Cathy Ashley, Chief Executive of Family Rights Group, has said:

“The two studies released today, combine to provide authoritative new data on the challenges facing kinship children and their carers. The number of children living in kinship care are increasing, and these children are overwhelmingly affected by poverty.

“By safely keeping the vast majority of children living in kinship care out of the care system (95%), kinship carers are saving the tax payer billions of pounds each year in care costs. As previous research has shown, these children despite suffering similar adversities to those entering the care system, are doing significantly better academically, and have fewer emotional and behavioural problems. The proposed reforms to child tax credit limits and the benefit cap jeopardise this.

“The tax credit and welfare reforms are potentially disastrous for kinship carer households and will deter many potential kinship carers from coming forward, resulting in more children ending up in the care system, at significant cost to the public purse. We call on the Government to exempt kinship carers from these reforms, and to take action to ensure that kinship carers are not forced to give up work to raise the child.”

Read the full press release at source: Family Rights Group Press Release

Read the Family Rights Group report: New kinship care research shows potentially disastrous effects of tax credit and welfare reform effects of tax credit and welfare reform