Kinship care

Our Kinship Care service assesses and supports the carer and child as a family, known as the kinship family. As well as promoting the safety and welfare of children and young people.

We have a duty to assess and support kinship carers who care for children who are looked after and housed through an arrangement by Aberdeenshire Council, known as Looked After and Accommodated, and are under formal Looked After Child reviews. We have a dedicated Kinship Care team to do assessments and give help and learning opportunities to kinship carers.

You can find out more information about our duties and responsibilities in The Looked After Children (Scotland) Regulations 2009 and at Getting it Right for Every Child in Kinship and Foster Care.

What we offer

The Kinship Care service can offer you:

• assessments for approval as kinship carers
• financial support for approved kinship carers
• a duty referral service for Aberdeenshire kinship carers - a one-stop shop to answer your kinship related queries
• advice and guidance
• help to establish peer support groups and local drop-in events
• programmes of support and learning for carers
• information about other relevant services and organisations

Financial support for approved kinship carers

The financial support we provide depends on how you became a Kinship Carer.

The weekly kinship payment before deductions is:

Kinship Carers of looked after children should claim Child Benefit. This will then be deducted from your weekly Kinship allowance.

When the child stops being looked after (once a Kinship Care Order is granted) your payment will then take into account any other benefits you receive for the child, except those related to a disability. For example Child Tax Credits.

This is because Kinship Carers of children that are not looked after can claim: Child Benefit, Child Tax Credit and other child-related benefits.

In accordance with the Part 13 Support for Kinship Care Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 informal Kinship Carers may be eligible for support from a local authority.

Eligible kinship carers are where the child is subject to a Kinship Care Order and:

• The child was previously looked after; or
• The child was placed with the involvement of the local authority; or
• The child is at risk of becoming looked after

Each request for financial assistance is assessed in their own right.

Contact us

We run a telephone duty referral service to answer any kinship related queries. This service is available 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday. Call us on 01467 538501 or email us at kinshipcare@aberdeenshire.gov.uk.

You can also write to the Team Manager:
Team Manager
Kinship Care Team
Turriff Resource Centre
10 Hatton Road
Turriff, AB53 4LF