Equipping Kinship Caregivers for Success
A Q&A With Joseph Crumbley
When young people must enter foster care, kinship placements with relatives or close family friends can provide a sense of continuity: connections to history, culture and community. While these placements offer many benefits, they come with unique challenges as caregivers quickly assume new parenting duties, navigating relationships with the children in their care and birth parents while guiding these children through the pain of separation.
As more U.S. child welfare agencies prioritize kinship care, experts like Joseph Crumbley are emphasizing the importance of kinship competency. A licensed clinical social worker, therapist and trainer, Crumbley boasts decades of experience helping caregivers and child welfare professionals understand the complexities of kinship caregiving.
In Maryland, where the Annie E. Casey Foundation supports efforts to improve kinship care, the Baltimore City Department of Social Services has adopted Crumbley’s latest curriculum: The Inherent Strengths in Kinship Families. The training is offered to staff — as well as to caregivers through the organization’s drop-in kinship center — and equips them with strategies for effectively engaging kinship families. It covers topics that may not be covered in non-relative adoptive or foster parent training such as:
- attachment;
- legacy;
- identity;
- healing;
- adaptability; and
- co-parenting.
With support from the Foundation, Crumbley has produced two other valuable resources for the field: Engaging Kinship Caregivers and Coping With the Unique Challenges of Kinship Care. Below, he shares insights that can help child welfare practitioners better support kinship families.
Q: When kinship caregivers must suddenly take in a child, what skills and techniques can guide them through the transition?
Crumbley: Caregivers, in a matter of days or hours, are asked to take on new responsibilities to keep children in the family. First, it’s vital caregivers have a conversation with themselves and realize, ‘I am not alone. I have resources, and I’m going to take this one step at a time.’ You must be okay for the child to be okay. Get your mask on first to provide the stability and reassurance the child will need. Then you can tell the child: ‘We are not alone, we have resources and we’re going to take this one step at a time together.’
Child welfare workers can assist caregivers in identifying and prioritizing issues, mapping out next steps and connecting them with resources. Sometimes it’s as simple as saying, ‘Today we’ll work on this,’ to keep the process from feeling overwhelming and tackle challenges one at a time.
Q: How can practitioners help kinship families cope with feelings of guilt or shame tied to shifting authority and forming deeper attachments?
Crumbley: Kinship caregivers often go from aunt or uncle to parent, sibling to parent or grandparent to parent and are expected to seamlessly recalibrate their place in the family dynamic. They may feel guilt or shame in assuming authority as if they’re “replacing” the birth parent. Practitioners should remind them, ‘If not you, then who?’ — that the health and safety of the child and their loyalty to them is paramount.
Birth parents can play a major role in helping the child transition and should be engaged. Often, children are expected to immediately trust and accept the kinship caregiver in this new role. The child may need affirmation from the birth parent that forming an attachment and respecting the caregiver’s authority does not make the child “disloyal.” This validation can allow children to more easily bond with their caregivers.
Q: What approaches best support kinship caregivers in helping a child heal from separation?
Crumbley: The child needs to hear from the caregiver that they are loved, safe, deserve to be there and are wanted. Then, the caregiver needs to provide them with a sense of ownership and structure, for example: ‘This is your room, and here’s how we do things in the home.’ Caregivers must be transparent about what’s happening with the birth parent(s). They can say, ‘As I hear things, I’ll share them with you. Until then, I’m here to take care of you.’
Expect that children may be leery, standoffish or defensive when they arrive in care. Caregivers should not label it as bad behavior or ingratitude. A strength of kinship caregivers is their ability to relate to the children in their care and be an example of healthy coping skills. They might say, ‘I knew your parent before they were your parent, and I’m hurting the way you’re hurting over this. Here’s how we can handle it together. We can cry and talk to each other about it because you got to get it out.’
The Casey Foundation’s “Brain Frames” brief on resilience uses on adolescent brain science to offer guidance on what behavior to expect from young people in foster care and how to help them build resilience.
Q: What’s one lesson that could reshape how practitioners view and support kinship families?
Crumbley: For decades, professionals were trained to treat kinship families the same as foster or adoptive parents. We now realize we need to engage kinship caregivers differently. The assessment process alone should look different because there are already strong bonds and layered family histories — ‘How do I maintain a relationship with the birth parent that’s separate from my relationship with the child? How are my boundaries with the parent different from that of the child in my care?’
To establish an empathetic relationship with caregivers, professionals must educate themselves to be aware of and respect these dynamics to offer tailored support and resources that respect these family ties. Utilize networks like Generations United to stay up to date on the latest in kinship care.
Q: How can families and practitioners collaborate to improve kinship care systems?
Crumbley: If we’re going to prioritize kinship care, we need to listen to the real experts: the families themselves. Kinship families often need funding for housing, legal assistance, referral services, mental health and education. Without these essential services, children are more likely to end up back in the system. There are many people out there providing kinship care who don’t even realize it. The system must do more to help families recognize their role and ensure those who are providing informal care receive the same resources as those in formal (foster or pre-adoptive) care arrangements.
Learn how child welfare leaders can improve kinship care support
