The case for kinship care
Lucy Peake
Wednesday, November 4, 2020
There are currently around 78,000 children in local authority care in England, an increase of 28 per cent in the past decade.
Even before the pandemic, council leaders were warning of unsustainable pressure on budgets. Part of the solution is investing in kinship care. With greater support and recognition for kinship carers, more children could be cared for by relatives or family friends, which research shows leads to better outcomes for children and families, as well as bringing benefits for society and the economy.
Currently, around 150,000 children in England are being raised by relatives in kinship care – that’s twice as many as in local authority care. Many kinship carers face enormous challenges and manage in spite of, not because of, the limited support that is available, financial and other.
Children in kinship care are much more likely than other children to live in households facing multiple disadvantages. Yet despite this, they benefit from ongoing family relationships and greater stability than local authority care, and their educational outcomes are generally better than for children who grew up in care.
Compared with children in the general population, children in kinship care are nearly twice as likely to have a long-term health problem or a disability that limits their day-to-day activities. Kinship carers themselves often have to give up their employment to look after the children and have a higher incidence of physical health problems and disability than the population at large.
They’re more likely to be living in poverty, many have multiple caring responsibilities, with many experiencing stress and facing isolation.
However, kinship care is overlooked and poorly supported by public authorities. The system is riven with inequality.
Access to support is determined by a child’s legal order, so kinship carers who are raising siblings can find themselves able to access much needed therapeutic or educational support for one child, but not another.
When financial support is available, it is often time limited and means tested. The nature and type of support varies widely from local authority to local authority. The truth is, the vast majority of kinship carers – who are often raising children who have suffered trauma and neglect, and with additional needs - are not getting the support they need from local authorities – 82 per cent according to the Grandparents Plus 2020 annual survey.
Not supporting kinship carers brings risks for children. One-third of kinship carers in the Grandparents Plus 2018 survey said the lack of support available to them was so detrimental to their physical and mental health that they were not sure they would be able to continue as kinship carers.
Grandparents Plus believes there is an opportunity to reimagine the system which would bring positive change for children whose parents are unable to care for them.
Our externally commissioned economic analysis, Kinship Care: The Opportunity, suggests that by investing in support for kinship carers it is possible to reduce the numbers of children growing up in local authority care.
Firstly, local authorities need to increase financial and other support to kinship carers and their children, so they are able to move from foster carer status to special guardianship orders. At the moment, kinship foster carers are understandably reluctant to give up rights to financial and other support for themselves and their children.
Secondly, local authorities need to support a shift into kinship care for some children who are currently looked after outside of the family network. To do this requires a step-change in approach with long-term commitment and funding to support kinship carers so they are able to access the support they need to care for the children as they grow up.
There is also evidence that our peer-based support programme – Kinship Connected – can deliver effective outcomes by providing tailored one-to-one advice and support and helping kinship carers share with, and learn from, others.
An independent evaluation of Kinship Connected found it led to reduced concerns among carers regarding their children’s behaviour, health and wellbeing, educational transitions, diet and friendships. They reported an increase in confidence in their parenting role and felt less isolated.
Significantly, the programme led to an increase in their mental wellbeing to above the point at which people would be considered to be at high risk from mental ill-health and depression. The evaluation sets out an economic case to invest in supporting kinship carers, with a 20 per cent return on investment.
Indeed, there is a persuasive financial argument for supporting kinship care. According to our economic analysis, every 1,000 reduction in the number of children in the looked after system would deliver a number of benefits, including releasing resources of the order of £40 million every year that could be used to improve support for kinship carers and improve outcomes for children, including educational outcomes.
And for this number of children, improved educational outcomes could increase lifetime earnings by £20 million. There would be other long-term benefits in terms of reduced homelessness, levels of crime and anti-social behaviour, and better health. The government in England must include kinship care in its proposed Care Review.
All in all, increased support and investment to kinship care now, will lead to better outcomes for children, wider society and the economy in the future. National government and local authorities must seize the opportunity to invest in kinship care. And there are real risks in them not doing this - unless support improves, one-third of kinship carers have said they are not sure they will be able to continue. That’s a lot of children at risk of entering the care system.
Dr Lucy Peake is chief executive of Grandparents Plus.