Key Takeaways:

• Kinship care—placing children with relatives or close family friends—can support child safety and well-being.
• Emerging evidence supports that kinship care can promote high placement stability and lower system costs compared to non-relative foster care or group care.
• Kinship navigation programs provide referrals and resources, and help caregivers to overcome barriers to service access, which can reduce burdens on caregivers, promote stable placements, and reduce more costly placements.

When home conditions become unsafe, children may have to live with someone other than their parents. Kinship care is one placement that situates children with relatives (e.g., grandparents) or close family friends, helping them stay connected to people they already know and trust. As of 2024, over 2 million children (4%) were being raised in kinship family placements. Kinship navigation programs provide guidance, case management, and service referrals that help caregivers meet children’s needs. The Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA) allows states to use Social Security Title IV-E foster care funding from the federal government to resource evidence-based kinship navigation services. The goal is to prevent the entry of children into foster care. As states work to strengthen placement stability and manage rising system costs, kinship navigation offers a promising, family-centered option grounded in growing evidence.

Kinship Care: Definition and Differences with Traditional Foster Care

Kinship care keeps children with familiar adults and can help children stay close to their schools and other established support systems.

• Kinship care places children with relatives or close family friends (“fictive kin”) and can be formal (through child welfare) or informal (arranged outside the child welfare system). The majority of kinship placements are informal arrangements made between family members.
• In comparison, traditional foster care places children with licensed, unrelated foster parents who follow different training, home requirements, and standardized supervision rules.
• Kinship navigation programs, such as the Kinship Services Network (KSN), offer case management, referrals, benefits navigation, and caregiver support to help families maintain stable placements.

However, kin caregivers often face fewer training requirements and less support compared to licensed non-relative foster parents, which can affect placement stability.

• Kin caregivers frequently receive less training because many kin placements occur quickly or informally and do not go through the full licensing pathway.
• Non-relative foster parents typically complete mandatory pre-service trainings, home studies, inspections, and ongoing training requirements. These expectations may not be required when children are placed with kin.
• Licensing differences can lead to disparate access to benefits for kin caregivers, making it harder for them to meet children’s needs without navigation support.
• Limited support can increase caregiver stress, especially for children with medical, behavioral, or developmental needs.

Kinship Navigation and Child and Family Outcomes

Growing evidence suggests that kinship placements supported by navigation services demonstrate strong placement stability and improved caregiver capacity.

• In the KSN evaluation, 99% of children remained with their kin caregivers and out of the child welfare system at the 12-month follow-up, showing extremely high stability.
• KSN caregivers reported improved social support and better access to community resources after receiving navigation services.
• Foster parents (including kinship caregivers) caring for children with special health and mental health needs describe significant challenges meeting service demands; navigator programs can help caregivers access needed supports and feel more prepared.

Cost of Kinship Navigation

Available evidence suggests that kinship navigation can be cost-saving and cost-effective, with lower placement-related costs than non-kin foster care or group care. As one example study:

• The KSN evaluation found:
  • KSN program costs were less than half those of entering a child into formal dependency proceedings (in Florida).
  • Non-relative foster care cost 6 times more than KSN for comparable time periods.
  • Group care cost over 21 times more than KSN, representing substantial potential savings.
• The federal FFPSA law provides a 50% funding reimbursement of evidence-based kinship navigation services as a way to prevent foster care entry among at-risk families and associated costs.

Policy Options

Policymakers can strengthen stability and reduce costs by supporting kin caregivers through navigation, training access, and structured evaluation.

1. Select evidence-based kinship navigation services from the federal clearinghouse.

• • Prioritize programs with comprehensive, easy-access supports such as case management, benefits navigation, and referral support (e.g., to physicians or mental health counselors).
  • Reduce administrative barriers so kin caregivers can enroll in services quickly, especially during urgent placements.

2. Improve access to licensing and training for kin.

• • Offer streamlined licensing pathways for kin who want access to training and financial supports available to non-relative foster parents.
  • Provide flexible training options that fit kin caregivers’ schedules and reflect the rapid timelines of many kin placements.
  • Monitor impacts on placement stability and caregiver preparedness.

3. Pilot and rigorously evaluate navigator programs, especially for children with higher needs.

• • Test kinship navigator models for children with complex behavioral, medical, or developmental needs to help caregivers coordinate services and maintain stable placements.
  • Track caregiver preparedness, satisfaction, and children’s access to services.
  • Build evaluation into pilots by including comparison groups, cost-tracking, and at least 12 months of follow-up to measure stability, service access, and fiscal impact.