Kinship Policy Summaries

A collective advocacy tool created by Generations United, the ABA Center on Children and the Law, and Think of Us to guide our future work to support kinship families. The action agenda identifies and prioritizes key policy opportunities to support kinship families. It was created through a convening of national advocates, featuring professionals with diverse perspectives and individuals with lived experience in grandfamilies/kinship families, and incorporates feedback from the broader advocacy community, grandfamilies services providers, and focus groups with kinship caregivers from varied backgrounds.

National Center for Youth Law 50-state permanency policy analysis. This brief explores the diversity of state policies and practices aimed at supporting teens’ need for a permanent connection to a family. Recommendations are aimed at helping child welfare agencies use a variety of strategies to achieve permanency for teens, with an emphasis on the use of kinship families.

An overview of current policy reforms at the federal and state levels that impact the lives of caregiving grandparents and their grandchildren. This important article was published in GrandFamilies: The Contemporary Journal of Research, Practice and Policy  (2017). 

Building on the progress of the last 20 years, helpful federal and state legislation continues to be pursued on behalf of grandfamilies. This update summarizes policy efforts during 2013 and looks ahead to what is on the horizon (2014).