About this recommendation
When you connect with a youth’s kin, make it a point to always ask them if they know of other potential kin, whether they may be current connections to the child or family members that they haven’t yet met.
Children can’t have too many adults who care about them. Most youth enter foster care with more connections than they leave with. Making sure to ask kin you know about to help identify additional kin, especially if children are too young to share on their own, can create a broader supportive network.
How to do this
- Require team members to ask kin about other kin during initial and ongoing kin contacts.
- Designate a place in your IT system for storing information about all kin, including names and contact information.
- Add a question like, “Are there other connections that we should know about?” to any kinship-finding form letters or standard messages.
- Ask supportive adults who attend planning meetings if there are others who should be in attendance or otherwise be involved.
Anticipated costs and benefits
Costs
Benefits
- None
- Find more kin who can take placement and/or serve as lifelong support for vulnerable youth
- Find some kin faster than if agency workers have to search for them independently
Who's doing this
3 of 54 states and territories have implemented this recommendation.
What they're doing
- In California, all supportive adults at every Child and Family Team meeting are explicitly asked if they know of any other kin who should be included.
- In Washington at Family Team Decision Meetings, they ask everyone the question: even if you can’t take placement, is there anyone else within your family or that the child knows who we should be talking to?
- Michigan explicitly asks identified kin to share the names of more kin on their Relative Notification Form