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A Four-Nation Comparison of Kinship Care in the UK: The Relationship between Formal Kinship Care and Deprivation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 July 2018

Claire McCartan ,
Lisa Bunting ,
Paul Bywaters ,
Gavin Davidson ,
Martin Elliott  and
Jade Hooper
Claire McCartan
Affiliation:
School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work, Queen's University Belfast E-mail: c.j.mccartan@qub.ac.uk
Lisa Bunting
Affiliation:
School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work, Queen's University Belfast E-mail: l.bunting@qub.ac.uk
Paul Bywaters
Affiliation:
Centre for Applied Childhood, Youth and Family Research, University of Huddersfield E-mail: p.bywaters@hud.ac.uk
Gavin Davidson
Affiliation:
School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work, Queen's University Belfast E-mail: g.davidson@qub.ac.uk
Martin Elliott
Affiliation:
CASCADE, School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University E-mail: elliottmc1@cardiff.ac.uk
Jade Hooper
Affiliation:
Faculty of Social Science, University of Stirling E-mail: jade.hooper@stir.ac.uk
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Abstract

The practice of extended family and friends helping to care for children when their parents are unable to is an enduring tradition in many cultures. Kinship care provides the largest proportion of out of home care in Western society but many of these carers experience poverty and deprivation, and do not receive comparable levels of support, financial or professional, to other placement types. This study provides UK evidence for the relationship between kinship care and deprivation and examines how the welfare state frames kinship care in policy and practice.

Keywords

Child welfarelooked after children (LAC)deprivationfour nationkinship care
Type
Themed Section on Families, Social Work and the Welfare State: Where Contemporary ‘Family’ Meets Policy and Practice
Information
Social Policy and Society , Volume 17 , Issue 4 , October 2018 , pp. 619 - 635
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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