Kinship Care Week

The theme for this year's Kinship Care Week is to #DoOneThing to raise awareness and keep kinship care in the spotlight.

What is kinship care?

Kinship care is when a child lives full-time or most of the time with a relative or close family friend, usually because their parents are not able to care for them. Kinship carers can be grandparents, uncles, aunts, older brothers and sisters or other adults who have a connection to the child, such as neighbours or family friends. In the UK, there are more than 180,000 children in kinship care, which is more than the number of children adopted or in the care system.

Therefore, Kinship care is a vital part of children's social care provision in the UK. Unfortunately, due to the cost of living crisis and pressures on children and families, a lot of kinship carers are at breaking point. You can read more about this in Kinship's report Breaking Point: kinship carers in crisis.

Real stories

Shanayd Warren talked to the government's children's social care blog about her personal experience of kinship care, and how she supported her elder sister and her niece in unexpected circumstances - My kinship care journey.