Asked by: Kevin Bonavia (Labour - Stevenage)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to help improve (a) the physical and mental health and (b) other aspects of the lives of unpaid and kinship carers.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Kinship carers play an extremely important role in both their kin children’s lives and in the children’s social care system.
The government is committed to working in partnership with local government to support children in care, whether they are being looked after by their community or kinship, foster carers and adoptive parents. The department recognises the challenges many kinship carers face. The government will consider how to most effectively transform the children’s social care system so that it is better delivering for children and families. This will include considering how best to support kinship carers and children in kinship care.
The department will recruit the first ever National Kinship Care Ambassador to advocate for kinship carers and work directly with local authorities to improve services. The ambassador will be appointed in 2024 and will support government and local authorities to keep kinship carers at the heart of their services.
The government is extending the delivery of peer support groups, which will sustain over 140 peer support groups across England where all types of kinship carers, including private foster carers, can come together to share stories, support each other, and exchange advice.
The department is also funding a package of in person and online training and support that all kinship carers across England may access. The service went live in April 2024 and is being delivered by the charity, Kinship.