Issue: Kinship care

Often the circumstances leading to the consideration of kinship care are related to the inability or unwillingness of the natural parents to care for these children.

The grandparents receive an allowance (if they apply for it) for the child care, but the amount is very inadequate.

Under current legislation, agencies cannot assist unless the child is in need of protection. There are many situations where care by a family member would be the most appropriate plan (called custodial care). The Ministry will not recognize this type of care at the present time, citing legal and philosophical issues.

A Toronto Star article (Oct. 23/02) cites almost 20,000 grandchildren living with grandparents in Ontario.

Definition of Terms

(proposed by the Simcoe CAS Kinship Care Committee):

Includes parents, siblings, relatives, and persons beyond blood ties including godparents, tribe or clan members and best friends - some one who is important to the child. [Relatives Raising Children. An Overview of Kinship Care]

Kinship Care: “The full time nurturing and protection of children who must be separated from their parents by relatives, members of their tribe or clans, godparents, stepparents or other adults who have a kinship bond with a child" [CWLA 1994: 2]

Formal Kinship Care: Formal kinship care occurs where the child has "in care status" with the Society through Temporary Care by Agreement or by court order and is placed by the Society with kin. Also known as "kinship foster care" in some U.S. studies.

Informal Kinship Care: Informal kinship care occurs where the child is being cared for by kin but does not have "in care status" with the Society. The Society may be involved in a supportive role.

In Illinois:
Foster Guardianship in Illinois is a form of subsidized guardianship available to any non-parental caregiver, who permits a permanent commitment to the child outside the child welfare system and without the requirement of adoption.

Financial Assistance

Question: is the financial support available to grandparent (and other kinship) insufficient?

Under Ontario Works, any non-parental caregiver is entitled to approximately $200 per month for one child (and $174 for each additional child) and this payment is available as long as necessary to the caregiver. Such payment, however, compares with the minimum foster care rate for one child at $750 per month. In Illinois, as reported by Margaret Philp in the Toronto Star series, foster guardians (usually grandparents or former foster parents of particular children) receive subsidies from the state of approximately $1000 per month per child and more based on the special needs of the child.

Question: Should financial support to kin be the responsibility of CASs where there are protection concerns?

If the child is already in care, or is found to be in need of protection, a kinship care arrangement might be assisted by way of the foster care system and the 'provisional foster home' concept. In such cases, the family can be approved as a home for a particular child and would then receive all the financial and other support offered to foster parents.

Question: Should financial support to kin be the responsibility of CASs where there are no protection concerns?

The involvement of kin as alternative caregivers could prevent the need for children to come into foster care. Grandparents caring for children frequently manage a situation which would otherwise require prevention intervention; CASs can act to support these families and to assist them as fully as possible, in much the way foster parents are supported.

However, some CASs have raised the concern that if any caregiver were made eligible to automatically receive foster care levels of financial support, the system would be open to significant abuse.

Examples of Kinship care projects

~ Toronto CAS - has proposed that CAS could "top-up" the funds provided by Ontario Works to bring kinship subsidies up to the level of foster care payments, seeking to test the assumption that overall this would be cheaper than having the child enter the foster care system. Social work support would be offered in a manner similar to that of Adoption Probation, that is, based upon the family's request for service. This project has not received funding and remains on hold while awaiting funding for an out-of-care kinship care project, is proceeding with its in-care efforts to involve kin. The significant change to its normal approach will be that kin will be actively and aggressively sought to provide care for related children. While this project will likely cost the same as foster care, it is expected that outcomes for children will be more positive. At the same time, pressure on the foster care system will be reduced.

~ Simcoe CAS - is piloting a project in which informal kinship care is sought for children who are NOT in care. The CAS will negotiate with the caregiver and the parent to provide particular needs identified by the kinship caregiver. Assistance, for example, might be provided for daycare, a bed, a washer, or a winter coat. Toronto CAS indicates that this level and model of intervention is already in place for its appropriate families.

~ Calgary Rocky View in Alberta has a kinship care program for in-care children only. Kin are actively sought even at the Intake level. Families receive a per diem and social work support similar to foster families. Alberta reports that the cost of children in kinship care is NOT lowered, but outcomes for children are improved and foster care resources are less strained. Rocky View has moved at least 60 children from foster care into kinship care since 1998.

~ Illinois kinship care program has moved a significant number of children out of foster care into kinship care homes. Illinois automatically provides subsidies to kinship families, geared to the needs of the child. Cases, which were open for foster care, are able to close now though the subsidies continue for the duration of childhood.

Why Kinship Care?

CASs and their American counterparts seem willing to consider kinship care beyond their regular practices for several reasons:

~ Cost saving. Some hope that assisting families with unusual expenses will allow the kin family to care for the child without the full cost of foster care. Illinois, for example, has been able to remove children from foster care by placing them with kin and providing subsidies. It is presumed that many grandparents and other kin are prevented from offering to care for their related children for financial reasons alone.

~ Outcomes for children. Outcomes have been studied and continue to need further study, but preliminary outcomes indicate that kinship care homes reduce the number of moves for children, are less traumatic for children, permit continuity of care within or close to the family. Kinship families are less likely to adopt children and may experience other difficulties. For example, grandparents may feel conflicted loyalties to both their own children and their grandchildren and elderly grandparents may be significantly challenged to meet the needs of adolescents.

~ Foster care system declining. Many agencies report that they lack foster homes both in number and in ability to match the needs of the children entering care. Placements, which are mismatched, result in more breakdowns and hence additional moves for children. Children who should be served in families (foster care) are too often removed and placed in much more costly group home settings or distant communities based on the unavailability of local homes. Some child welfare officials find that the provision of foster care has itself produced poor outcomes for children who are seen as needing to belong to their own family, if only through their extended family. If financial impediments to-kin were removed, it is possible that more caregivers, who are well suited to the particular needs of their related child, would be available to care for children now in foster care. Calgary Rocky View has since 1998 placed 60 children in kinship care and hopes that number will rise to 80 in the next l year.