Our Kinship Care: State of the Nation 2018 survey is the largest survey ever of kinship carers in the UK.
As in previous years, it shows that many carers aren’t getting the support they need to enable children to thrive.
Key statistics include:
- Overall, only 14% of carers say they’re getting the support they need to bring up their child(ren), and only 11% say they are getting the emotional support they need.
- Equally, only 11% agree that they are getting the information they need from their local authority, although 27% of carers say they got the support they needed when the children first moved in.
- Over a third of kinship carers (36%) say they find it difficult to make ends meet. Just 26% say they’re getting the financial support they need.
- 66% of kinship carers surveyed said they are receiving regular financial allowances from their local authority, but many feel the amounts are less than is needed.
- 32% of carers in our survey said they were worried about their mental and physical health and their ability to carry out their kinship care role. Should these carers no longer be able to care for their children, this would mean an estimated 64,000 children would be likely to go into local authority foster or residential care. This would be at an associated cost to local authorities of £2.1billion per year.
Read the full report, including our recommendations for policy and practice, here.
