Who Are We?
We are made up of a group of organisations which subscribe to a set of shared aims and beliefs on the issue of family and friends care. We meet regularly to develop a joint policy agenda and agree strategies to promote our aims.
Belief statement
We believe that children and young people are best placed with family and friends where it is in the child’s best interests and safe to do so, and that these families should receive support and help to do this.
Aim and mission statement
The aims of the KCA are to:
- Prevent children from being unnecessarily raised outside of their family network
- Ensure that the opportunities and resources available to children living with kinship carers maximise their chances of positive outcomes
- Secure improved recognition and support for family and friends carers and the children they are raising.
To focus on and enable these objectives to be met we will:
- Raise awareness of the advantages, strengths and opportunity that kinship care provides to children
- Influence policy, service delivery, professional practice and legislation in respect of kinship care and agree an annual work plan which will be reviewed regularly at KCA meetings and by the executive group.
Agenda for Action 2019
The Kinship Care Alliance has published an Agenda for Action setting out recommendations that we think need to be implemented to ensure that children who cannot safely live with their parents have the opportunity to remain within their wider family, and that these arrangements are adequately supported.
Read more about the recommendations of the Agenda for Action here.
General Election 2019 campaign
Around 200,000 children in the UK who cannot live with their parents are being raised by relatives or friends. This is known as kinship care. Children raised by kinship carers have often suffered tragedy or trauma in the care system, yet most get little or no practical or financial support.
The Kinship Care Alliance, a group of organisations with shared aims and beliefs on issues relating to kinship care, asks for your support with its 2019 General Election e-campaign. Please click here to contact your local parliamentary candidates to raise awareness about kinship care, and to ask for their support to help ensure that children who cannot live with their parents have the opportunity to live with loving wider family and friends and get the support they need.
Membership criteria
Membership is open to organisations that:
- Are a legal entity
- Support the KCA aims
- Share KCA’s beliefs and values
- Are committed to tackling discrimination and disadvantage and to promoting equality and the commitment to tackling discrimination, including in respect of (but not restricted to) ethnicity, gender, religious and cultural beliefs, disability, sexuality and age
- Membership is open to individuals with particular expertise, and who will join in an advisory capacity to inform the work of the KCA. Such individuals join in their individual capacity and will not necessarily represent any organisation.
Membership process
The process for applying for, and being granted, membership is:
- The prospective member must make a written request to join the KCA to any member of the KCA executive committee
- The approach must come from a chief executive or equivalent of the applicant organisation
- A copy of the written request shall be circulated to all members of the KCA executive committee
- The application for members shall be determined by the KCA executive committe.
Membership may be reviewed by the executive committee against a code of conduct/protocols document.
KCA chair
Current chair: John Simmonds, Director of Policy and Research at CoramBAAF
KCA executive group
Name: Executive committee
Formation:
- Wider KCA membership shall agree members of executive committee
- When determining who is on the executive committee, KCA members are:
(i) determining the organisation that is sitting on the committee; and
(ii) may also be determining the particular role that a committee member will have (e.g. to provide expertise in relation to a particular issue/area; to lead on a specific stream of committee activity)
- An organisation can have more than one member on the executive committee (one organisation, one vote” and consensus based decision-making will apply however (see below).
Term: 3 years
Size: KCA Chair plus a maximum of 6 others
Decision-making:
- Committee decision-making shall be by consensus on a “one organisation, one vote” basis
- In the absence of consensus, the matter/issue at hand shall go to full membership for further discussion
- External individuals/organisations may be invited to attend to discuss a particular issue or help to inform the committee’s decisions and decision-making.
Frequency and form of meetings:
- One month prior to each full KCA membership meeting
- Meetings to be virtual or in person as appropriate.
Function:
- Agreeing a work plan
- Delivering a work plan
- Evaluation of the work plan
- Promote the engagement of KCA members.
What is kinship care?
Kinship care is ‘any circumstance where a child is in the care of a friend or family member other than their parent’. This is also known as family and friends care. Kinship carers are commonly grandparents, but can be brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, or close family friends, who have stepped in to raise a child who is unable to live with their parents. More than 180,000 children are raised by relatives in the UK and there are others cared for by friends.
Kinship care arrangements can include: kinship foster care, children who are subject to a Special Guardianship Order, Child Arrangements Order or Residence Order, and children living in an informal arrangement where there is no court order (which includes private fostering arrangements).
