Licensing Reforms Benefit Children and Families in Kinship Care

In the past year, 16 states and tribes have revised their fos­ter care licens­ing require­ments to improve sup­port for kin­ship care­givers and the chil­dren placed with them.

These juris­dic­tions are the first to cre­ate and imple­ment kin-spe­cif­ic licens­ing rules since the Admin­is­tra­tion for Chil­dren and Fam­i­lies allowed states and tribes to sim­pli­fy the path­way to approval, which occurred in 2023. As a result, more kin­ship care­givers may become licensed and gain access to finan­cial assis­tance and vital sup­port services.

“The rapid uptake of these stan­dards shows how ready and eager juris­dic­tions are for this flex­i­bil­i­ty to help sup­port their goals of child wel­fare trans­for­ma­tion through a kin-first cul­ture,” said Ana Bel­tran, direc­tor of the Grand­fam­i­lies & Kin­ship Sup­port Net­work at Gen­er­a­tions Unit­ed, a leader among kin­ship orga­ni­za­tions devel­op­ing best prac­tices and resources to help states adapt the fed­er­al rule.

With sup­port from the Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion, Maryland’s Depart­ment of Human Ser­vices (DHS) intro­duced stream­lined licens­ing in Decem­ber 2024 as part of a larg­er effort to make kin place­ments the pre­ferred option for chil­dren who can­not stay in their orig­i­nal home. This statewide shift in phi­los­o­phy, pol­i­cy and prac­tice — an ini­tia­tive called Fam­i­ly Mat­ters — is designed to ensure that young peo­ple and their fam­i­lies have access to the con­nec­tions and resources they need to thrive.

Law­mak­ers laid ground­work for Fam­i­ly Mat­ters by expand­ing the state’s def­i­n­i­tion of kin to include not just blood rel­a­tives but also adult fam­i­ly friends whom a child knows and trusts.

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Source: Youth Today