Kinship Care and Grandparent Kinship Carers: messages from research. Presentation fro the Children in Wales Grandparent & Kinship Carers Conference held in Cardiff March 31st 2011

1. Kinship Care & grandparent kinship
carers: messages from research
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2. Who has been brought up in
kinship care?
Morgan Freeman
Oprah Winfrey
Barack Obama
Pierce Brosnan
Tammy Wynette Al Pacino my cousin 2

3. Aims of my presentation
1. To highlight key research findings
2. To discuss the impact on grandparents
of being a 24/7 kinship carer
3. To examine what services help?
4. To argue that the government's
approach to supporting kinship care is
indicative of its take on Big Society
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4. Section One Kinship Care-A
Care-
multiplicity of arrangements
• Fostered by family or friend
• Special guardianship
• Residence order
• Family network support
• Informal kinship care-no known to LAS
care-
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5. Recent changes-CYPA
changes-
2008 & kinship care
• The restriction on the local authority
providing financial assistance only in
exceptional circumstances (CYPA,
1989, S 17) has been removed
• The rights of relatives to apply for a
RO or SGO are extended without
needing the court’s permission
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6. Managing care proceedings
and new guidance
• The Court protocol for managing care
proceedings, known as the Public Law Outline
(2008) to local authorities requires family and
friends care options to be explored before
care proceedings are started.
• Statutory guidance for family and friends
England published in March 2010. Wales and
other UK countries to produce their own.
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7. CLA in Wales by placement
year ending 31 March 2010 (5,160)
4% 4%
4%
9%
16%
63%
Non relative foster placement
FF foster placement
Placed with own parents or other with parental responsilbility
Children's Homes
Placed for Adoption
Other
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8. Who are the carers? N=30
16
14
12
10 great grandparent
grandparent
8
aunt/uncle
6 friend of family
4
2
0
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9. Key Issues for kinship carers
• Emotional and relationship costs
• Financial costs
• Physical costs for older kinship carers
• Managing contact with birth parents
• Worrying about the future
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10. Reasons children in kinship care
20
18
16
14 Substance misuse
12 Neglect/physical
abuse
10
Death of parent
8
Mental health
6 parents
4
2
N=30
0
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11. KEY THEMES for young people in
kinship care (n=20)
20
15
10
5
0
Feelings Feelings Change
Contact Sense
about about in living
with of
current safety situation
family identity
living
situation
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12. Negatives -from children
living in kinship care
• Limits on freedom inside/outside the house
• Financial hardship
• Transition to independence
• Lack of understanding about their placements
• Loss and change - adjusting to 2 households
• Contact issues re parents and siblings
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13. Positives -from children living in
kinship care
• Good to be ‘rescued’ from LA care
• Feel safe and safer than before
• Can maintain family, siblings and friends relationships
• Feel more settled, loved, cared for
• Family supports /more committed to education /
ambition / achievements
• Sustain self–esteem, identity & racial heritage
self–
• Feeling safe with grandmother
Q Understanding impact on grandparents’ lives ?
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14. What works in kinship care ?
Measuring outcomes
Measures used
• Placement stability
• Placement quality
• Relationship quality
• Child well-being
well-
(Hunt et al, 2008)
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15. Protective Factors
Protective factors associated with
better outcomes-the following were
outcomes-
statistically significant variables in
terms of providing placement
stability
• Placement with grandparent, child’s
acceptance of care, younger children
in the household (Hunt et al , 2008)
• What about the impact on Grandparents?
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16. Section Two
‘Grandparents Voices’
Research Project for the
Grandparents Association
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17. Three groups of grand-parents in the
grand-
Grandparents Voices study
• Those who were kinship carers*
• Those who provided significant levels of child
care (30+ hours per week)
• Those who were denied access to their grand-
grand-
children
• The research was promoted on the
www. begrand.net grandparents web site as well
as through direct mailings, GPA, FRG
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18. Prior Situation and Court Order
• 70% of the grandchild’s birth parents were previously
living apart prior to their child being placed with their
grandparents in kinship care
• It was much more likely that the grandchildren were
living with their mother (42% of cases) than with
both parents (22%) or their son (2%) prior to living in
kinship care.
• 75% subject to a court order of which 65% had
Residence Orders, 21% had SGOs and 9% looked
after in relative foster care.
• The research study highlights the supports needed
by those groups
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19. What are the reasons for these
grandchildren being in kinship care?
The highest ranked answers, in rank order
• 66% gave substance misuse -main
reason
• 44% gave child protection concerns -2nd
main reason
• 50% gave mental health problems as 3rd
highest reason
Q Impact on grandparents quality of life?
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20. The impact of being a
grandparent kinship
carer on quality of life (n= 480)
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21. Quality of life issues-summary
issues-
• Across 749 quality of life responses 96%
revealed that the kinship carer’s quality or
life and relationships had not improved.
• 3/4 of the kinship carers were working full
time prior to becoming a kinship carer. Since
that time just under 1/3 are working, of whom
6/10 working part-time.
part-
• Financial circumstances & a range of quality
of life measures indicate that grandparents’
circumstances are getting worse.
• Q How are relationships effected?
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22. Impact on relationships of being a
grandparent kinship carer (n=269)
NOTE Only 1% of answers indicated that these relationships had
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‘remained the same’ or ‘improved’

