Children placed with kinship carers through care proceedings

This article presents the messages for policy and practice arising from a study of outcomes for children in kinship care carried out by Oxford University's Centre for Family Law and Policy (J Hunt, S Waterhouse, E Lutman, Keeping them in the family: outcomes for abused and neglected children placed with family or friends carers through care proceedings (BAAF, 2008)). The study examined outcomes for all children (113) from two English local authorities, placed with kin as the result of care proceedings between 1995 and 2001, following them up in 2004/05 using data from Social Services files and interviews with kinship carers, social workers and children (data was also collected on 31 children, aged under 5 at the end of proceedings, placed with unrelated carers). The study was funded by the Department for Education and Skills (now the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF)) as part of its Quality Protects Initiative, and sought to assess how far kinship placements met one of the key objectives of that programme: to ensure children are securely attached to carers capable of providing safe and effective care for the duration of childhood. A summary of the research can be found on the DCSF website (www.dfes.gov.uk/). The purpose of this article is to highlight the implications of specific key findings for policy and practice.