There are estimated to be around 200,000 children living with kinship carers in the UK. Just over half are grandparents but there are many others including older brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, cousins and family friends. Based on the largest survey ever of kinship carers in the UK (1,139 respondents), the charity Grandparents Plus recently published the report Kinship Care: State of the Nation 2018, highlighting the struggles many carers face. It found that more than a third of kinship carers find it difficult to make ends meet and only 14 per cent of carers felt they get the support they need to bring up the child they care for - only 11 per cent said they get the emotional support they need. A quarter of carers said their physical health had worsened and more than half said that their mental health had deteriorated since becoming a kinship carer.
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