Discusses assessment and support issues surrounding kinship care. With special child welfare waivers, which permit the use of federal funds to support the care of children when relatives have taken legal guardianship, states have created formal, subsidized guardianship arrangements that demonstrate improvements over previous systems. Key dimensions of kinship care include maintaining sibling group ties in a kinship care environment as well as important family relationships necessary for a child’s growth and development, ensuring that children remain in their family culture, and providing continuity of care, stability, and permanency. Guiding principles in assessment decisions and support activities include recognizing kinship care as a unique and separate child welfare service, ensuring that child welfare staff receive training specific to kinship care, providing family-focused and child-centered services, making decisions collaboratively with the family, using best practices, and including all family members in a comprehensive assessment of strengths and resources. Such an assessment should not only take into account the child?s needs, but also involve the child as a participant in the process. Child welfare workers conducting assessments should focus on the ability of the caregiver to meet the immediate and ongoing needs of the children and should ensure that caregivers understand those needs.
