What is Kinship Care?

Kinship care is the name for a care arrangement in which a child is living with relatives or friends outside of their birth family. This could be grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, or a close family friend. The word “kin” is used throughout this site to refer to anyone that could or has become a kinship carer.

Kinship care falls into two categories; formal and informal.

A formal kinship care arrangement means that the court has given orders that the child live in out of home care (OOHC). If a kinship care arrangement is possible, the child will enter care with kin as soon as practicable. The prospective kinship carers need to undergo a kinship care assessment to assess suitability prior to the child entering their care. They will also need to pass a Police Check, and obtain a Working With Vulnerable People (WWVP) registration for the ACT. These carers enter into an official agreement to care for the child’s day to day needs, but the parental responsibility remains with the Director General. These kinship carers are provided with an allowance from the government to help with the costs of raising the child. The initial case management will lay with Child and Youth Protection Services (CYPS), but for long-term kinship placements, case management will be transferred to ACT Together. These services are supposed to provide support, training, education, and monitoring to the kinship carers and the child (or children) in care.

An informal kinship care arrangement means that the child has entered into the care of a person outside of their birth family without the court’s intervention. This may have come about through the child’s birth parent/s moving in with kin, and the kin takes over care responsibility for the child. Or perhaps the birth parent has asked kin to care for their child or kin has offered to care for the child, either temporarily or permanently. There is usually no official agreement in place, and the care of the child is not overseen by CYPS or ACT Together. The birth parents retain parental responsibility in this situation, and they can reclaim the child at any time, irrespective of the wishes of the child or of the kinship carer. In informal care arrangements, the kinship carer does not receive an allowance for the care of the child, though they may be entitled to Centrelink benefits depending on their individual circumstances.

Whether you are an informal or formal kinship carer, you will need training, education and support to raise the child or children that are now in your care. Some people will tell you that kinship care is just the same as foster care, but that is not true. Being a foster carer is hard work, but it is often not as complex as being a kinship carer, though both roles are well worth the effort.