Families First: Understanding Kinship Care
Families First: Understanding Kinship Care
One night, while relaxing at home, Kayla received a surprise call from child welfare. Her sister had been deemed unable to safely care for her three children due to untreated mental health challenges, substance abuse, and housing instability. Faced with the possibility that her nieces, aged 4 and 11, and her nephew, aged 9, would enter foster care with strangers or be separated from each other, Kayla made a life-altering decision: she stepped in. Driven by love and responsibility, Kayla became a full-time caregiver.
Like many kinship caregivers, Kayla was unprepared for the realities of navigating court hearings, school enrollment, trauma-related behaviors, or the emotional challenge of explaining to children why they could no longer live with their mother. Kayla had no prior experience with the child welfare system and no roadmap for managing such a profound transition.
What she did have was a strong, shared bond with the children and knowledge of their family history, routines, and cultural identity. She knew, no matter what, they could overcome obstacles as a family.
The Power of Kinship Care
According to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, kinship care is defined as the full-time care, nurturing, and protection of children by relatives or individuals with a significant familial or cultural bond. According to the Kids Count Data Center, approximately 2.5 million children and youth are in kinship care arrangements.
Unlike non-relative foster care or adoption, kinship care allows a child to remain in a familiar environment, fostering a greater sense of identity and belonging, maintaining familial, cultural, and community connections, and increasing the likelihood that siblings will remain together. Kinship placements help minimize the trauma of being separated from their parents and preserve a sense of identity, all of which are beneficial mentally and emotionally. Research shows that children placed in kinship care experience greater placement stability and fewer behavioral challenges than those placed in non-relative foster care.
Challenges in Kinship Care
Although there is evidence that kinship care produces better behavioral outcomes for children and youth, many families do not receive the support and supervision that traditional foster and adoption families do. Kinship caregivers frequently fall through the cracks of traditional service systems. Common challenges include:
- Lack of training and preparation for guardianship
- Lack of knowledge of child welfare, education, and healthcare systems
- Lack of awareness of or access to support services
- Financial strain and limited access to resources
- Need for legal assistance
- Caregiver stress, burnout, and secondary trauma
Caregivers like Kayla may not identify as foster or adoptive parents, but they shoulder the same responsibilities and emotional demands.
Mental Health Needs in Kinship Care
While children in kinship placements can experience better behavioral outcomes, they are not immune to the core issues that children and youth with child welfare experience, including complex trauma, ambiguous loss, grief, identity questions, and attachment disruptions. Whether a child is adopted by a relative, placed under guardianship, or raised informally by kin, they still have been separated from their biological family which can create complex and layered mental health needs. In Kayla’s case, her nieces and nephew stayed with family. However, they still experienced profound loss due to separation from their parents, uncertainty about the future, and confusion about changing family roles.
Adoption Competent Mental Health Care Matters in Kinship Care
For child welfare professionals, supporting kinship families means understanding that placement stability alone does not guarantee healing. Adoption competent mental health services offer a vital framework for addressing the long-term emotional and relational needs of both children and caregivers involved in kinship care.
When child welfare professionals intentionally connect kinship families to mental health services that can support permanency, they help ensure that families are not just keeping children safe but are also able to foster healing and growth. With over 20 years of experience providing adoption-competent care at C.A.S.E., we have seen firsthand how investing in adoption-competent, kinship-inclusive mental health care strengthens permanency, eases caregiver burnout, and supports lasting well-being for children and families.
The National Center Supports Kinship Care
The National Center for Adoption Competent Mental Health Services equips child welfare, mental health, and education professionals, as well as families, with the tools needed to recognize the unique intersections of trauma, loss, attachment, and family dynamics that arise in kinship placements. We also provide resources and support caregivers like Kayla by validating caregiver stress, strengthening caregiver-child relationships, and helping families navigate complex emotions without minimizing the child’s history or experiences.