Home A family tragedy makes the issues surrounding kinship care more personal. Reports of her last words noted that she remained concerned about the care and safety of her grandson. Kinship care has been a constant focus in my professional work. As a social worker, a policy developer and implementer, a child welfare administrator, and a social work educator, I have consistently advocated for placing children with relatives as a preference, for more effective policies and training of workers involved in kinship placements, and for an honest dialog about kinship issues. That telephone call, and the pain my family has experienced, has brought new resolve to my commitment.
Kinship care is now both personal and familial.
My hope is that we will live to see sincere progress regarding the value and importance of kinship care. As more child welfare professionals, child advocates, and human service systems look more intensely at kinship care, we must recognize that both formal and informal kinship placements are growing at unprecedented rates. If children are the true and primary beneficiaries of kinship care arrangements, relatives who are providing parental care for young children should have, as a matter of fairness, access to supportive assistance, including medical, social, legal, and financial services. Formal and Informal Reasonable estimates are that four out of five kinship placements occur informally, without official sanction or involvement. These families navigate helping and educational systems to meet the needs of their children and will interact with professionals and educators who are equally new to the many issues that arise in kinship care families.