What is Kinship Care?
from The Annie E. Casey Foundation
Were you raised by a grandparent? An aunt? A close friend of the family? Across every generation and culture, relatives step up to raise children when their parents can’t care for them. This time-honored tradition is called kinship care. Today, nearly 2.7 million children are in kinship care in the United States.
What are the three types of kinship? There is no uniform definition of kinship care, but there are three sometimes overlapping categories:
- Private or informal kinship care. These are arrangements made by families, with or without legal recognition of the caregiver’s status.
- Diversion kinship care. In some cases, child welfare agencies work with parents to facilitate moving a child to a relative’s care, sometimes by opening a case and sometimes by doing an assessment or child protection investigation (arrangements vary widely by jurisdiction). This category, called kinship diversion, voluntary placement or safety planning, among other terms, includes all children who have come to the attention of child welfare agencies and live with a relative or close friend of the family. Most of these children — up to 400,000 — are not in formal foster care.
- Licensed or unlicensed kinship care. In 2017, nearly 141,000 children and teens were in kinship foster care, defined as living with relatives but remaining in the legal custody of the state. This group represents 32% of all children in foster care, up from 24% in 2008.
Some facts about kinship care:
- For every one child in foster care, there are 20 children being raised by grandparents outside the foster care system.
- One in 11 children lives in kinship care at some point before turning 18.
- One in five black children spends time in kinship care at some point.
What are some kinship care benefits? Compared to children in the general foster care population, kids in kinship care tend to be:
- better able to adjust to their new environment;
- less likely to experience school disruptions;
- less likely to experience behavioral problems and psychiatric disorders; and
- more stable — they move less than kids in non-family foster care settings.
- greater sense of belonging and feeling of being loved
Kids and their kinship caregivers need assistance; often caregivers do not realize they are eligible for financial help:
- 57% of Grandparents are still in the workforce
- 19% are below poverty level and over 26% have a disability
- Fewer than 12% of kinship caregivers receive help from Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, although nearly all are eligible.
- Only 42% of low-income kinship families get Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits (food stamps).
- Only 42% of children are covered by Medicaid.
- Assistance with child care and housing costs are received by only 17% and 15% of kinship families, respectively.
Great websites for more info:
Grandfactsheets.org
Grandfamilies.org
GU.org
aarp.org/grandparents
grandparentsforchildren.
kinshipalliance.org
casey.org