Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to ensure the needs of children placed with kinship carers are fully assessed and supported especially in cases of (a) trauma and (b) disrupted care.

The government is determined to give every child the opportunities they deserve, and kinship carers play a crucial role in delivering this.

In October 2024, the department published the new Kinship Care statutory guidance for local authorities, setting out the support and services local authorities should provide to kinship families, including reaffirming the requirement to publish their local offer of support in a clear, accessible way.

The guidance makes it clear that children and young people should receive the support that they and their carers need to safeguard and promote their welfare. There is no limit on the level of support, including financial support, that local authorities can provide. All local authorities should have in place clear eligibility criteria in relation to the provision of support services.

Regulation 11 of the Special Guardianship statutory guidance states that, in the case of a child who was looked after immediately prior to the making of a Special Guardianship Order (SGO), the child, special guardian or parent has a right to receive an assessment by the local authority for support services, which may include financial support.

In the context of kinship foster carers, when considering whether a relative, friend or other connected person should be approved as a foster carer, account must be taken of the needs, wishes and feelings of the child, and the capacity of the carer to meet those particular needs. The child’s placement plan will set out in detail how the placement is intended to contribute to meeting the child’s needs and should make clear any support or services that the kinship foster carer needs in order to meet the needs of the child.

The Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund helps children who were previously looked after and are now in kinship care under a SGO or a Child Arrangements Order and their families access therapeutic interventions related to trauma and attachment.