Kinship care in the UK: using census data to estimate the extent of formal and informal care by relatives

Until recently, little was known about kinship care in the UK. Research has begun to illuminate the circumstances which lead to children being cared for by relatives, and the stresses and strains experienced by carers. However, most UK research has only considered ‘looked‐after’ children placed with formal approved kinship foster carers, although this group forms the smallest proportion of children in kinship arrangements. In this paper, we use microdata from the 2001 UK Population Census to examine the characteristics of kinship carers and children, and demonstrate that most children in kinship care are growing up in informal unregulated arrangements. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.     

Creating a better kinship environment for children in Ghana: Lessons from young people with informal kinship care experience

Traditionally, the involvement of the extended family in nurturing children is seen as an essential cultural practice in most communities in Ghana. Though not formally regulated, often in the absence of birth parents, kin and kith continue to be involved in the care of children to promote family relations and culture. Yet there is little empirical evidence on how to improve the well‐being and safety of children in informal kinship care in Ghana. Thus, this study reports findings from in‐depth interviews with 15 young people, 18 to 23 years, from Banda—an ethnic group where informal kinship care is an accepted cultural practice. Data from the interviews were subjected to the constructivist grounded theory analysis. Adequate income for provision of basic needs, education and training, and supervision emerged as useful measures to promote the safety and well‐being of children in kinship care. It was recommended that informal kinship caregivers must be registered with the Department of Social Welfare to enable them access support and training. Further, social workers should create awareness among kinship caregivers in Ghana about their availability to provide counselling services for caregivers facing challenges.     

Nonfamilial kinship carers—Who are they and what support do they need to nurture children?

There is a growing body of literature about kinship care in the Western world; however, much of it focuses on grandparent care. A lesser known aspect of kinship care is the care of children by nonrelatives known to the child or their family. What little research exists about this group suggests that such placements are less stable than familial kinship care. This article reports a research study in Victoria, Australia, that explored nonfamilial kinship care through analysis of administrative data, interviews with young people and carers, and focus groups with kinship care support workers. It emerged that current administrative databases are not yet able to reliably identify the carer relationship, and thus the extent of such care arrangements cannot accurately be determined. Interviews and focus groups revealed that nonfamilial kinship care is diverse and qualitatively different from familial kinship care, bearing some similarities to foster care yet managed very differently. It is suggested that policymakers need to pay more attention to conceptualizing nonfamilial kinship care within kinship care policy frameworks and that greater attention is needed to the individual support needs of children in such placements and their carers.     

An investigation of the needs of grandparents who are raising grandchildren

Evidence suggests that children in out‐of‐home care function better when placed in kinship compared with foster care. Less is known about the functioning of children in the unique form of kinship care where grandparents are caring full‐time for their grandchildren in informal care arrangements. As grandparent carers are increasingly taking on this role, it is timely to investigate the functioning of the children in this form of care and the characteristics of the grandparents themselves. We compared the functioning of children in the two types of care. We also investigated carer characteristics, including the relationship between child functioning, social support and daily hassles on carer stress. One hundred fourteen cares and 180 children were assessed on a range of demographic and clinical measures. Children in grandparent care were displaying better behavioural and adaptive functioning than children living with foster carers. Grandparent carers reported higher levels of distress in the carer role. Predictors of carer stress included severity of child behaviour problems and daily hassles. Both group of carers and the children in their care would benefit from increased support from treatment services.     

‘It's just like another home,just another family,so it's nae different’ Children's voices in kinship care: a research study about the experience of children in kinship care in Scotland

Growing acknowledgement of the importance of the role of kinship carers in caring and supporting children and young people in Scotland has led to a burgeoning of research on this topic. However, most research has tended to focus on the role of kinship carers. A significant gap has been direct studies into the views and experiences of children and young people living with relatives or friends. This paper seeks to address this by drawing on the findings from a small‐scale qualitative collaborative research project with 12 children and young people living in informal and formal kinship care in the Northeast of Scotland. The literature on foster and kinship care is reviewed and key themes identified. The qualitative research data is outlined employing a thematic analysis approach. The key findings are analysed with a view to the potential implications for policy and practice. The paper concludes with proposals for potential future research.     

