“Connecting Kinship Carers” event to be held in Orkney

“Connecting Kinship Carers” is this year’s theme for Kinship Care Week, running throughout Scotland from Monday 13 March.

In a bid to link up fellow kinship carers – also known as family and friends’ carers - an informal afternoon of coffee, cake and chat is being held at The Storehouse Restaurant, Bridge Street Wynd, Kirkwall on Tuesday 14 March from 1pm-3pm.

Kinship carers, past and present, are welcome along to the event in a safe, peer led environment, to offer support and friendship, and to share in their lived experiences. 

The purpose of the Kinship Care Week is to expand the understanding and recognition of the role of kinship carers, highlighting the challenges often faced, while also giving an opportunity to celebrate and promote kinship carers and the amazing part they play in raising children.

Kinship care is where a child or young person lives full-time with a relative or friend because they are unable to live with their birth parents.

It is an alternative to foster or residential care whereby a child can live with a family member, or sometimes a very close friend, to offer stability and a continued sense of belonging in the aftermath of family breakdown.

Some kinship carers care for children on an informal basis, although some apply directly to the court for an order to grant them parental responsibility. In the UK today, thousands of extended family members care for children because their birth parents cannot.