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Kinship care has, for many years, been a crucial support structure for thousands of children in England.
However, for just as many years, it has been neglected, seeing less government funding and support than other care initiatives. Fortunately, the tide seems to be changing, with new government initiatives and policies bringing much-needed reform to the children’s social care system.
Part of this is the Keeping Children Safe, Helping Families Thrive policy paper, which acknowledges that “where children cannot remain at home and it is in their best interests, we should support children to live with kinship carers or in fostering families, rather than in residential care.”
The government are recognising that a reduction in reliance on children’s homes ultimately supports better outcomes for children, something that FosterTalk have been advocating for years. FosterTalk wholeheartedly welcomes the government’s drive for better support, better funding and better access to services for children and young people in kinship care.
While there is more to be done, this is a strong step in the right direction. In this blog, we’ll cover some of the upcoming changes coming to England in 2025/2026, as well as detailing what support is available to kinship carers in the UK.
What’s changing in kinship care?
Kinship care is the process of embedding a child or young person with a member of their family or a family friend, rather than entering into the wider foster care system. This has been proven to provide myriad benefits to the growth and development of a child, keeping their lives as stable as possible and preserving family ties.
For many years, kinship care has been underfunded. Fortunately, this is changing – the Department for Education (DfE) states that their current objective for kinship care is:
“Building on new legislation to embed family group decision making, we will achieve this through rolling out reforms to better support kinship care, recruit and retain more foster carers, provide increased opportunity for short breaks for disabled children, and provide access to support for both kinship and foster carers.”
The DfE acknowledges that their legislation is ambitious, but in truth, it needs to be. More funding is absolutely necessary, which is why it’s good to see investment in the pipeline for 2025/26. The DfE’s strategy has three main objectives:
01. To support family-led solutions and family networks.
Testing of flexible funding initiatives are already underway. Practical support for extended family groups is also planned, designed to keep families unified and children out of care.
The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill will also mandate that local authorities offer family group decision making, designed to keep at-risk children out of care.
02. Investing in removing barriers – helping children live in kinship arrangements.
There is a planned investment of £40m to trial kinship financial allowances. This will be trialled in ten local authorities and is hoped to increase the number of children cared for by families and friends.
Not only this, but there is a significant push for kinship leave for carers – parental leave from work to allow both carers and children time to adjust to a sudden change of circumstances.
While £40m is a good start, we need to continue pushing for increased levels of investment – there are many children in England that need urgent support, and better funding is absolutely essential if we are to provide this support.
03. Once in place, the government aims to ensure kinship arrangements are supported, and children provided with the opportunities they need to thrive.
This will be accomplished in several ways:
- The DfE has recently published updated guidance for local authorities.
- They are looking to legislate, making it mandatory for local authorities to provide a “kinship local offer”.
- Creating new government roles to promote the education of children in kinship care statutory.
- Providing funding for training and support for kinship carers.
- Providing therapeutic support for many children in kinship care.
Why is this so important?
Kinship care charity, Kinship, conducted extensive research into the state of kinship care in the UK back in 2023, publishing their paper, Out of Order, in 2024 (you can download the full paper by clicking here).
Their research “looks at available data on children in and leaving care to understand more about current trends in movement within and from kinship foster care to special guardianship and child arrangements orders, and explores insights from Kinship’s 2023 annual survey of kinship carers to reveal potential contributing factors.”
They found that:
- More children are looked after and are staying longer in kinship foster care than ever before.
- Kinship carers want arrangements which deliver permanence and stability, but not at the expense of financial and other support for themselves and their children.
- Too many kinship carers report a lack of advice and guidance about their options and feel they are being pushed into arrangements with little support.
- Financial support for kinship carers who move to special guardianship or child arrangements orders remains patchy and insufficient, leading to greater financial hardship for families.
- There is a lack of support for kinship arrangement outside the care system.
This is why it’s so important – investment in kinship care will directly result in improved kinship care results, and better outcomes for children nationwide.
What support services are available to kinship carers in the UK?
There is significant support available for kinship carers in the UK.
Take FosterTalk’s kinship membership, for example. It provides cover for your entire household, including legal insurance, 24/7 helplines, tax advice, counselling, exclusive discounts and much, much more.
For £1 per week*, you’ll have access to comprehensive, high-quality support. Our kinship membership offers the exact same benefits as our foster care membership, with advice delivered from our team of specialist advisors who are experienced working alongside kinship carers.
If you’d like to access this wealth of experience, either discuss membership with your social worker, give us a call on 0121 758 5013, or click here to order online.
We also have a broad range of training available for both foster carers and kinship carers alike, ensuring you have everything you need to thrive as a carer.
Looking ahead – what’s to come?
While, yes, there is still a long way to go to ensure that kinship carers have the support and resources they require, the changes that we’re seeing now gives us all a great deal of hope.
At FosterTalk, it’s our mission to further kinship care in the UK. If you’ve got any questions about kinship care, foster care or anything in between, we’d be happy to talk.
Get in touch – ask your questions
*Billed annually