Emotional kinship care and neutral non‐kinship care — the struggle between discourses

In this paper, social workers' ideas of kinship care and non‐kinship care as foster placement alternatives for vulnerable children are analysed and discussed. The study is based on group interviews with Swedish social workers, using a discourse analytic approach. The interviews took two vignettes of children who needed an immediate and long‐term placement because one of the parents had killed the other parent, as their point of departure. Domestic violence is a common social problem across countries, and controversies about placement alternatives become even more apparent when discussing lethal violence. The analysis revealed three main discourses: ‘emotional kinship care’, ‘neutral non‐kinship care’ and ‘a real family’. The emotional kinship care discourse also revealed two competing sub‐discourses: ‘emotions as glue that binds’ and ‘emotions as obscuring a child perspective’, displaying a struggle concerning the advantages and risks that social workers connected to kinship care. In this paper, the results and their implications for vulnerable children are discussed.     

A tangled web: parental contact with children in kinship care

Contact between parents and children in care is a contested area. Parental contact is recognized to be important, yet may present protective issues; in the kinship care environment, it brings the particular challenges of complex family relationships. Seeking the parents' perspective in a child protection context is difficult and therefore under‐researched. This paper describes a nested study within an Australian research project on family contact in kinship care in which the perspectives of 18 mothers and 2 fathers were sought via in‐depth interviews. Mothers and fathers described strong feelings of disempowerment in the context both of their family and the child protection system. The relationship between parent and caregiver emerged as a significant issue. All of the parents wished to remain in contact with their children in a meaningful way, whether or not they were likely to resume their children's care; however, contact arrangements presented many difficulties for them. Mothers articulated the need for services that are more empowering and respectful, rather than oriented towards them as failed parents. In order to build appropriate models of support and intervention, we argue for a more inclusive conceptual frame for family life that gives greater recognition to the role of non‐custodial parents in the lives of their children.     

Kinship Foster Care and Its Impact on Grandmother Caregivers

Summary

Kinship foster care programs are designed to address the needs of relatives, usually grandparents, who have taken in children who have been removed from their homes voluntarily, or following a substantiated report of neglect and/or abuse. The author reviews the history of kinship foster care nationally and examines related research. Reported are findings on a survey of kinship foster care programs nationwide and from qualitative interviews with nine grandmothers from New York City who were kinship foster care providers. Particular attention was paid in these surveys to the impact of kinship foster care on families caring for children with disabilities.     

Supporting foster and kinship carers to promote the mental health of children

The majority of children and young people removed from the care of their parents by the state of Victoria, Australia, reside in foster or kinship care. These children have experienced a broad range of adverse conditions and are up to 4 times more likely to experience problems with mental health than their mainstream peers. This paper draws on the perspectives of foster and kinship carers, describing the disconnection between their role as mental health advocates and their interest in early intervention in a field which is dominated by crisis and the historic marginalisation of foster and kinship carers. Thirty‐one foster and kinship carers across greater metropolitan Melbourne, Australia, contributed to this study through interviews and focus groups. Participants demonstrated a practical understanding of mental health and an ability to identify a range of conditions that have an adverse impact on the mental health of children and young people in their care. The paper concludes that there is a lack of systemic support and even a range of barriers that affect the capacity of foster and kinship carers to promote the mental health and well‐being of the children and young people in their care.     

The impact of parental incarceration on children's care: identifying good practice principles from the perspective of imprisoned primary carer parents

Parental incarceration has wide‐ranging impacts on families. One key effect may be disruption to the care and legal custody of children, yet few studies have examined processes and outcomes relating to care planning for children of prisoners. This paper presents findings of interviews with 151 primary carer prisoners in two Australian states which aimed to address this research gap. The study examined care planning for children upon parental arrest, sentencing and imprisonment, stability of care arrangements and primary carer prisoners' involvement and satisfaction with care planning. Around one third of prisoners had discussions regarding children's care arrangements at arrest and imprisonment, although the issue was more commonly raised at sentencing. While there was much variation in the stability of care arrangements, children placed in out‐of‐home care experienced the most instability. A minority of prisoners reported being involved in care planning and decision‐making for children upon imprisonment, and around one third rated care planning process poorly. Prisoners were more satisfied with care planning when there were fewer movements of children, where prisoners felt involved with decision‐making, and when police officers, lawyers and corrections staff inquired about the welfare of their children. Implications for policy and future research are discussed.     

