Anne Currie, kinship care consultant for the Kinship Care Advice Service, shares her experience of chairing the national Kinship Forum and discusses the importance of networking and sharing good practice on a national scale for practitioners.

Back in 2020, when the world was at a standstill, I was just beginning my new role as a kinship care consultant for KCASS. I was tasked with setting up a national online forum with the purpose of building a practitioner network so workers across the whole of Scotland’s local authority areas could have a place to share good practices; ask questions; and learn from what was happening in other areas as they build and develop services to support the growing number of children and families in kinship care. To do this, I set out to contact every local authority in Scotland and managed to speak with 31 managers and workers from the Highlands to the Borders and everywhere in-between.

I was keen to develop a forum that was honest, non-judgemental and supportive in its approach. As a practitioner who had come to KCASS from a local authority background myself (where I managed a kinship service) I was well aware of the pressures that workers and teams were under, particularly throughout the lockdown.

Inclusive approach

I was able to get a representative from 30 of the 32 local authorities and a few from key voluntary organisations working with kinship carers to attend the forum. It has now been running for over two years and attendance is always high. 

I was aware that there are many different practitioners with a variety of roles and responsibilities working in kinship across Scotland, which I was keen that the group represented. As a result, a variety of workers attend from social work students, team managers, social workers, and health professionals. This was an inclusive approach to ensure that we included those working directly with carers in a variety of capacities as well as hearing from those who manage kinship services. Having the forum online meant that for the first time we could connect to those teams outwith the central belt who may only have small numbers of kinship carers as well as the larger authorities with hundreds of kinship families. For those setting up a new specialist kinship team, the forum has been invaluable by learning from other managers who have established kinship teams.

Legal, research and practice updates

The forum runs every eight weeks and the members are provided with the latest overviews of recent legal developments and relevant cases as well as summaries of the key messages and recommendations from relevant research publications. This allows for a safe space to discuss any legal or practice changes both in relation to kinship care across Scotland as well as wider issues and emerging developments relating to children’s services, and how they may impact workers supporting children and families on the ground. This usually gives way to various queries the practitioners have, and they can ask the group for advice with particularly complex scenarios.

We also always provide a KCASS update on upcoming events and training for practitioners and kinship families so that this can be disseminated throughout Scotland to ensure all those that want to can access these, which has increased uptake. We also share with the group a summary of the issues that kinship carers have raised with our helpline advisors, so that they have an understanding of why carers feel at times they have limited support from the local authority.

Presentations

Throughout the past two years of running the forum we have invited a wide range of people to present information to the group on a variety of different topics. These include – but are not limited to – presentations on welfare benefits, research on kinship, therapeutic interventions, how to keep the Promise for those in kinship care, and how to support children and families who have experienced childhood bereavement.

We have even had well known researcher Joan Hunt OBE present her research findings on the perspectives of specialist social work professionals working with kinship families who attend forums just like this one.

These presentations can be thought provoking and enable workers to read emerging best practice and to hear from experts in the field, sharing knowledge and information with the group that will hopefully enhance their practices and ultimately improve the lives of  kinship families. 

Sharing good practice

At the forum we always protect time to hear from all of the members about what is happening in their local area, which enables space to share success stories or challenges with the rest of the community. What I particularly like about the group is that the members are often very honest about some of the gaps in support, knowledge, or data in relation to kinship. The practitioners come with an acknowledgment that we can and must do better for kinship families – especially to ensure that support is consistent throughout the country rather than dependent on where you live.

Some practitioners have shared the ‘good news’ when they get new resources, additional workers, or funding for kinship, and as a group we have been delighted to share those wins with practitioners. This has led to workers going back to their organisations making comparisons about resources and what can be achieved with the right ideas and funding.

I am also pleased that those with established kinship teams are able to support those teams just starting out with maybe minimal resources as this can be overwhelming. The members often share knowledge and experience and offer peer practitioner support outwith the forum.

Face-to-face for the first time

In March 2023, just prior to Kinship Care Week, attendees of the forum all met face-to-face in Glasgow for the first time in two years. Thirty practitioners attended and most of the in-person forum was spent listening to presentations from the practitioners themselves on various ideas and projects that had been set up, which was very inspiring and created a lot of positive momentum and ideas for moving kinship care forward across Scotland. They were all very engaged and asked questions and shared information with each other on housing protocols, practices to keep brothers and sisters together, seasons for growth with kinship carers and children, access to CAMHS for kinship families, and a short-break service for kinship carers.

The practitioners then had time in groups to consider the national gaps and progress in the last few years in kinship care; this was recorded and shared with Scottish government colleagues. Recognising that a lot still needs to change to provide kinship families with the support they need and deserve, I think the success of the forum has led to some great innovative and family-centred developments across Scotland in the past two years, and I can’t wait to see where it takes us to in the future.