General Kinship Publications

Congressional Research Services one-pager displaying statistics and basic information about children living in kinship care in the US. Includes data related to state, foster care status, age, income, race, and public benefit usage.

This document developed by the Center for Legal and Judicial Innovation and Advancement shares ideas and suggested best practices for exploring or expanding the use of IV-E funding to improve the quality of legal representation in child welfare. 

Report by the National Conference of State Legislatures highlighting state policies regarding kinship care. The report explains the benefits of kinship care, shares state-by-state data about kinship placement, and gives examples of state laws on strategies inlcuding defining kinship providers, identifying kin and prioritizing kinship placements, reducing red tape for kin-specific licensure, providing supportive services and assistance to kinship caregivers, and ensuring long-term stability. 

This U.S. Government Accountability Office report describes the characteristics of kinship families, how their challenges may have changed since the COVID-19 pandemic, the resources they are accessing, and how the federal government primarily supports them. 

Kin caregivers often need legal support to navigate the child welfare system and access services for children in their care. There are many helpful models of providing legal assistance to kin caregivers around the country. This resource produced by the ABA Center on Children and the Law and the Grandfamilies & Kinship Support Network summarizes those models and provides profiles of organizations doing good work. The goal is to provide replicable ideas to others wanting to provide supportive legal assistance to kinship families in their communities. See presentation slides from the 2025 Generations United Conference here.