Informal kin caregivers raising children left behind in rural China: Experiences' feelings' and support

The well‐being of children in informal kinship care and their caregivers is a growing concern globally. This study explored the lived experiences of 23 kin caregivers raising children left behind in rural Northeast China while their migrant parents worked and lived in cities. The findings show that the expected authority and responsibility caregivers carry sometimes conflict with their social role of being children's grandparents. Caregivers' feelings about and understandings of these roles are shaped through their social interactions in local communities. In view of their situation and caregivers' self‐conscious attitudes towards utilizing local resources' future formal service provision and social support should take caregivers' viewpoints into account. These views are embedded in and shaped by their rural living context and relationships with community members who influence caregivers' perceptions and child rearing practices.     

Becoming involved in raising a relative's child: reasons, caregiver motivations and pathways to informal kinship care

Interviews with 207 informal kinship caregivers describe a dynamic process that influences how children come to live with a relative other than their parent. This process involves three overlapping and often simultaneously occurring factors: (1) the reasons the children's parents were unable to care for them; (2) the caregiver's motivation for assuming responsibility for the child; and (3) the pathways or routes that children took to the caregiver's home. Understanding these factors and their mutual and simultaneous influence is important as we shape policies, programs and interventions to support families as they consider whether to care for a relative's child and once they assume this responsibility.     

Resettlement challenges faced by refugee claimant families in Montreal: lack of access to child care

Adult refugee claimants experience several well‐documented post‐migratory challenges. Little is known about the resettlement process for refugee claimant families with children. This study reports on 75 open‐ended, in‐depth interviews with refugee claimant families in Montreal about their resettlement challenges and their proposed solutions to them. These interviews were conducted with 33 dyads and triads of children and parents attending a paediatric hospital. Experiences accessing formal and informal child care in Montreal were addressed. Subsequently, a comparative policy analysis was conducted on residency eligibility criteria for child care subsidization. Twenty‐eight out of 39 parents (73%) report a lack of informal or formal child care and 15 out of 33 families (39%) propose improving access to formal child care services. They describe a lack of informal child care as a result of reduced social networks, and affordability as a barrier to formal child care services. Refugee claimants are not eligible for subsidized child care in Quebec. A comparative policy analysis within Canada and comparable countries reveals that this situation is not unique to Quebec. However, most provinces and European countries offer child care subsidies to refugee claimants. Refugee claimants should qualify for child care subsidies. Social workers and community organizations should consider their clients' child care needs in designing programmes and services.     

Enhancing the capacity of kin caregivers and their families to meet the needs of children left behind

Based on qualitative research of the experiences of 23 kin caregivers and five school personnel, this article explores the role of informal kinship care in addressing the needs of school-age children left behind in rural China. The findings of this study suggest that kin caregivers' child-rearing capacity is limited in the rural context, and they are often overwhelmed by children's diverse and complex needs, particularly their emotional ones. In view of the huge population and their vulnerability, it is imperative for the state to take up its responsibilities and develop specific social work services and other support for children left behind and their families.     

