Youth in care do better when they’re placed with family members or other adults they know and trust, also known as “fictive kin.” But identifying and connecting with extended kin can be a challenge for child welfare agencies.
The practical strategies described in this toolkit can help you locate and engage with family members and trusted adults (collectively called “kin” throughout this toolkit) who can provide placement or ongoing support for youth. These consistent, stable relationships can be critical to the resiliency and long-term health and well-being of young people.
These approaches to kin engagement are part of the Child Welfare Playbook, a collection of strategies maintained by a working group of child welfare professionals from every U.S. state, many Tribes, and most territories. This coalition is focused on surfacing and scaling promising practices to prevent family separation and improve outcomes for children and youth in the system. For more information, visit childwelfareplaybook.com.
The toolkit features almost 20 practical strategies, including recommendations to:
- Ask Children and Youth about Their Kin,
- Use an Expansive Legal Definition of Kin,
- Require Senior Staff Sign-Off for Non-Kin Placements,
- Document and Track Kin Connections, and
- Improve Kin Communications Through User Feedback.
If you have any questions about implementing a strategy in this toolkit or want to learn more about how a jurisdiction named as an example is doing things, we encourage you to reach out to us through this form. We will get back to you quickly to assist in whatever way we can.
