Kinship care is the most common way that children are looked after if their parents can’t care for them. There are so many examples in some of our most popular stories. Spiderman was in kinship care – raised by Aunt May and Uncle Ben. Lilo is raised by her sister Nani in Lilo and Stitch. Sleeping Beauty is brought up by her fairy godmothers to keep her safe.
All of these examples, and many more, exist because of kinship families being an ordinary part of family life, particularly in times of difficulty. Kinship care is much more prevalent than foster care or adoption, but we know less about these families.
For example, we don’t really know how many children are in kinship care in the UK, and who they live with. Censuses give us a good estimate – the most recent census estimated that 141,000 children (1.1% of the population of children) were living in kinship care in England and Wales, with 1.9% of households containing children in Wales including a kinship care arrangement, compared with 1.5% of households in England. But there are caveats. The Census only really gives a snapshot, and some kinship families are excluded. For example, Sleeping Beauty’s godparents were family friends, so they would not have been included as kinship carers in the 2021 Census. Also, only households with five people or fewer were included in the analysis, excluding large families, and a lot of older siblings who are caring for children might be hidden (see Dr Lorna Stabler’s recently published PhD on this topic).
We also don’t really know what works well to make kinship care a positive experience for children and their carers, and what extra support could help these families achieve positive outcomes. Some children in kinship care have input from social workers – if they are classed as ‘children looked after’ or some children who have a legal order called a Special Guardianship Order (SGO). But even for these children, little is known about what actually makes a difference for them, and how services should meet their needs.
At CASCADE, we are trying to answer some of these questions. For example, our Nuffield Foundation funded project, led by Dr Lorna Stabler, focuses on SGOs in Wales. The project uses the SAIL Databank to help us understand how many children in Wales have an SGO, what their characteristics are and who their carers are. The project is also working with the Neurodevelopment Assessment Unit at Cardiff University School of Psychology to understand more about the strengths and needs of children aged 4 – 7 in kinship care and what support they might need when they start school.
But for every question we answer, there are many more than we still need to explore. We are passionate about making sure that children in kinship care and their families are recognised and given the support that they need.
This Kinship Care Week, we are inviting you to get in touch and tell us about your priorities for research about kinship care – Is there a question you think really needs answered? Are you thinking of doing a PhD in kinship care? Do you know of a really interesting project working with kinship carers that needs to be evaluated? Did you grow up in kinship care, or are you a kinship carer and you want to shape future research?
We would love to hear from you!
Get in touch with Lorna at StablerL@cardiff.ac.uk