Extended families provide a popular alternative to state care

Social services and government are being urged to devote more attention and resources to the potential for ‘looked after’ children and young people being placed with grandparents and other relatives as an alternative to fostering or residential care.

Ground-breaking research for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation shows that in spite of being largely invisible as a policy issue, ‘kinship care’ is popular with young people and with the relatives and family friends who provide it. The in-depth study of placements in the London Borough of Wandsworth also suggests that kinship care arrangements are more stable and last longer than many of the alternatives.

Researchers from the Children and Families Research Unit at De Montfort University, Leicester, examined 50 kinship care placements, interviewing young people, carers and social workers. The young people were mostly in their teens, and nearly half were of Caribbean or Guyanese ethnic origin. The study found that:

• The reasons young people had been placed in kinship care included child abuse and other protection issues, inability of their previous carers to cope and the young person’s own problematic behaviour.
• Nearly three out of four carers were over the age of 50 and almost half were grandparents. In all but one case, the ethnic origin of the carer exactly matched that of the young person.
• Many of the young people interviewed said they felt loved, safe, and secure living with their extended family. Other advantages they identified included maintaining links with siblings and friends, sustaining their racial and cultural heritage and not being looked after by strangers. The main disadvantages were seen as limitations to freedom, financial hardship and lack of access to the specialist help available to care leavers.
• Carers, almost without exception, spoke passionately in favour of kinship care, emphasising their love for the young people and a belief that the extended family was the best place for children to be. They, too, were keen to maintain young people’s cultural identity and expressed distaste for local authority care.
• The main problems identified by carers were with young people ’s behaviour, overcrowding, loss of independence and being short of money. Financial difficulties were mentioned by a majority of carers, especially those who were living on pensions with no capacity to increase their incomes.
• Carers wanted more financial and social work support. Payments to kinship carers appeared to be inconsistent.

Prof. Bob Broad, co-author of the study, said: " Kinship care scarcely features in social work training, and in policy terms it is almost invisible. Yet, the evidence from our research suggests that placing young people within their extended families is popular with both sides of the arrangement and a viable alternative to being placed in state care.

"Given the recent increase in the number of children, especially teenagers, being placed in care and the growing shortfall in the number of foster parents, it is surely time that kinship care was given the attention and resources it deserves. In our view, there is a strong case for kinship carers – many of whom are grandparents and pensioners – being offered the same level of financial and social work support as foster carers."

The report will be launched at a conference in London on Monday 10th December to be chaired by Sir William Utting, Deputy Chair of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and a former Chief Inspector of Social Services (see note to editors for details).

Sir William said: "It is important to return social work practice to utilising the resources of the extended family for bringing up children who cannot be cared for by their parents."