“Being a kinship care provider is layered in Zeal – Love in Action. Keeping my nieces together while providing a stable home was most important to me. While there have been many challenges (lack of resources, no emotional/financial support, navigating new family roles), along the way, seeing them now flourishing, happy and together makes it all worth it.” – Angel L. Todd

Kinship care has increasingly become a preferred solution when parents face challenges that make it difficult for children to remain in their homes. This type of placement allows children to live with relatives, such as grandparents, aunts, uncles, adult siblings, or other extended family members, instead of entering traditional foster care. When children are placed with close family friends who are not biologically related, this arrangement is referred to as a fictive kin placement.

As of August 2025, among the 1,099 children in out-of-home care in Jefferson County, 29% were placed in relative or fictive kin homes (non-foster home settings), and an additional 11% were placed with relative or fictive kin caregivers in licensed foster homes by the Department for Community Based Services (DCBS).

To better understand the benefits, disparities, and barriers to placing Black/African American and Latinx children with culturally reflective caregivers, Kentucky Youth Advocates (KYA), in partnership with Casey Family Programs, conducted a series of in-person and virtual focus groups with Jefferson County DCBS staff.

Benefits of Kinship and Fictive Kin Placement

Focus group participants described several ways kinship placements, particularly with Black and Latinx relatives or fictive kin, can benefit children placed in their care, including:

  • Stability and Continuity – Children experience less trauma when placed with relatives or familiar adults, and they can maintain ties to schools, churches, and communities.
  • Cultural Preservation – Placement with Black and Latinx kin helps preserve language, culture, and heritage. This can prevent the discomfort youth may feel when entering a home from a different cultural background.
  • Stronger Family Bonds – Kinship placements increase the likelihood of maintaining family visitation and lifelong connections. Children feel more loved and understood by family than by strangers.
  • Trust and Commitment – Kinship caregivers are often more dedicated to the child’s well-being and reunification, and these placements are more likely to transition to a permanency option if reunification is not possible.

Barriers and Gaps in Kinship Care for Black and Latinx Families

Focus group participants identified several challenges that can make it harder for Black and Latinx caregivers to become approved kinship placements. These are broken into the following categories:

  • Access and Systemic Barriers
  • Cultural and Language Barriers
  • Bias and Disproportionate Impact
  • Gaps in Support and Training

Recommendations for Strengthening Kinship Care

Based on insights from the focus groups, several recommendations have been developed to support kinship placements, improve outcomes for children, and address systemic barriers. These recommendations fall under five key focus areas:

  1. Ensure Consistent Application of the Fictive Kin Definition
    • Establish and communicate clear, uniform guidelines with examples and technical assistance for caseworkers.
  2. Access to Services and Supports
    • Track benefits utilized in the first 90 days, address policy gaps in financial and respite supports, and expand supervised visitation options.
  3. System Coordination and Disparity Tracking
    • Remove disincentives like child support enforcement confusion, track placement data by caregiver type and demographics, and strengthen kinship navigator connections to community partners.
  4. Community Partnerships
    • Strengthen relationships with Black and Latinx-serving organizations, collaborate on cultural responsiveness training, and increase DCBS presence in trusted community spaces.
  5. Staff Training and Hiring
    • Improve and regularly update cultural awareness and bias training, hire more diverse and bilingual staff, and provide scenario-based learning opportunities.

These recommendations were reviewed and refined with input from both DCBS staff and a kinship caregiver in Jefferson County with lived experience. By ensuring our recommendations are both practical through collaboration with DCBS and grounded in real-life experience, through engagement with a lived expert, we are confident these solutions will create meaningful and lasting improvements for kinship families and the children in their care. 

We would like to thank Jefferson County DCBS for engaging with these recommendations and for their ongoing efforts to strengthen support for kinship families.

View the Kinship Care Insights CFP for the full list of recommendations.