September is Kinship Awareness Month

September 1, 2024

Kinship Awareness Month Sep 1-30

Kinship Awareness Month is celebrated throughout the month of September. Its primary goal is to raise awareness about the vital role that kinship caregivers play in the lives of children and youth who cannot live with their parents for various reasons. It recognizes relatives, members of tribes and clans and non-related extended family members who provide round the clock protection and nurturing for their new family members. FCSLLG celebrates its kin families!

Kinship Service and Kinship Care are child welfare placement options, like fostering, for the small number of children and youth who need to leave their families for safety reasons.

Kin is most often family with a biological connection, but it can also include a person who is close to the child or their family, such as a godparent, friend, teacher or neighbor.

Kinship has many benefits:
– It reduces the stress associated with coming into care as in many cases the child/youth already knows what it is like to be in their kin’s home.
– Family and community relationships are preserved
– The child/youth can maintain their cultural and religious ties
– It also addresses the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s call to reduce the number of Indigenous children in care by keeping Indigenous families together, where possible, and keeping children in culturally appropriate environments.

Did you know: in 2021-22, on average 3,319 Ontario children and youth needing out of home placement were living with kinship families. That means an average of 29% of Ontario children and youth needing out of home placements were living with kinship families.
Children care for by kin are:
– 2.2 times less likely to have a mental health issue than foster children
– 1.9 times more likely to report positive emotional health compared to foster children
– 2.6 times less likely to experience three or more placements than foster children