Strengthening Support for Kinship Caregivers

Dur­ing Kin­ship Care Month and year round, it is impor­tant to hon­or and sup­port the many rel­a­tives and fam­i­ly friends who step up to raise kids when their par­ents are unable to care for them. Kin­ship care helps main­tain fam­i­ly and com­mu­ni­ty con­nec­tions for the esti­mat­ed 2.57 mil­lion chil­dren in Amer­i­ca whose care­givers are their grand­par­ents, oth­er rel­a­tives or close fam­i­ly friends. Kids in kin­ship care expe­ri­ence a range of oth­er pos­i­tive out­comes, as well, com­pared to those in non-kin fos­ter care.

Here are two kin­ship resources offer­ing best prac­tices for agen­cies and case­work­ers who want to strength­en ser­vices for kin­ship fam­i­lies:

1. A train­ing video series pro­duced by the Annie E. Casey Foundation.
2. A strat­e­gy paper from Casey Fam­i­ly Programs.

These fea­tured resources, and the addi­tion­al ones below, agree that young peo­ple and their rel­a­tives should play a role in the plan­ning and man­ag­ing of fos­ter care rela­tion­ship dynam­ics — from the moment the child is removed from their home through the chal­lenges of recruit­ing rel­a­tive care­givers. This allows chil­dren and youth to iden­ti­fy rel­a­tives who are sup­port­ive and lets care­givers express con­cerns about the effect of their new roles on their own well-being. By mak­ing fam­i­lies’ needs a pri­or­i­ty, kin­ship care can sup­port pos­i­tive out­comes for youth.

Resources for Kin­ship Care Providers

1. Video Train­ing Series: Kin­ship Rela­tion­ships Improve Youth Outcomes

Engag­ing Kin­ship Care­givers: Man­ag­ing Risk Fac­tors in Kin­ship Care, is a five-part video train­ing series for child wel­fare pro­fes­sion­als led by Joseph Crum­b­ley, a ther­a­pist, author and pub­lic speak­er with exper­tise in kin­ship care.

Crum­b­ley dis­cuss­es feel­ings around fam­i­ly loy­al­ty, loss, hope and guilt — all stirred when a child is moved from a birth par­ent to a relative.

Pro­duced by the Casey Foun­da­tion, the train­ing aims to improve out­comes for chil­dren by strength­en­ing case­work­ers’ under­stand­ing and skills for sup­port­ing kin­ship rela­tion­ships. The series also includes a dis­cus­sion guide.

Read our 2025 Q&A With Crum­b­ley on Equip­ping Kin­ship Care­givers for Success

2. Strat­e­gy Brief: Recruit­ing and Sup­port­ing Rel­a­tive Caregivers

What Are Some Exam­ples of Effec­tive Fam­i­ly Search and Engage­ment?, a strat­e­gy paper from Casey Fam­i­ly Pro­grams, describes promis­ing approach­es used to find rel­a­tives or oth­er impor­tant adults who can become care­givers, pro­vide per­ma­nent homes or offer car­ing, life­long sup­port for chil­dren and teens. The brief recommends:

• Cul­ti­vat­ing a kin-first agency cul­ture, which val­ues kin­ship place­ment as the norm, not the exception.
• Hon­or­ing child and fam­i­ly cul­tur­al identities.
• Assign­ing ded­i­cat­ed staff to iden­ti­fy families.
• Part­ner­ing with fam­i­lies in decisions.
• Remov­ing licens­ing barriers.

It also describes var­i­ous mod­els and tools that have been effec­tive in iden­ti­fy­ing and sup­port­ing kin­ship fam­i­lies. One exam­ple for sup­port­ing fam­i­lies: Pro­vid­ing a spe­cial­ist to help fam­i­lies access con­crete, com­mu­ni­ty resources and to assist them in estab­lish­ing sup­port net­works. Addi­tion­al­ly, the brief notes that child wel­fare agen­cies ​“must imple­ment cul­tur­al­ly appro­pri­ate prac­tices and activ­i­ties in sup­port of fam­i­lies’ race/​ethnicity, faith/​religious con­nec­tions, fam­i­ly lan­guage, food, and oth­er tra­di­tions while chil­dren are in place­ment,” to ensure that kids can main­tain or devel­op con­nec­tions to their cul­tur­al iden­ti­ties and communities.

More Resources

• What is Kin­ship Care? A blog post by the Casey Foun­da­tion describ­ing the dif­fer­ent types of kin­ship care, its his­to­ry, basic facts, ben­e­fits of this care and more.
• Fam­i­ly Ties: A five-part report series on kin­ship care pol­i­cy by the Casey Foundation.
• Kin, First and Fore­most: Chal­lenges, Oppor­tu­ni­ties, and the Path For­ward for Kin­ship Care: A study by Think of Us.
• Grand​fam​i​lies​.org: A nation­al legal resource in sup­port of grand­fam­i­lies with­in and out­side the child wel­fare system.
• Grand­fam­i­lies & Kin­ship Sup­port Net­work: A nation­al tech­ni­cal assis­tance cen­ter for those serv­ing kin­ship or grandfamilies.

Resources for Kin­ship Care­givers and Their Communities

• Cop­ing with the Unique Chal­lenges of Kin­ship Care: A four-part video train­ing series by the Casey Foundation.
• Grand­Facts: Fact Sheets for Grand­fam­i­lies: State-by-state infor­ma­tion by Grand​fam​i​lies​.org and part­ners about pub­lic ben­e­fits, edu­ca­tion­al assis­tance, legal options, laws and orga­ni­za­tions that can help kin­ship caregivers.
• Vir­tu­al Resource Kit: Rel­a­tive Care­giv­ing: A resource by the Wis­con­sin Fam­i­ly Con­nec­tions Cen­ter and Coali­tion for Chil­dren, Youth & Fam­i­lies, with applic­a­bil­i­ty to care­givers nationally.
• Gen­er­a­tions Unit­ed: Wide-rang­ing resources relat­ed to kin care­givers and grand­fam­i­lies.
   

Access more infor­ma­tion about Kin­ship Care from Casey Fam­i­ly Pro­grams and the fed­er­al government’s Child Wel­fare Infor­ma­tion Gate­way.

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