Addresses the role that kinship care plays in ensuring that children of color have the stability and continuity that their families and communities can provide. Developed by the Race Matters Consortium, this position paper gives social workers and child welfare professionals information about: (1) the growth in kinship care in the United States; (2) the tradition of kinship care in communities of color; (3) kinship care as a tool for preserving families; (4) the emergence of formal kinship care in the child welfare system; (5) kinship care as a permanency option; and (6) services for kinship families. Policies that support kinship care include: recognizing the needs of the family, regardless of the type of care arrangement that is made for the children; ensuring adequate financial support and services to meet the individualized needs of children and kinship families; recognizing subsidized guardianship as a permanency option; requiring agencies and programs that serve kinship families to develop an integrated set of policies, practices, and procedures to enable them to respond to families in a culturally relevant manner; and providing kinship families who assume permanent responsibility for their relative children with a range of post-permanency services and supports.
