Kinship Caregiving: The Original Family Preservation
Have you recently become or are you considering becoming a kinship caregiver? Kinship caregivers could be family members or friends of a child. What makes them “kin” is that they usually have an established relationship with the parent or child but are not the child’s biological parents. Many are grandparents or great-grandparents or other relatives of a child. Kinship carers are very important to all of us as they step in to love, care and provide for a child who would otherwise go to foster care. Kinship caregivers are the unsung heroes of family preservation. I say unsung because they do not get the financial support they deserve. They also struggle deeply with bureaucracy such as custody, child support, government benefits, and childcare. On top of providing basic needs, sometimes a kinship carer's immediate family does not provide the emotional and practical support that was hoped for. Many are faced with tough decisions such as removing custody from their own child. If