What is kinship care?
Kinship care is when a child is cared for by a relative, close friend or someone else who is already known to the child, because their parents are unable to do so. This can be a grandparent, aunt, uncle, sibling, or family friend.
It’s a role filled with love, responsibility, and sometimes unexpected challenges.
Types of kinship care
Informal kinship care arrangement - this is where a child is looked after by a close relative, such as a grandparent, brother, sister, uncle, aunt or step-parent. The child’s parents will usually discuss and agree with the kinship carer how the arrangement will work. The local authority has no major involvement in the arrangement and there is no court order in place.
Special Guardianship - a special guardianship order (SGO) is an order made by the family court. The person or people named on the SGO will become the child’s special guardian and they will have parental responsibility for the child until they are 18 years old. The child will live with them permanently. Special guardians make both day-to-day decisions about care and more important decisions about the child's life. More information can be found by visiting our Special Guardianship Orders web page.
Adoption – an individual can apply to adopt a child if the child has lived with them for at least 3 of the last 5 years and they are the child’s grandparent, aunt or uncle, step-parent, brother or sister, or half-brother or half-sister through marriage or civil partnership.
Private fostering – private foster care is when a child is looked after for 28 days or more by someone other than a parent who is not a grandparent, brother or sister, uncle or aunt, or step-parent. This person could be a great aunt or great uncle, a friend or neighbour, a cousin, or could be related or known to the child in another way.
Child Arrangements Orders (CAO) - this is a legal order made by the family court that states where a child will live, who a child can spend time with and for how long. It can state when a child will spend part of the week living with, or having contact with, a parent or other family member. Child arrangements orders have replaced contact and residence orders.
Kinship foster care - this is when a family member or friend becomes a child’s approved foster carer following an assessment. It is sometimes called family and friends foster care or connected person foster care. The child is in the care of children’s services, who share parental responsibility with the child’s parents. More information about kinship fostering can be found on our Family and friends fostering page.
Local offer to kinship carers
Within our borough there are a wide range of services that can be accessed as listed below:
- The Our Town Directory (external link) brings together local support and things to do in the community whether you are living, visiting, or working in the borough
- The Children First Partnership Hub (CFPH) operates as a single point of contact for members of the public and professionals who are seeking advice and information, and/or who want to make a request for support for a child or young person in the borough who may be in need of help or protection. Possible outcomes of requests for support into the CFPH include:
- Advice and guidance to the referring agency and/or the family
- Referral for support within the community and voluntary sector, or other appropriate service
- Referral for an Early Help Assessment and potential support from one of the targeted early help services
- Referral for a statutory social work assessment.
You can contact the CFPH on 01942 828300
- Mornington Road Family Hub hosts a monthly peer support group for the Kinship Group which is facilitated by Embrace. To attend the group please register via the Embrace website (external link)
- Access to the Family Hubs - kinship carers can access anything at any of the hubs, such as parenting courses, activities for carers and their children and young people, health advice, adult learning, back to work support, and much more
- Wigan Income Maximisation Team can complete benefit checks to make sure kinship carers are in receipt of all current entitlements based on their circumstances. They can also help to complete any necessary claim forms for benefits they might not realise they are eligible to apply for. For more information please call 01942 489015
- Mediation - TalkFirst (external link) provide mediation support to help kinship carers and parents work together to make decisions about a child
- Virtual schools support children who have not been in care. They aim to help improve school attendance, achievement, and progress. They don’t work directly with individual children or provide hands-on support. Instead, they focus on working with schools and other services to help them better understand and tackle the challenges that kinship children face in education. More information on the Virtual School offer for children in care or previously looked after (POST CLA) can be found on the Virtual School Team web page.