Kinship Care Week 2026

Kinship Care Week (5-11 October 2026) is an opportunity to raise awareness about the amazing role that kinship carers play in children’s lives and society. Despite increased government and national awareness, many people do not understand what kinship care actually is. Kinship Care Week is a time to celebrate and recognise all that kinship carers do for the children they love and look after. Kinship Care Week is a chance to think about the support that kinship carers provide to one another and for local authorities to think about their kinship local offer, including peer support. 

This year the theme of Kinship Care Week is #ThisIsKinshipCare. CoramBAAF is supporting other organisations in the Kinship Care Alliance to help professionals, families and children understand what kinship care is. CoramBAAF lends its full support to Kinship Care Week.

Start raising awareness today

What is kinship care? 

Kinship care isn’t yet a recognised term in the Oxford English Dictionary. And maybe it’s not yet a word that trips off the tongue naturally for many people. But once it’s explained it makes absolute sense. That’s why this year, the theme of Kinship Care Week is #ThisIsKinshipCare.

Here are some tips for raising awareness in your area:

• Send an extra newsletter to all kinship carers in your area, thanking them for all that they do. It’s an opportunity to highlight the training and support that you offer as well as signposting them to other organisations such as Kinship and Family Rights Group. 
• Arrange an extra support group or tea party. We know how much kinship carers value the support of their peers. 
• Highlight the #ThisIsKinshipCare campaign on your social media channels and share what you’re doing. You can use the resources developed by Kinship to help promote the campaign.
• Ask senior leaders and your principle social worker to get involved – for example, they could drop into the support group, write directly to kinship carers or contribute to the newsletter. 
• Use Kinship Care Week as a launchpad for updating written information for prospective kinship carers.

Kinship Care Week reflections

To discover more resources and information about kinship care, take a look at what we published in 2023 and 2024 that reflected the current awareness of kinship care.