It is a week to recognise the immense contribution made by kinship carers across England and Wales – a contribution that transforms the lives of hundreds of thousands of children and young people, giving them a safe, stable and loving home in which to grow up. A week of celebration and awareness.
This year, however, Kinship Care Week has felt a little different. It seems like we’re at a pivotal moment for kinship care and for families across the country.
There has been more attention this year than ever before on the role of kinship carers and the challenges they are facing. While there is still much to be done, the tireless campaigning by kinship carers, and support from celebrities like Davina McCall and Professor Green, has begun to break into the public consciousness. And that’s not all there is to be hopeful about.
Kinship Care Week began with Janet Daby MP, the minister for children and families visiting kinship carers at one of our peer support groups – her third visit to hear from kinship carers we support and campaign alongside in almost as many months. She brought with her Jahnine Davis, the new kinship care ambassador – a role which should help local authorities understand the views and experiences of the kinship carers they support and improve their own services in response. Jahnine brings a wealth of professional and lived experience to the post, and we’ve been heartened by her determination to use her position to drive change.
The Department for Education has now also published updated statutory guidance, which includes a reaffirmed requirement, through a local kinship offer, for local authorities to provide visible, accessible and up-to-date information for kinship carers on the support available to them. This is something Kinship has been calling for over many years, and is crucial, given that nearly half of kinship carers rate the information provided by their local authority about kinship care as poor or very poor (Make or Break, 2024).
Of course, kinship families need much more than updated statutory guidance. To launch Kinship Care Week 2024, Kinship published new research that found that children in kinship care are “being plunged into poverty.” Our Make or Break report, published on Sunday 6 October, surveyed more than 1300 kinship carers across England and Wales and found that kinship carers were more than twice as likely to be depending on food banks than other UK adults.
Kinship’s report also revealed that, faced with a lack of financial, practical and emotional support, one in eight kinship carers (13%) said they were concerned they may have to stop their caring responsibilities for their kinship children within the next year if their situation didn’t improve. The report warns that these children – as many as 18,000 - are likely to be forced to enter or return to the already overstretched care system, at a much higher cost to the state, unless widespread changes to the current system are made.
These are serious and pressing problems. Nevertheless, we are encouraged that within its first 100 days, the new UK government has taken measures to improve the way local authorities work with kinship families.
We are at a deciding moment. A new government – one that appears to be listening to what kinship families have to say – is beginning to make its plans for children’s social care. It is vital that they absorb the recommendations of the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care (2022) and design a comprehensive and fit-for-purpose kinship care system that ensures every kinship carer is given what they need to raise the children in their care. That must that include financial allowances for all kinship families, on a par with those given to foster carers, and a new, statutory right to paid kinship care leave from the workplace when they take on the care of a child, as called for by our #ValueOurLove campaign
It’s clear that well-supported kinship care works. It enables thousands of children to grow up safe and loved, within their family networks rather than the overstretched care system. It’s better for children’s outcomes and better for the economy.
My hope – along with that of the kinship families we support and campaign alongside – is that we will come together for Kinship Care Week 2025 ready to celebrate major steps towards a kinship care system that kinship carers deserve and that will help their children thrive.
Dr Lucy Peake is chief executive of national kinship care charity, Kinship
