- Conference
- 2025 National Delegate Conference
- Date
- 20 February 2025
- Decision
- Carried
Conference notes that Kinship carers are family or friends who step up, often during an unexpected crisis, to care for a child when their parents are not able to. This may be because the parent has died, is unwell, has gone to prison, is experiencing problems with drugs and alcohol, or are neglectful or abusive.
Kinship carers are usually grandparents, aunts or uncles, brothers or sisters, a step parent, stepbrother or stepsister, or someone who is not related but knows the child well. Whatever their relationship to the child, in that moment a commitment is made. To bring love and hope to a child who has experienced trauma, no matter what.
According to the Kinship Charity recent make or break annual survey 87 percent of Kinship carers are women. With the medium age 55-59, though there is an increase of women under 40.
There are more than 141,000 children in kinship care in England and Wales, 4,249 children in Scotland and 2,199 in Northern Ireland. It is estimated more than one-third of kinship carers are experiencing an income drop of more than 50 percent after stepping up to take on care of a child.
Many Kinship carers and foster carers step up for children sometimes with very little notice, going through varying stages of legal processes which can vary from months to a number of years, attending meetings, court hearings, home visits and checks, transitions times for children to settle in, contact arrangements with parents, medicals etc. For single carers the pressure is even greater.
Unlike those who adopt children, many kinship and foster carers do not have the same protections and rights to time off work, with many making the only choice to either reduce their working hours or leave employment all together, impacting the individual but with the employer also losing experienced staff.
Most local authorities do not have any support for carers within their own organisations with no guidance or policies in place.
Conference calls on the National Executive Council to work with the National Women’s Committee:
1)Encourage branches, and provide necessary information, for them to negotiate with employers to include kinship carers in the adoption leave policy and for employers to become Kinship friendly employers;
2)Consider how to publicise campaigns seeking bargaining wins for kinship carers, so women members are aware and can support;
3)Collate and share best practice on bargaining successes in this area;
4)To work with Labour Link to raise the profile of Kinship Carers and the issues they and foster carers face with the Labour party.