Partnering With Relatives for Kinship Care
Creating a Family: Talk about Adoption, Foster & Kinship Care
03/26/25
•52m
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Why is kinship care important, and what are some of the challenges? Our guests are Gregory Jones, a granddad raising five grandkids from birth to now ranging in age from 9 to 12; Ana Beltran, an attorney, and director of the Grandfamilies & Kinship Support Network: A National Technical Assistance Center; and Erica Burgess, a social worker with over 25 years of experience in child welfare, specializing in kinship care.
In this episode, we discuss:
- How common is kinship care throughout the US—both formal (child welfare involved) and informal?
- Grandparents raising grandkids or aunts and uncles raising nephews and nieces is often complicated and comes with a mix of challenges and blessings.
- What are some of the blessings?
- What are some of the challenges?
- Managing the relationship between the caregiver and the parents.
- What are some common challenges in this relationship?
- What are some common boundaries that need to be set in kinship care?
- Lack of preparation and training for raising kids who have experienced trauma, neglect, prenatal exposure to alcohol or drugs, etc.
- Lack of financial support.
- How can social workers and child welfare professionals make sure that kinship caregivers get the full extent of financial support?
- Access to resources. What are some typical resources that kinship caregivers should ask about and that child welfare agencies should consider providing?
- We see a significant variance between jurisdictions in social workers and child welfare professionals in the embrace of placing children with relatives.
- Why are some social workers hesitant to place kids with relatives?
- From an ethical perspective, why must social workers open their minds to looking for kin first when removing a child from their parents?
- Placing children with kin rather than the state taking custody. (Hidden foster care/kinship diversion)
- Legal considerations
- Ethical considerations with the hidden foster.
Great resources:
- Grandfamilies & Kinship Support Network: A National Technical Assistance Center
- Grandfacts: State Fact Sheets for Grandparents and Other Relatives Raising Children
- NCKinshipFamilies.org - Legal Permanency Options for NC Kinship Families website
- Free Kinship Legal Clinic
- Kinship Caregivers and the Child Welfare System
- Online Kinship Support Group - email tracy@creatingafamily.org
Please leave us a rating or review. This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.
Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:
- Weekly podcasts
- Weekly articles/blog posts
- Resource pages on all aspects of family building
Previous Episode
What Do I Call My Child's Birth Mother? - Weekend Wisdom
March 22, 2025
•6m
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Question: My husband and I are in the process of growing our family through adoption. It would be a domestic infant adoption, and we are hoping to cultivate a long-term relationship with the future baby’s birth family. I noticed that whenever I feel hesitation when thinking about openness, I can bring myself back down to earth by recognizing that any hesitation results from making things about ME, not the baby or birth family.
The one question I can’t seem to navigate on my own is this...what do adopted children call their birth mothers? How do I, as a future adoptive mom, refer to the baby’s birth mom? I want to respect the baby and birth mom; any insight on how families handle this would be so helpful!
Resources:
- What Does Your Child Call Her Birth Mother?
- 5 Tips for Navigating Sticky Situations with Birth Parents
- Positive Adoption Language & Why It Matters
Please leave us a rating or review. This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.
Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:
- Weekly podcasts
- Weekly articles/blog posts
- Resource pages on all aspects of family building
Next Episode
Trauma and the Teen Years
March 29, 2025
•11m
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Question: I wish I had known what to expect when a child with trauma hit the teen years. Maybe a book suggestion of what to expect or resources on what may show up and how to handle it. Puberty and the teen years have hit our family HARD. I also notice other families with adopted children going through the same or similar things. ~Rebecca from Kansas
Resources:
- Therapy Resources for Adoptive, Foster, and Kinship Families
- Center for Parent and Teen Communication
- Parenting in the Eye of the Storm: The Adoptive Parent’s Guide to Navigating the Teen Years
Please leave us a rating or review. This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.
Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:
- Weekly podcasts
- Weekly articles/blog posts
- Resource pages on all aspects of family building
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