09/22/2026
September is National Kinship Care month.
Kinship care is considered one of the optimal permanency options for youth in the child welfare system, as it keeps children “in the family”.
I experienced both non-kinship and kinship placements. I was adopted into a kinship placement with my bio grandpa and step grandma. My Da and Nana or Dad and Mom.
The thing about kinship care, from lived experience, is that that it’s treated as a “okay you’re set” kind of situation when in reality there has usually been a significant amount of family trauma surrounding placements like these. There’s always trauma in foster care- of course.
But in kinship, potentially a different sustained trauma… From the child’s trauma to the point of view of the older family members watching another family member fail that child, hurt themselves, etc.
My Dad watched his only biological daughter struggle her whole life. He struggled with that, and had to make a VERY hard decision to cut her off completely for my wellbeing. I didn’t always understand that decision. We just didn’t talk about Cathy. He loved his daughter very much. It was a complicated relationship. He loved me too.
I’d accidentally get called Cathy sometimes. That was, confusing to say the least. There were times things that she did growing up bled into how I was raised. Ultimately- my parents were also just living for the first time too and trying to do their best. They were harsh and overly strict sometimes. They didn’t know how to raise a child who had experienced food insecurity, for example and there were some other generational differences that made being raised by them very difficult at times.
They apologized when I was older and in college for some of the ways they reacted as I was growing up. I love my parents dearly, but there was a time we had a hard relationship. I know this to be true for many of my peers who came out of kinship placements.
That is why I LOVE programs like Worthy & Known Family Project’s Grands Raising Greats classes- which supports kinship care placements even after the “happy ending” permanency. Because yes- it’s good a child is safe and out of child welfare, but it’s also important to understand unique traumas and dynamics that come for kinship family units.
A little bit of support goes A LONG way. TBRI goes a long way. Gosh, do I wish we had something like “Grands Raising Greats” when I was growing up and that those types of classes were standard for kinship placements. (FYI, the class isn’t just for grandparents, it’s for aunties, family friends, siblings, cousins, etc. Kinship placements in general). It would’ve saved a lot of arguments and tension to understand each other better in the mental health struggles we were each experiencing in the kinship situation.
I’m grateful for how my permanency story ended in kinship. Just spreading awareness about the grey that exists in that too for National Kinship Month.
If you have a Kinship Story to share, we’d love to hear it- please share below or by DMing us!
