Home Local News County Labour Group calls on LCC to recognise kinship carers

County Labour Group calls on LCC to recognise kinship carers

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cllr gibson
Cllr Julie Gibson

Labour Lancashire County Councillors are calling on the authority to invest in a kinship strategy to support the work of kinship carers. Kinship care is care that is given to a child by a grandparent, uncle, aunt, sibling or other relative when parents can’t look after a child. It is someone a child knows, who can provide the love and stability children need, and there are growing calls for it to be recognised as an alternative to growing up in the care system. At the recent Full Council debate, Cllrs Gibson, Collinge and Parr called on Lancashire County Council to back Labour plans to introduce a kinship strategy as part of the budget debate.

Cllr Gibson said: “There are approximately 162,000 children in kinship families across England and Wales. Yet kinship families are unfairly blocked from the essential support that children in care and those looking after them can get. 44% of kinship carers are struggling to pay all their household bills and over a third (36%) of those not getting the support they need may be unable to continue to care for their kinship child as a result. The cost to kinship carers isn’t just financial. 75% of carers receive no support for managing their child’s difficult behaviours caused by trauma. They’re not asking for praise or special treatment, just equal support for their families.

Cllr Gibson was supported by her colleague, Cllr Lizzi Collinge, who represents Lancaster East and is the Chair of Morecambe and Lunesdale Labour and Cllr Jean Parr who seconded the motion. Cllr Collinge added, “Kinship carers provide love, they provide stability and a safe home. They also save the state an awful lot of money. Kinship carers are woefully under-provided for nationally. A resident, who is a kinship carer, has told me that they’re also not supported properly locally and that Lancashire lags behind other local authorities in the offers of support. A survey by Kinship, a charity which supports kinship carers, shows that eight out of ten kinship carers are not getting the support they need to look after their children. This Labour proposal aims to offer that support locally.”

Although the proposal was rejected by the ruling Tory Group Cllr Gibson received assurances it will be taken to the the authority’s Corporate Parenting Board. She said “As a member of that Board, I will endeavour to ensure that I speak up for kinship carers.”

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