By  Kathleen Baldwin, Intern at Kentucky Youth Advocates

The timing of the recent Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Family Ties series of reports on kinship care state policies is well aligned with the ongoing conversations around access to supports for kinship families in Kentucky. The latest report was released on July 15, 2024 and includes questions for consideration by local, state, and federal leaders in collaboration with kinship families. 

In 2022, The Annie E. Casey Foundation reached out to every state’s child welfare agency administrators to survey kinship policies within their state. New insights were recently published analyzing states’ kinship diversion policies. 

Before digging into the report findings, let’s start by defining “diversion.” Kinship care can be complex and there are a few different types or ways that it can look:

  • Informal Kinship Care – The most common type of family arrangement. Varying types of custody depending on arrangements made within those families. 
  • Diversion (aka Family Arranged with Child Protective Services) –  During an investigation or while providing a family with services to prevent entry into foster care, a caseworker may facilitate a placement or arrangement with a relative or close family friend. The arrangement may move the child into a relative’s home or help a relative move in with the birth family to become the primary caregiver.
  • Kinship Foster Care – Children placed with relatives or close family friends who have become certified as foster parents—custody of the child is maintained by the Department for Community Based Services.

Below is a summary of each section of the third installment of the Family Ties analysis of survey responses for the state of Kentucky.

Does state policy allow, require and/or encourage kinship diversion? Kentucky does allow kinship diversion and requires recruiters to attempt to facilitate it. 

Who makes the final decision in kinship diversion arrangements? In Kentucky, agency officials make the final decision about whether a child enters into a facilitated kinship caregiving arrangement. 

Agency oversight and case management in kinship diversion arrangements. In kinship diversion arrangements, Kentucky does require a formal investigation to be initiated. However, the investigation does not need to be completed before a child can be placed with a kinship caregiver. Kentucky’s child welfare agency responded that “it depends” whether a case is required to be open in kinship diversion arrangements. Kentucky does require a notification when the kinship arrangement is no longer needed. Additionally, Kentucky does place a time limit on diversion arrangements.

Comparison of services offered by the child welfare agency for children or caregivers in a licensed, unlicensed or diversion arrangement. Below is a table that summarizes Kentucky’s child welfare agency’s responses to this section of the survey. The table represents responses on diversion arrangements only. For responses on licensed and unlicensed caregivers, click here. 

Administrative and caregiver data tracked by the child welfare agency in kinship diversion arrangements. Kentucky’s child welfare agency does track case opening and closing dates and the legal relationship between child and caregiver. When the survey was administered in 2022, Kentucky responded that safety plans were not tracked by their child welfare agency. However, this past session, Governor Beshear signed into law HB 271. The passing of this bill initiated safety plans as part of the child welfare system in Kentucky. Finally, data on Kentucky caregivers’ race, ethnicity, age, geographic location, services received, and results of caregiver assessments are tracked. 

Child data tracked by the child welfare agency in kinship diversion arrangements. Data on the race, ethnicity, age, geographic location, services received, location at case closure, and parents’ contact information of Kentucky children is tracked.

As the kinship diversion debate continues, federal, state and local leaders in collaboration with kinship caregivers must consider the following questions:

  • Are child welfare agencies ensuring child safety without infringing on the rights of parents while fully addressing the needs of children and kinship caregivers?
  • When a child comes to the attention of a child welfare agency, are families, including parents and caregivers, well informed about their options? Are parents receiving adequate due-process protections when contact with their children has been temporarily altered? Do parents have access to a lawyer or any legal resources during this process? Are they receiving services, if they need them, to help ensure they will be able to reunify with their children?  
  • How can child welfare agencies tap into federal opportunities, including the new rule on legal representation, to best connect parents and kinship caregivers to services when diversion arrangements are being considered? Are child welfare agencies providing parents and caregivers with a clear path to ending child welfare involvement during a kinship diversion arrangement?
  • Is kinship diversion equitably offered as an alternative to foster care? Which families are offered the option of diversion and which are not? How do Black, Latino and American Indian families experience kinship diversion? 
  • Do all kinship caregivers have the resources that they need to support the children in their care?

For information on 2024 updates to kinship policies in Kentucky, click here.