Kinship Care

What is Kinship Care?

Kinship Care is the temporary placement of children in a safe, nurturing family environment with relatives or extended family members, when their parents cannot care for them. If possible, foster children are returned to their birth families, or through adoption, placed permanently with another family. Kinship care provides 24-hour care until the child can be reunited with his/her parents or adopted by another family.

Relative and Extended Family Caregivers

Relative and extended family (kinship) caregivers are a very important source of support for children when they are not able to remain safely in their own homes. They share their lives and provide a nurturing home environment for children while their parents receive counseling, parenting education and other services to enable them to be reunited with their children.

As a kinship caregiver, you can provide the healing, support and guidance that can change a lifetime for an at-risk child. In some cases, kinship foster placement can become a forever home for a child in need.  Foster Care Licensing provides the following services:

  • resource family recruitment
  • licensing of resource family homes.
  • training and support for resource families
  • enforcement of foster care regulations