{"id":232,"date":"2015-03-15T17:29:20","date_gmt":"2015-03-15T17:29:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/childrens-social-care-law\/?page_id=232"},"modified":"2024-10-24T15:00:15","modified_gmt":"2024-10-24T15:00:15","slug":"family-and-friends-kinship-care","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/childrens-social-care-law\/other-resources\/family-and-friends-kinship-care\/","title":{"rendered":"Family and friends (kinship) care"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kinship care means that a relative or other adult known to the child is caring for them. Under section 81(6) Social Services and Well-being(Wales) Act 2014<\/strong> (previously section 23 (6) (b) Children Act 1989), a local authority placing a looked-after child should give prority to a placement with ‘a relative, friend or other person connected with him’.<\/p>\n

Children in Wales have recently published a guide – Wales-Kinship-Care-Guide-ENGLISH-WEB<\/a><\/p>\n

Most of the resources on the Family Rights Group website<\/a> are useful for kinship carers in Wales but some references to the law relate to England. Similarly, Grandparents Plus<\/a> have advice and support factsheets and guides. Another useful resource for grandparent kinship carers is the Grandparents Legal Centre<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Kinship care might be an informal arrangement. If this continues for an extended period it may come within the regulations for private fostering<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Resources about kinship placements in the context of Pre Proceedings and applications of care orders are available on the Court Orders and Pre Proceedings <\/a>website.<\/p>\n

There is a summary of types of kinship arrangements on this CoramBAAF webpage<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When consulting these websites, it should be noted that there is no requirement in Wales for a local authority to publish a ‘family and friends policy’ as there is in England.<\/p>\n

A formal kinship placement can be one of the following:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kinship carer is an approved foster carer<\/h3>\n

If the child is looked after by the local authority, a family carer will need to be approved as a foster carer, but under Regulation 24 Care Planning, Placement and Case Review (Wales) Regulation 2015\u00a0,\u00a0 where a local authority are satisfied that the immediate placement of a child is necessary, they may place the child with a family member or friend who is not a foster parent for a period not exceeding six days. Under Regs 26-27 this can be succeeded by a temporary placeemnt for up to 16 weeks while the carer is assessed.<\/p>\n

Kinship foster carers are paid foster care allowances.<\/p>\n

Child arrangements order<\/h3>\n

Before April 2014, this was known as a residence order. Applications can be made under section 8 Children Act 1989. The effect of the order is that the person holding the order shares parental responsibility with the parent(s).<\/p>\n

Financial support under this type of order is discretionary.<\/p>\n

Special guardianship orders<\/h3>\n

This require an application to court under section 14A Children Act 1989 and a report to be prepared by the local authority in accordance with regulations<\/a>. The effect is that parental responsibility is shared but it can be exercised exclusively by the special guardian.<\/p>\n

Special guardians may be entitled to financial support. A Code of Practice<\/a> sets out the processes and entitlements of special guardianship orders.<\/p>\n

Where a local authority has applied for a care order and a family member asks to be considered as a carer, a ‘viability assessment’<\/strong> may first be carried out before an in-depth assessment of the suitability of the placement. The purpose of a viability assessment is to assess whether a full assessment should be undertaken, within the court timetable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kinship care means that a relative or other adult known to the child is caring for them. Under section 81(6) Social Services and Well-being(Wales) Act 2014 (previously section 23 (6) (b) Children Act 1989), a local authority placing a looked-after child should give prority to a placement with ‘a relative, friend or other person connected<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1367,"featured_media":0,"parent":482,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-232","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"meta_box":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/childrens-social-care-law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/childrens-social-care-law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/childrens-social-care-law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/childrens-social-care-law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1367"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/childrens-social-care-law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"http:\/\/sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/childrens-social-care-law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/232\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1297,"href":"http:\/\/sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/childrens-social-care-law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/232\/revisions\/1297"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/childrens-social-care-law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sites.cardiff.ac.uk\/childrens-social-care-law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}