Meet Our Kinship Care Council Members

What is Kinship Care? Kinship care is the most widely used out of home placement arrangement, where a relative or other adult known to the family takes a child to raise, to prevent foster care placement. The primary purpose of placing a child with a kinship caregiver is to maintain a child’s familial, cultural, and community ties, to provide safety and stability, and to enable a child to live in the least restrictive environment. These families are represented in all regions of our state, socio-economic levels, and races/ethnicities. Across South Carolina, over 69,000 children were in kinship care placement between 2018-2020 (KIDS COUNT data). Most data sources have yet to truly capture the number of informal placements that is seen within communities, and because of the wide array of nuances that exist for families in both formal and informal placements, The South Carolina Kinship Advisory Council was formed, in 2016. The Council is a membership group of caregivers and multisector partners from across the state whose work intersects with kinship care families. The Council’s purpose is to raise awareness statewide on the challenges kinship families face by lifting their voices to key stakeholders while offering practice and policy recommendations to strengthen resources, engagement and supports for kinship families. The work of this council has created statewide and virtual days at the state capitol, informative Tele-town halls, Research, legislative feedback, and suggestions to South Carolina Department of Social Services, which has now created its own internal Kinship Advisory Panel made of current kin caregivers living within each DSS region.