Kinship care is distinctive full-time caregiving where relatives offer care to children who can’t live with their birth parents and can’t look after themselves. Deciding on whether to be a kinship caregiver is a big decision. Procedures for kinship placements must be followed to evaluate certain things related to fostering. Read on to learn more about kinship care placement.
Types of Kinship Care
There are primarily three types of kinship care:
1. Informal Kinship Care
Informal kinship care refers to when the birth parents choose to keep their children with their friends or family members. Birth parents don’t lose guardianship of the children, but they move them to a different environment.
2. Voluntary Kinship Care
Refers to when birth parents decide to liaise with state officials and give up their children but still retain their guardianship of the kids.
3. Formal Kinship Care
Refers to a circumstance where the state interferes with a family following reviewing reports by child care services.
Benefits of Kinship Care
There are several benefits of placing children in kinship care. They include:
- Kinship care provides the children with emotional stability
- The children are protected from experiencing trauma
- It enhances the children’s relationship with their parents
- The children are allowed to concentrate on their studies
- There’s a high likelihood that siblings will live together, encouraging sibling ties
Challenges That Face Kinship Caregivers
When accepting a posting as a child’s caregiver, it is imperative to confer realistic prospects for the child with your social worker. If you face any challenges, you should contact your social worker to solve the matter. Challenges in kinship care include:
- Looking after a drug-addicted baby or juvenile
- Delays in relative and kinship care placement
- Looking after a juvenile with mental health issues or physical issues
- A child going through an accident or death
- Providing care for a child with behavioral or hygiene issues
- Hitches with birth parents or significant people in the child’s life
- Looking after a child from a culturally and linguistically diverse upbringing
- A child demanding to decamp from your care
- Taking care of a child who reveals an event of abuse that’s unreported
- A child issuing threats to your safety or your family’s safety
- Providing care for a child in trouble with the law
2Ingage provides foster care placement and support services for children in the foster care system in Abilene and Wichita Falls. Contact us to get your journey started with us as a kinship caregiver.