When young people must enter foster care, kinship placements with relatives or close family friends can provide a sense of continuity: connections to history, culture and community. While these placements offer many benefits, they come with unique challenges as caregivers quickly assume new parenting duties, navigating relationships with the children in their care and birth parents while guiding these children through the pain of separation.
As more U.S. child welfare agencies prioritize kinship care, experts like Joseph Crumbley are emphasizing the importance of kinship competency. A licensed clinical social worker, therapist and trainer, Crumbley boasts decades of experience helping caregivers and child welfare professionals understand the complexities of kinship caregiving.
In Maryland, where the Annie E. Casey Foundation supports efforts to improve kinship care, the Baltimore City Department of Social Services has adopted Crumbley’s latest curriculum: The Inherent Strengths in Kinship Families. The training is offered to staff — as well as to caregivers through the organization’s drop-in kinship center — and equips them with strategies for effectively engaging kinship families. It covers topics that may not be covered in non-relative adoptive or foster parent training such as:
- attachment;
- legacy;
- identity;
- healing;
- adaptability; and
- co-parenting.
With support from the Foundation, Crumbley has produced two other valuable resources for the field: Engaging Kinship Caregivers and Coping With the Unique Challenges of Kinship Care. Below, he shares insights that can help child welfare practitioners better support kinship families.