Maintain a shared list of kin

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About this recommendation

Kin are often lost in case notes or handwritten paperwork. To ensure children in care have access to all their kin, and that those kin are kept in the loop if placement or other needs shift, it’s critical to have kin names and contact information in a shared electronic format.

A shared list also enables team members, including foster parents, lawyers, and CASAs, to identify missing kin and/or to help nurture relationships with the child.

How to do this

  • Create a shared electronic list of kin, their relationship to the child, their contact information, and their contact method preferences. Include brief but relevant context notes.
  • Update the list with the last contact date and the team member who last made the contact. This can help avoid situations where either nobody calls (thinking someone else did) or everyone calls (creating overwhelm for the kin).
  • Ideally, every team member can see and update this list, including those outside the agency, such as CASAs, attorneys, tribes, parents, and foster parents.
  • If IT restrictions prevent sharing a file, get creative about workarounds. For example, the case worker could email an updated contact list to the child’s team once a month, or the team could collectively update the list at shared planning meetings.
  • Include tribes in your core kin-finding efforts.

Anticipated costs and benefits

Costs

Benefits

  • A shared electronic file of some kind. This could be a Microsoft Word document on a Sharepoint site, or within a section of your IT system. This may require creative brainstorming with your IT team.
  • More people finding kin
  • More people supporting kin relationships

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