Kinship carers step up in times of crisis – it’s time we stood up for them

When Natalie had the call asking her to take care of her 10-week-old nephew in August 2022, as his parents were no longer able to look after him, she had just been offered a two-year contract working at a school as a teaching assistant. But this comes at enormous cost – most kinship carers haven’t expected or budgeted to be financially responsible for a child.” open image in gallery Sam Turner of charity Kinship: ‘Huge numbers of kinship carers are having to leave work permanently’ Having quit her job, Natalie spent all her time going through care proceedings for her nephew in addition to caring for her own two children, who were 13 and 10. I would have been happier, instead of panicking about the future and my nephew, and I would have had time to bond and get to know each other without having to worry about money.” Following new research, in which 68 per cent of carers said their employers do not offer support to kinship carers – such as paid leave or flexible working – the charity Kinship is urging the government to include statutory paid leave in its promised National Kinship Care Strategy, which is due by the end of 2023. “Our biggest concern is that a lack of proper financial support for kinship families will ultimately lead to kinship carers being unable to continue caring for the children,” said Turner. “It’s massively unfair that kinship carers are not entitled to the same statutory entitlements, such as paid leave and flexible working, as adopters and birth parents,” Natalie concluded.