Grandparents who step in to provide full-time care for their grandchildren to prevent them being taken into care will be given guaranteed financial support under a government pilot scheme.<\/p>\n
Charities welcomed the trial as groundbreaking and said if fully rolled out across England<\/a> it had the potential to transform the lives of tens of thousands of children looked after under \u201ckinship care\u201d arrangements.<\/p>\n Kinship carers are grandparents, aunts and uncles, older siblings or close family friends who take on full parental responsibility when a child loses their birth parents as a result of death, a family court order, severe illness or imprisonment.<\/p>\n Campaigners have fought for more than two decades to establish financial recognition of the role and personal sacrifices<\/a> that kinship carers make. Some carers say they have felt ignored and exploited as a \u201ccheap option\u201d despite saving the state billions it would otherwise have had to spend on foster or residential care.<\/p>\n About 132,000 children in England live under kinship arrangements, but most carers receive little or no state financial support to meet the extra costs of raising a child. Many say they gave up work<\/a> to care for a child relative. Most are already on low incomes and at heightened risk of poverty.<\/p>\n Under the trial launched on Friday, kinship carers in seven council areas will for the first time receive a financial allowance in line with that of foster carers, which is between \u00a3170 and \u00a3299 a week<\/a> depending on where they live and the age of the child.<\/p>\n This means a kinship carer living outside London and looking after a 15-year-old would receive an allowance of \u00a313,832 a year from April. This is not means tested and will not affect universal credit or child benefit payments.<\/p>\n Introducing the scheme on Friday, the children\u2019s minister, Josh MacAlister, said: \u201cAs a country we owe kinship carers our thanks and our support, and the new financial allowance which we\u2019re piloting recognises the vital role they play ensuring families can stay together.<\/p>\n \u201cWe promised to introduce this scheme to support kinship carers who step up for the children they love and give every child the best possible start in life.\u201d<\/p>\n