New statutory guidance for councils on kinship care standards introduced

Councils have had to consider statutory guidance on the practice – which is where a child lives full-time or most of the time with a relative, friend or connected person – since 2024.

The Department for Education's statutory guidance sets out a framework for supporting kinship families and engaging family networks to meet the needs of children across the children’s social care system, including those who cannot live with their parents.

The updated document, issued this month, introduces six new national standards on how local authorities, partners and practitioners should approach kinship care.

The six national kinship standards are:

1. Local authorities provide needs-led support and take a whole-family approach, working with kinship carers, parents and the wider family network to understand and support the child or young person’s best interests.
2. The voice and experiences of kinship children and young people are at the heart of all decision making.
3. Anti-discriminatory and inclusive practice underpin all support provided to kinship families.
4. Local authorities prioritise the safeguarding and wellbeing of children in kinship care, providing appropriate support to kinship carers to help them manage complex family dynamics and arrangements.
5. Local authorities work with a diverse range of kinship families to develop an approach to kinship care and a clear, accessible, comprehensive kinship local offer that serves the entire local kinship community.
6. Integrated, multi-agency support for kinship families is delivered through collaborative practice and system-wide learning, and across local authority boundaries where necessary.

The guidance states that supporting more children to remain safely within their family networks, including in kinship care arrangements, is central to the Department of Education’s efforts to shift children’s social care towards “earlier, more intensive family support, more expert and focused child protection practice, and greater use of family networks to help prevent children from entering local authority care”.

It adds: “Kinship care also plays a vital role in supporting enduring relationships by enabling children to remain in the care of those that know and love them, helping to sustain their sense of identity and belonging. This is central to the ambition of the Department for Education’s Enduring Relationships Programme, which seeks to ensure that every child grows up with a trusted, enduring relationship that provides stability, belonging and support into adulthood, enabling them to feel safe, loved and able to thrive.

“Reflecting these wider ambitions for children’s social care, this guidance makes clear that effective support for kinship care should be recognised as a whole-system responsibility and local authorities should provide clear, accessible, whole-family and needs-led support to kinship families, with children’s voices at the centre of service design and delivery.”

Coram BAAF, which represents professionals working across adoption, fostering and kinship care, has welcomed the changes, stating that the new approach recognises the complexity of kinship care, including safeguarding considerations and changing family relationships with an emphasis on a child-centred and family-led approach.

Adam Carey