Clive vividly remembers the day when, without warning or time to work out what he was really letting himself in for, he became a kinship carer.
“The social worker left, the door closed and Savannah was lying there in a carry cot, wrapped up in a pink blanket. She looked so calm and so comfy, absolutely oblivious about what’s just happened.
“There was this eerie silence in the house. It was just me and her and a little suitcase with some belongings in it. I burst into tears. I’m a teacher, but training as a teacher does not prepare you for looking after a baby.
“I didn’t know how to change a baby’s nappy, I didn’t have a push chair, I didn’t have a cot, I didn’t know where she was going to sleep. I didn’t have anything.”
A few hours earlier, Clive, a primary school headteacher, had taken a call at work from children’s services. He assumed it would be about one of his pupils, but it was about his six-week-old niece. Would he, as a family member, take her into temporary care?
“So I, quite blase, said: ‘Yeah, no problem at all. I’ll need to put a few things in place, so just give me a couple of days.’ They were like: ‘No, she needs to come to you today. We need to drop her off at four o’clock.’
“I was kind of like: ‘Well, what happens if I don’t say yes today?’ They said they’d have to come up with ‘other options’. So I started to panic: what if she goes into foster care or for adoption? So I said yes – and deal with the consequences later.”
“I went home and just sat there waiting. It was a bit bizarre because I don’t think I’ve ever been home at ۳.۳۰pm on a school day before. And then social care came, dropped her off. And that was that.
“I’d only ever invested in my career. I was career-driven all the time. And then a baby was sprung on me that I’d never planned for.”
Clive, then ۳۲, would now admit he was naive about the consequences of the decision that changed his life. Nine years on, with the “temporary” stay having become permanent, “Uncle Clive” is Savannah’s legal guardian, though she is in regular contact with her birth parents. He adores her, and theirs is a heartwarming kinship success story. She still has the pink blanket. But the path, he admits, while joyful and fulfilling, has not always been smooth.
“I would do it all again. It’s the best thing that could have happened for my niece. But at times it’s been quite isolating and exhausting.”
More than ۱۴۱,۰۰۰ children in England and Wales are like Savannah, being raised by kinship carers. These are normally relatives, like Clive, or family friends who step in to prevent children whose parents can no longer look after them from entering the care system.
Despite the dependence of children’s services on kinship care – twice as many children enter kinship arrangements as are fostered – it remains startlingly informal, with few of the practical, legal and financial supports that accompany fostering or adoption. Often it can seem kinship care is invisible to policymakers.
Clive’s experience – being given just hours to make a momentous decision about whether to take over care of a loved one – is far from unusual. A new survey by the care charity Kinship found that four in ۱۰ carers were given less than an hour to make a decision. A further fifth had less than ۲۴ hours.
Alan and Julie, both ۶۵, were given ۱۰ minutes to decide whether they would care for their severely disabled grandchild Ella, who was then ۱۰ months old. They had just got back home to Leeds after a holiday when they got the call from social services.
“They said: ‘This place closes in ۱۰ minutes. We need to know if you are prepared to take the child on, or they will go into local authority care and you will probably never see them again,’” Alan recalls. “Of course, it was a no-brainer. We said we’d take her on straight away, as we would any of our grandchildren.”
Having made that snap decision, almost all kinship carers report that it changes their lives profoundly. The ramifications are broad and not always immediately appreciated, and official support can be patchy or nonexistent. Overnight, there is an extra person in the home to feed and clothe, who may have suffered trauma and have special needs. There is often an unexpected strain on finances, carer health and wider family relationships.
Many kinship carers give up work, often at the request of social services. Clive was terrified he would have to abandon his career. He worried he wouldn’t be able to pay the mortgage if that happened, and if he lost the house, Savannah would be taken into foster care.
He was lucky: his school was incredibly supportive and allowed him to work flexibly – he recalls bottle-feeding Savannah while delivering a staff training session. He also has a strong network of friends and family. But he knows from support groups organised by Kinship that other carers are not so fortunate.
Leasa, ۵۶, and Oly, ۵۷, from Acton in west London, say that having made the snap decision to care for their nephews, Jake and Luke, they had to fight for support they expected would be automatic. With their own son at home, there were suddenly five people crammed into their tiny two-bed flat, but the council didn’t seem interested.
Oly recalls he had once enquired about becoming a foster carer, but was told he stood no chance because his home was not big enough. That didn’t seem to matter when it came to kinship care. When he asked his housing association landlord about moving to a bigger flat, just before his nephews arrived, there was little sympathy. “I was told: ‘Why are you making your house overcrowded?’”
Leasa and Oly are still in the flat, and for the past five years, they have slept on a sofa bed in the lounge. The room is crammed with storage boxes, and is also where the couple’s nephews do their homework. The arrangement works partly because Oly works night shifts and Leasa, who is a nanny, works during the day.
“Some of our friends sat us down and said: ‘What are you doing? Where will you find the money to look after these kids?’ My mum thought I was crazy,” says Leasa. “What people with the power to do something need to understand is that kinship care really does upend your life, physically and emotionally.”
Looking back, Oly says they were naive. Eventually, with the help of a lawyer, they got a bigger financial allowance. They don’t regret becoming kinship carers for a minute, but the nagging feeling remains that social services exploited their goodwill.
“I feel a bit blindsided by the council,” says Oly. “Sometimes, I think: why didn’t you tell us (about the support available). It didn’t have to be like this, right?”
Clive says: “Kinship carers are like the shadow of the care system. We are not well recognised, not well understood or appreciated, and the system almost takes advantage of that. That’s what it feels like.”
The chief executive of Kinship, Lucy Peake, says kinship carers save £۴.۳bn a year that the state would otherwise spend on children’s homes and foster care.
“Relatives often say they are told that if they don’t step in, children will go into care,” Peake says. “They step up to do the right thing for children. Kinship carers regularly tell us they felt under pressure to make a decision without enough time, information or clarity about the support available to them.
“It’s time their extraordinary contribution to children and our society is recognised,” she adds.
Earlier this year, the government launched a three-year pilot scheme in seven local authorities giving kinship carers a financial allowance in line with foster carers for the first time. Foster carers currently receive between £۱۷۰ and £۲۹۹ a week, depending on where they live and the age of the child. The children’s minister, Josh MacAlister, said the pilot recognised “the vital role [kinship carers] play ensuring families can stay together”.
Kinship welcomes the scheme, but points out it covers just ۵,۰۰۰ children. “Unlike foster carers who receive months of preparation and ongoing support, kinship carers have no notice and get little support, forcing many to lose jobs, pensions, savings and even their own retirement to keep a child they love out of the care system,” says Peake.
Research shows kinship care is not only cheaper than residential or foster care, but more likely to lead to better outcomes for the child while helping them retain a strong sense of family and identity. Yet the latest Kinship survey found many carers were struggling financially, falling into debt and relying on food banks.
For all the stress, many enthuse about the joy kinship caring has brought. Alan talks about lying on the floor next to Ella, watching her smile as he sings Beatles songs to her. She is non-verbal and is only just learning to walk aged nine, but “she has a way of showing us things”, Alan says proudly.
Clive says he is often asked at conferences to name his greatest achievement. Once he would have said turning a school around or becoming a headteacher at ۲۸. Now, he says, “keeping my niece in the family means more than any of those accolades”.
For Oly, “the best thing is when I look at the boys and they are laughing from the heart. They didn’t do that when they first came. They were in shock. So when I see that laughter, and feel those hugs … yeah, that fills my heart.”
