Kinship Care Week 2022 (3 – 7 October) is a national week to raise awareness, understanding, and recognition of the role of kinship carers.
What is kinship care?
“A kinship carer is a relative, friend or other connected person who is looking after a child that cannot safely live with their parents. Sometimes kinship carers are known as family and friends carers” (Family Rights Group, 12th September 2022)
Kinship care is when a child lives full-time or most of the time with a relative or friend who isn’t their parent. Usually this is because their parents aren’t able to care for them. That relative or friend is called a ‘kinship carer’. It’s estimated that around half of kinship carers are grandparents, but many other relatives including older siblings, aunts, uncles, as well as family friends and neighbours can also be kinship carers.
We value every kinship carer in RCT
Kinship care is a valued and important part of fostering in RCT. We are extremely grateful to everyone who makes a long-term commitment to look after RCT children, either in our local areas or out of county.
#KinshipCareWeek2022 puts kinship carers in the spotlight. But it’s not just about one week. We want kinship carers to be recognised, valued, and supported all the time.
Over 50% of foster carers in our local area are kinship carers. This means that they are fostering and raising children from their own family or friendship circle. Where possible, we try to keep children with their families or friends, but if we can’t do this – we place children with our mainstream foster carers.
We recognise that most children feel secure, settled and safe and experience close and positive relationships with their kinship carers.
Thank you to all our kinship carers
There are positive research findings for children in the care system who are being raised by family and friends but we also recognise the additional stressors that can be placed on kinship carers and the often complex family dynamics. This is one of the reasons we do our best to support our kinship carers as much as we can, and want to thank them for the incredible work they do.
Here at Foster Wales RCT we have been working hard to support our Kinship Carers. These families are central to successful fostering in our area, and we have developed teams of social workers, and learning and development opportunities to support our carers.
There is also additional support for all forms of kinship carer, whether they’re approved kinship carers, informal carers or carers of children under different orders. Support such as special guardianship with third sector organisations such as kinship.org.uk.
As with mainstream foster care, kinship placements can come to an end if the children return to their parents or reach adulthood. Having family members or friends looking after children in RCT can keep children in a stable environment with access to their friends and family. We know this can make difficult situations easier. Sometimes kinship carers have continued their fostering journey with us after their family placements have ended by going on to be assessed and become mainstream carers.
We would like to thank all of our amazing kinship carers in RCT and hope we can do our bit to raise awareness of the invaluable work that these families do.
