Kinship care is when grandparents, aunts, uncles, adult siblings, other relatives or friends of the family care for children instead of their birth parents.
1 in 10 children worldwide are living in kinship care. In some countries, it is as high as 1 in 3. This makes it the most common type of care after parental care.
Generally, children are happier in kinship care than in children’s homes or living with other people that they do not already know.
By keeping extended families together, kinship care also has positive effects on the wellbeing of others. And it even provides benefits to governments and wider society, being less expensive than state care systems.