Over 2.4 million children in the United States are in living in kinship care arrangements, in which they are cared for full time by relatives or other adults with whom they have a close relationship (KIDS COUNT Data Center, 2025a). Around 60,000 of those children reside in South Carolina, representing 5 percent of all children in the state (KIDS COUNT Data Center, 2025b). Research tells us that kinship care promotes a sense of belonging, preserves cultural connections, helps children maintain relationships with siblings, improves behavioral and mental health outcomes, strengthens academic performance, and reduces harm associated with childhood trauma (Grandfamilies & Kinship Support Network, 2024; Winokur et al., 2018). However, kinship caregivers often lack support in managing the complexities of raising a relative child, particularly on short notice. Kinship navigator programs support kinship caregivers by providing essential resources, information, and referrals, and several navigator models have been proven to have positive impacts on child and caregiver well-being, caregiver emotional and mental health, and family functioning (Fowler et al., 2023; The Children’s Home, Inc., 2016).
This report presents findings from a rigorous evaluation of the kinship navigator services provided by HALOS, a nonprofit organization that serves kinship caregivers in South Carolina (see text box), from May 2022 to March 2024. The evaluation included both an outcomes study to assess the program’s efficacy, as well as a complementary process study to assess how the model was implemented and to evaluate provider and caregiver satisfaction and feedback on program delivery and participation. The outcome study compared the knowledge, skills, and functioning of caregivers who participated in kinship navigator services at HALOS (treatment group) to those of caregivers who did not (comparison group). We employed a quasi-experimental design using propensity score matching to create a sample of treatment and comparison caregivers matched on personal characteristics (e.g., demographics, baseline scores on outcome measures), allowing us to assess the effectiveness of HALOS’ kinship navigator services. The process study tracked the number and type of referrals caregivers received and included interviews and focus groups with staff who implement the HALOS program, as well as caregivers enrolled in the evaluation.