Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what advice her Department gives to local authorities on supporting grandparents who act as kinship carers for one or more of their family's children.

The Department for Education issued ‘Family and Friends Care: Statutory Guidance for Local Authorities’ in 2011. This guidance is clear that children and young people unable to live with their parents who are in the care of family and friends should receive the support which they and their carers need to safeguard and promote their welfare, whether or not they are looked after. It sets out a requirement on local authorities to develop clear, easily accessible policies to describe how they will assess and support children in the care of family and friends.