Providing support for individuals undertaking kinship care
Kinship care is a remarkable act of kindness and selflessness, offering a home to someone else's child. These children often come from challenging circumstances where their parents were unable to provide adequate care. Nurturing the role of a kinship carer can sometimes leave you feeling as though there is little time to seek support or replenish your own well-being.
However, it is crucial not to dismiss or suppress feelings of struggle or negativity, as they can accumulate and hinder your own strength and resilience. At Be Charity Group, we are here to offer the support you need during this important journey. We understand the unique challenges and emotions that come with kinship care.
Remember, taking care of yourself is equally important as caring for the child in your charge. It's vital to seek support, find ways to refill your own emotional tank, and address any difficulties you may be facing. Together, we can provide resources and assistance to empower you in your role as a kinship carer, ensuring the well-being and happiness of both yourself and the child under your care.
Websites Offering Support:
Kinship “Foster” Carers
is run by Kinship Carers for Kinship Carers. They are unable to offer legal advice but can offer you knowledge, experience and friendship as well as pointing you in the right direction regarding legal matters and other avenues of support for you and the children you care for.
Grandparents Plus
through its advice service and support network, helps kinship carers by providing support, giving independent guidance and connecting them with each other. The support programmes are developed with kinship carers for kinship carers, and are changing lives by strengthening families across the country.
Books on this subject:
The Deepest Well
A pioneering physician reveals how childhood stress leads to lifelong health problems and what we can do to break the cycle.
When a young boy walked into Dr Nadine Burke Harris’s clinic he looked healthy for a preschooler. But he was seven, and hadn’t grown a centimetre since a traumatic event when he was four. At that moment Dr Burke Harris knew that her gut feeling about a connection between childhood stress and future ill health was more than just a hunch – and she began her journey into groundbreaking research with stunning results.
Two thirds of us have experienced at least one adverse childhood experience, from the likes of bereavement and divorce to abuse and neglect. In The Deepest Well Dr Burke Harris reveals the science behind childhood adversity and offers a new way of understanding the adverse events that affect us throughout our lifetime. Based on her own groundbreaking clinical work and public leadership, Dr Burke Harris shows us how we can disrupt this cycle through interventions that help retrain the brain and body, foster resilience, and help children, families, and adults live healthier, happier lives.
The Connected Child
Written by two research psychologists specializing in adoption and attachment, this book will help you:
- Build bonds of affection and trust with your adopted child
- Effectively deal with any learning or behavioral disorders
- Discipline your child with love without making him or her feel threatened
One of the Family: A Handbook for Kinship Carers
This handbook aims to give families and friends who are kinship carers, or may become kinship carers, information about the choices they can make, the assessment process, the legal framework, the child care system, the support they can expect and the financial help available.
It discusses some of the most common problems faced by kinship carers who have to balance the interests of the child, and the child. Informed by the experiences of many carers who are looking after children in this situation, this is an extremely useful and inspiring book.
My Hidden Chimp
Professor Steve Peters explains neuroscience in a straightforward and intuitive way – offering up 10 simple habits that we as adults and children should have in our arsenal to deal with everyday life.
They include:
– Smiling
– The importance of talking through your feelings
– Learning how to say sorry
– Knowing how to ask for help
By also explaining the developing ‘chimp’ brain in children, he shows us how 10 habits can help children to understand and manage their emotions and behaviour. These 10 habits should and can be retained for life.
Mother Bunny and the Bad Plants: a story of kinship care for small children
Depending how you count, about 3-5% of children in the USA live with their grandparents or other relatives. Some of them live there because their parents have drug problems. Most of them arrive at grandma and grandpa’s home when they are very young. This book is for them. The book is kid-focused, and has a happy ending.
Inside Kinship Care
Kinship care is a major part of foster care, yet there are distinct issues that arise in care involving family rather than ‘stranger’ foster carers. This book takes an in-depth look at what goes on ‘inside’ kinship care. It explores the dynamics and relationships between family members that are involved in kinship care, including mothers, grandparents, siblings and the wider family. Chapters also discuss issues such as safeguarding, assessment, therapy, encouraging permanence, placement breakdown, support groups, and cultural issues. The final part of the book looks at kinship care from an international perspective, with examples from New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and the United States. Drawing on a range of theoretical perspectives and with contributions from different branches of kinship care, this book provides an invaluable overview of the issues involved and how to provide effective support. It will be essential reading for all those working in the kinship care field, including social workers, therapists, counsellors, psychologists and family lawyers.
Grandparents Raising Grandchildren: Expanding Your View: A Guidebook for the Kinship Caregiver
Numbers of grandparents caring for grandchildren continue to increase. Circumstances may vary, but grandparents often share similar challenges and unique strengths. Using this book encourages grandparent caregivers to expand their views about their not-so-new role through: • Short readings • Creative activities • Relevant examples • Personal reflections This fast paced resource provides a weekly dose of wisdom, insight and ways to reaffirm your commitment to the critical job you’ve undertaken: that of caregiving grandparent.
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