23. Impact on relationships
• For most grandparents the relationship with
their partners and spouses provides
considerable support
• Where there are grandchildren living in
kinship care with their grandparent (s) the
majority of all grandparents’ pre-existing
pre-
relationships change significantly and
detrimentally, at the very least, for the
duration of the kinship care arrangement.
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24. What grandparents said to us
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25. Research Findings
More on relationships
• Those very relationships which prior to the
placement provided support, actual or
potential soured and worsened in a significant
majority of cases reported here.
• The only relationship reported as having
improved was that between the grandchild
and the grandparent.
Q So what agencies actually helped?
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26. Agencies Providing Help-
Help-
Grandparents Views
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27. Key questions raised by the study
• Q What cost to their health and well
being can or should grandparent kinship
carers bear? And
• Q What services help grandparent
kinship carers?
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28. Section Three
So what supports
are needed?
• Give carers recognition for the job they do
• Facilitate fair and adequate financial support
• Provide accessible and friendly family-led assessment
family-
and support services
• Offer direct work and groupwork with the children
• Provide casework/ groupwork support for carers
• Offer help with managing contact with parents if
required
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29. What more needs to
be done?
done?
• Value kinship care as a positive resource for children
and see carers as a resource to be nurtured
• Develop an appropriate family-led framework for
family-
assessment and support of kinship carers
• Develop education services as a major source of
support for kinship children to build resilience
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30. How best to support
kinship placements?
• Consider kinship care as 1st choice for
stability
• Get to know the child
• Consider all the options
• Know the law and mind the guidance
• Work with the whole kinship network
• Be aware of alliances, conflicts in family
• Be prepared to support kinship placements
• Recognise the challenges of contact
(Argent, H, 2009)
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31. Summary of
research findings
• Kinship care increasing and being valued
• Grandparents, predominantly grandmothers
are the largest group of kinship carers
• It needs to be assessed as to whether it
is the right option for the child
• Kinship carers/children- services needed
carers/children-
• It involves new policies, ways of working
• Governments are reluctant to invest
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32. Section Four
Finally –Some
Outstanding Questions
• With the advent of a new administration in
2010 and the ‘Big Society’, will it be a case of
‘back to the family’ again for kinship care?
• OR can the ‘Big Society’ continue to embrace,
and extend the established ‘shared care-
care-
shared responsibility’ philosophy, or social
contract if you will, between the state, the
individual and the family about
responsibilities, duties and rights?
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33. Kinship care references
• Aldgate, J and McIntosh, M (2007) Looking after the family,
Social Work Inspection Agency, Edinburgh
• Argent, H (2009) Supporting kinship placements, BAAF
• Broad, B (2010) Grandparents Voices, Grandparents’
Association
• Broad, B, (2007) Kinship care; what works- who cares?
works-
Social Work and Social Sciences Review, 23, 2
• Broad, B and Skinner, A, (2005) Relative Benefits: placing
children in kinship care-a good practice guide. BAAF
care-
• Broad, B (2007) Kinship Care, Save the Children Fund
• Hunt, J, Waterhouse, S, and Lutman, E (2008) Keeping them
in the family, BAAF, London
• Farmer, E & Moyers, S (2008). Kinship care, Jessica Kingsley
• Talbot, C & Calder, M, eds. (2006) Assessment in kinship
care.
care. RHP
• Wade, J, et al Special Guardianship in Practice, BAAF
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34. My contact details
Professor Bob Broad
Email broadb@lsbu.ac.uk
Institute of Social Science Research
Families and Social Capital Group
Web Address
www.lsbu.ac.uk/families
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