Kinship's Value Our Love campaign

Kinship care has been overlooked

Every child needs love. That’s why, when parents can’t look after a child, it’s often best if they can be brought up in ‘kinship care’ – where a grandparent, uncle, aunt, sibling or family friend steps in to raise them.

Kinship care means love and stability. But for too long many politicians have overlooked kinship carers and undervalued the role they have in keeping 141,000 children in England and Wales out of the care system.

Children in kinship care have often had a really difficult start in life having experienced trauma and loss. Yet kinship families are unfairly blocked from the essential extra financial, health and emotional support that children in care and those looking after them can get.

In fact, 8 in 10 kinship families aren’t getting the vital support they need from their local authorities to meet their child’s needs. As a result, nearly 1 in 8 kinship carers have told us they are concerned about continuing to care for their kinship children if their situations don’t improve.

This unfair system is risking thousands of children’s futures. If kinship carers can’t continue to look after them, they could lose their stable and loving home.

That’s why the #ValueOurLove campaign is calling on politicians to increase support for kinship carers and the children they love.