Questioning the lack of support for children in kinship care

Children living in kinship care are there for a reason. Around 200,000 children in the UK are being brought up by their grandparents, siblings, aunts and uncles or family friends – usually because their parents are unable to look after them, and – in all likelihood – because they have experienced abuse and/or neglect. The trauma they have suffered in the past will be very similar to that of children living in foster care – yet the support they receive can be worlds apart.

We recently carried out a survey among over 1,600 kinship carers, and many of the respondents told us the children they were raising had suffered neglect (49 per cent) or abuse (13 per cent) or had lived with domestic violence (34 per cent). These children are likely to need support for the long-term physical and mental health conditions that often develop after experiencing this type of trauma; almost two thirds (62 per cent) of survey respondents believed their children had long-term health needs.