LIMA – September is National Kinship Care Month and a time to recognize and thank all the relative and kinship caregivers who step up and take in children when it’s unsafe for children to remain in their own homes.

Relatives always are the first place staff at Allen County Children Services (ACCS) turn to when a child is unable to remain in his or her own home, and needs a safe place. Relatives offer a familiar place to a child during a traumatic time. Having a child stay with a relative often allows a child to stay in his or her school district along with other familiar settings within the child’s support system.

About two-thirds of the children removed from their home are placed in relative/kinship care. That typically means grandparents, aunts, uncles, sometimes older brothers and sisters, even a close family friend. The other one-third are placed in foster care or a residential facility.

Our agency has 62 relative/kinship homes and 100 children in relative/kinship care. Of that number, 29 are in the temporary custody of the relative/kinship caregiver.

Sometimes relatives are easy to find but that is not always the case. To help locate relatives as possible placement options, which is our agency’s first choice as a safety placement option outside the child’s home, our agency has a Kinnect to Family caseworker inhouse who is specially trained to locate relatives.

Kinnect can drastically cut the time it takes a child to be placed with a relative. The Kinnect caseworker identifies and explores multiple relative or kinship options as potential placement homes. Placing with relatives also can help keep siblings together.

ACCS works hard to support relative and kinship providers to help with the transition including the financial burden. One way we do that is through Ohio’s Kinship Guardianship Assistance Program (KGAP). KGAP is a funding source available for licensed kinship caregivers that is available for relatives/kinship caregivers who take on children who have been placed in our agency’s custody. Our agency’s policy is to inform all relative/kinship caregivers of this option when reunification or adoption is not an option for the child and we will assist the caregivers in the application process.

Nationally, there are more than 2.7 million children, or 4 percent of the children in the United States, living with relatives. In Ohio, that number is close to 230,000 children living with relatives. Grandparents account for about 60 percent of the relatives who are raising children.