Undertaking a Kinship Care Assessment: A guide to collecting and analysing information for Form K (England)

This book will be used for kinship assessments using Form K. If you are still using Form C for kinship assessments, you will need the book Undertaking a Connected Persons Assessment.

Undertaking a Kinship Care Assessment is designed to help social workers gather relevant and proportionate assessment information to complete robust and evidence-based assessments of prospective kinship carers and identify support needs to mitigate risk and vulnerabilities.  It can be utilised by assessing social workers who are using CoramBAAF's Form K (England), published in 2025. Form K can be used to assess any prospective kinship carer and to enable approval as a kinship foster carer (connected carer/family and friends) or to recommend special guardianship orders.  

The guide sets out some of the key principles of robust kinship assessment, including how to amplify the voice of the child and explore the meaning of the pre-existing relationship between the child and their prospective carer. It outlines information required for all 3 parts of Form K and the integral support plan, including past and current information about the prospective carers, how this might influence their care of the child, and what support might be needed.  Each chapter presents a list of helpful questions that can facilitate further discussion, as well as prompts to support your analysis.  

This bestselling guide is invaluable for all those completing kinship assessments in England.  It may be particularly helpful to those who are new to the task, or anyone who wants to ensure they consider and analyse all the information required for these often very complex assessments.

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