Sometimes a family could stay together safely if they had more support, but the agency may not engage kin before it's necessary to remove the child or youth.

Identify and engage kin early in your work with families to provide kin-based support and help families stay together.

How to do this

Encourage families to bring kin to meetings. Update templates for meeting invites and notification letters to explicitly encourage parents and youth to bring their supportive kin.

Ask about support networks from the start. Ask about kin at the earliest interactions, including during investigations. If removal isn't likely, frame this as activating family supports rather than seeking placement options.

Keep asking about kin at every interaction. The stress and potential shame of being involved with the child welfare system may discourage people from sharing at first.

Let kin complete approval steps ahead of time. Allow kin to complete steps like background checks before it becomes necessary to remove the child or youth. That way, they’re already approved if they’re needed. These proactive background checks for kin caregivers should be good for 1 year, though you should confirm there are no new state, local, or tribal history or sex offender registry results if placement is later needed.

This strategy in action

Many states allow kin to begin approval processes, like background checks, before removal becomes necessary.

Outagamie County, Wisconsin has developed effective strategies for engaging kin during intake processes.

Wisconsin also has a policy says that a background check on kin prior to removal is good for 120 days; in Hawaii, it’s up to a year.

Iowa created a standardized release of information form. Parents fill it out to give the agency permission to share case information with kin. This makes it easier to have specific conversations about how kin can help.

Resources