“Roll back the years”: A study of grandparent special guardians' experiences and implications for social work policy and practice in England

Growing numbers of grandparent special guardians (GSGs) are assuming responsibility for increasing numbers of children in the care system in England. Special guardianship arrangements are increasingly used as a permanency option as they allow children to remain in their kinship networks rather than in local authority care or be adopted; yet there is a scarcity of research on GSG carers' experiences. This paper reports a small qualitative research study where 10 sets of grandparents were interviewed to explore their journey to becoming GSGs and to theorize their subsequent experiences. Two themes emerge. First, experiences of the assessment process are elaborated, decisions often being made at a time of family crisis, impacting on GSGs: financial, employment, and relational. Second, GSGs' experiences of managing often challenging relationships and contact arrangements between the grandchildren and the parents reveal three main relationship management approaches emerging: containing‐flexible, containing‐controlled, and uncontained/defeated approaches. Anthropological concepts of affinity help theorize the GSGs' ambivalent responses to becoming carers in later life, enabling reconfigured kinship relationships in new family forms. Family policy and social work practice is critiqued as GSGs appear often left alone to “roll back the years,” to heal previous harms done to the grandchildren who end up in their care.     

‘It's about the whole family’: family contact for children in kinship care

Contact with family for children in care is identified as a right under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. However, such contact often presents challenges because of the protective concerns that have led to care arrangements being made. The Family Links: Kinship Care and Family Contact research study explored the nature and extent of family contact in kinship care, with a particular focus on the circumstances that create positive contact and foster family relationships. Findings included evidence of a large proportion of parental contact that was negatively affecting children's well‐being, and was sometimes unsafe. By contrast, the frequent contact that children were enjoying with their siblings and wider family was reported to be mostly positive and supportive. Kinship carers described a range of services needed to facilitate more positive parental contact and to enable children to keep contact with significant family members.     

Lone mothers and the puzzles of daily life: do care regimes really matter?

Kröger T. Lone mothers and the puzzles of daily life: do care regimes really matter? Int J Soc Welfare 2010: 19: 390–401 © 2009 The Author, Journal compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare. This article studies childcare patterns and day‐to‐day strategies of 111 working lone mothers from Finland, France, Italy, Portugal and the UK, and asks whether their arrangements are prescribed by care regimes. Lone mothers' arrangements are grouped into five based on the availability and use of different formal and informal childcare resources. The article argues that, even though lone mothers have a more favourable starting point in Finland and France compared with Britain, Italy and Portugal where formal childcare coverage is patchier, childcare arrangements are not very dissimilar within different care regimes. Instead, similarities across care regimes are highlighted. Formal provisions have their limitations in all the countries studied and in all cases significant expectations are placed on informal childcare. The availability of informal childcare cannot, however, be taken for granted in any country, and working lone mothers whose informal and formal resources do not adequately meet their childcare needs were located in every care regime, facing care poverty.     

Exploring Social Care: Applying a New Construct to Young Carers and Grandparent Carers

Mainstream literature on paid care for children, frail elderly people and people with chronic illness or disability, and unpaid care provided usually by family members within households and kin networks tends to establish dichotomies: formal/informal, commodified/non‐commodified. Recent feminist literature rejects these dichotomies, developing models of social care in which the interconnections of paid and unpaid care are mapped within policy frameworks. This paper uses theoretical frameworks of ‘social care‘: care as labour; care as a relationship embedded in obligation; care incurring a range of costs; to explore two case‐studies: young carers aged up to 24 years who are most often caring for a co‐resident parent; and grandparents who are the primary carers of their grandchildren. The latter may occur under the aegis of child protection authorities, or Family Court orders, or in informal arrangements, not licensed by state authorities. This analysis of the international literature and Australian research data affirms the power of the social care framework, and also shows the influence of social policy settings on informal care provision.     

The relationship between foster care families and birth families in a child welfare context: The determining factors

Children placed in foster care families usually continue to see their birth parents in supervised and home visits. These children deal with the fact that they belonged to two families in a context where the relationship between the two families is sometimes complex and tense. Based on 45 semi‐structured interviews conducted with foster care families and kinship foster care families, the present study examines the relationship between foster care parents and birth parents in a placement context, and focuses on the factors affecting the nature and quality of this relationship. The results showed that the quality of the relationship dynamics varies according to the following: how well and how often the parent–child visits took place, the birth parents' characteristics, and the foster carers' attitudes. The results also showed that placements in kinship foster care families were more likely to result in conflict and tension between the two parties than placements in regular foster care families.