Rajasthan, India.

The Experience of Grandparents Raising Grandchildren

Deborah Sampson and Katherine Hertlein - GrandFamilies: The Contemporary Journal of Research, Practice and Policy, 2015

The purpose of this qualitative study was to understand the experiences of grandparents in the US and the challenges they face raising their grandchildren.

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Applying community-based participatory research to better understand and improve kinship care practices: insights from DRC, Nigeria and Sierra Leone

Oge Chukwudozie, Clare Feinstein, Celina Jensen, Claire O’kane, Silvia Pina, Morten Skovdal, and Rebecca Smith - Family and Community Health, 2015

This paper reflects on the experiences of Save the Children in implementing a multi-country community-based participatory research (CBPR) program to increase understanding of kinship care in DRC, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.

The Experience of Grandparents Raising Grandchildren

Deborah Sampson and Katherine Hertlein - GrandFamilies: The Contemporary Journal of Research, Practice and Policy, 2015

The purpose of this qualitative study was to understand the experiences of grandparents in the US and the challenges they face raising their grandchildren.

Briefing Paper 001: The Prevalence and Characteristics of Children Growing Up with Relatives in the UK: Characteristics of children living with relatives in England: Part I

Dinithi Wijedasa - Hadley Centre for Adoption & Foster Care Studies, University of Bristol , 2015

This briefing paper is the first in a series, from an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) funded research study. The study explores the prevalence and characteristics of children growing up in kinship care in the UK using 2011 Census microdata.