1. Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 (ICWA)¹

1. Requires state child welfare agencies to pursue “active” – rather than just “reasonable” – efforts to prevent removal of a Native American child from the family and to promote reunification when removal is necessary.
2. Articulates the following preferred order of placement for an Indian child, in the absence of good cause to the contrary:  

   1. A member of the Indian child's extended family; 

   2. A foster home licensed, approved, or specified by the Indian child's tribe;  

   3. An Indian foster home licensed or approved by an authorized non-Indian licensing authority; or 

   4. An institution for children approved by an Indian tribe or operated by an Indian organization which has a program suitable to meet the Indian child's needs. 

2. Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA)² 

1. Directs agencies to consider giving preference to an adult relative over a non-related caregiver when determining a placement for a child, as long as the relative caregiver meets all relevant state child protection standards. See the placement section for more information.

3. Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 (ASFA)³ 

1. Grants foster parents, pre-adoptive parents, and relative caregivers the right to be provided with notice and an opportunity to be heard in any child welfare hearing, though it does not grant those caregivers party status in the proceeding. 
2. Requires states to pursue termination of parental rights once a child has been in foster care for 15 of the most recent 22 months, unless the child is being cared for by a relative or other named circumstances exist. 

4. Fostering Connections to Success & Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008⁴ 

1. Requires notice be provided to all relatives within 30 days of removal. (See Identification, Notice and Engagement section [insert link]).
2. Offers states and tribes the option to develop a federally funded Kinship Guardianship Assistance Program to support subsidized permanency with kin.​ See the permanency section for more information.
3. Mandates the placement of siblings together, unless contrary to the safety or well-being of any sibling. If siblings are separated, frequent visitation or interaction must be provided, unless it is unsafe to do so. (See Placement section [insert link].) 

5. Preventing Sex Trafficking and Strengthening Families Act of 2014⁵ 

1. Requires creation of a “reasonable and prudent parent standard” for decision-making by caregivers in foster homes, congregate care, or other placement settings on a child’s extracurricular, enrichment, social, and cultural activities without prior agency or court approval.  
2. Clarifies that the federal notice requirement includes notice to parents with legal custody of any siblings of the child taken into foster care. The term “sibling” is defined by state law and includes people who would be considered siblings if not for legal termination of parental rights.
3. Ensures that a child who receives Kinship Guardianship Assistance can seamlessly continue to be cared for by a “successor” guardian, named in the kinship guardian assistance agreement, if the original kin caregiver is no longer able to care for the child. See the permanency section for more information.
4. Expands the Adoption Incentive Program to include guardianship, based on rates of finalized guardianships as permanency outcomes for children leaving foster care.

6. Family First Prevention and Services Act of 2018⁶ 

1. Provides federal reimbursement for certain prevention services and programs. 
2. Provides federal support for Kinship Navigator Programs, which assist kinship caregivers in learning about, finding, and using programs and services to meet the needs of the children they are raising and their own needs.
3. Prioritizes family-based foster care settings. The Act defines a “foster family home,” and restricts federal reimbursement for placement of children in congregate care settings.
4. Seeks to improve licensing standards for relative foster family homes by requiring states and tribes to compare their own licensing standards to national standards and report on their use of waivers for non-safety licensing standards for kin.

7. Supporting America’s Children and Families Act of 2025⁷  

1. Increases and clarifies available funding under Title IV-B of the Social Security Act to support kinship families for programs such as peer-to-peer support and family preservation services.
2. Requires a state child welfare agency to consult with people with lived experience, including kinship caregivers and youth, in developing the agency’s Child and Family Services Plans.
3. Provides funding for Kinship Navigator Programs, including funds to evaluate those programs.

The federal Administration for Children, Youth and Families (ACF) in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services guides kinship care practice through regulation and policy directives. Policy guidance is generally provided through Information Memoranda, Program Instructions, the Child Welfare Policy Manual, and other communications. Notable federal policies that support kinship families include: 

• 1. Legal Representation of Kin Caregivers – In July 2024, ACF issued a new rule that explicitly allows child welfare agencies to use federal title IV-E funds for the costs of legal representation for relative caregivers.⁸ These funds can be used for expenses including representation in civil legal proceedings that are not directly related to child welfare involvement, but could help keep kinship families together, e.g. in defense of families against eviction from their homes.  As of Spetember 2025, this rule has been applied in a limited capacity; hopefully it will soon be embraced as a way to provide legal representation to kin.  
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• 2. Kin Licensing Rule – In September 2023, ACF issued a new rule granting state, territory, and tribal IV-E agencies flexibility to respond to the needs of kin caregivers and offer separate licensing or foster home approval processes for kin.⁹ This rule encourages agencies to develop kin-specific licensing or approval standards that are limited to federal requirements only, without adding additional constraints on kin caregivers. Additionally, the rule requires agencies to provide approved kinship homes with the same amount of foster care maintenance payments that would be made if the child was placed in a non-kinship foster family home. As of Spetember 2025, ACF has approved the plans of 18 jurisdictions to implement their kinship licensing standards. View this interactive map to track the progress of these standards.  
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• 3. Additional Policy Guidance from ACF – As noted earlier, ACF provides a great deal of policy information to States, Tribes, grantees, and others through communications including Information Memoranda (IM). Among the many IMs touching on kinship issues include guidance on improving permanency outcomes and increasing kin connections (ACYF-CB-IM-21-01); options to improve support to Grandfamilies (ACYF-CB-IM-20-08); quality legal representation (ACYF-CB-IM-21-06) and civil legal advocacy (ACYF-CB-IM-21-02); engaging voices of families and youth (ACYF-CB-IM-19-03); cultural adaptations for Tribes (CYF-CB-IM-21-04); and partnership between resource parents and parents (ACYF-CB-IM-20-06). 

The constitutional rights of parents and children also factor into child welfare practice, and the rights to family integrity involve kinship relationships.  

Many federal courts have recognized a child’s right to family integrity, specifically the right to remain living with the parents, siblings, or kin caregivers they have known without state interruption.¹⁰ Those courts often note that the child’s right to family integrity is shared with or reciprocal to the parent’s right to raise the children free of government intervention.¹¹  

Further, the Supreme Court has noted the value of kin living with children in the “tradition of uncles, aunts, cousins, and especially grandparents sharing a household along with parents and children has roots equally venerable and equally deserving of constitutional recognition” – particularly “in times of adversity[.]”¹²  These constitutional rights of children articulated by numerous courts support prioritizing kin caregivers when children are removed from their parents’ care and custody.  

Additionally, a parent’s constitutional interest in the care, custody, and control of their children as compared to a relative’s rights has also been addressed by the Supreme Court.¹³ In a case outside the child welfare system context, a widowed mother challenged a court order granting visitation rights to the child’s paternal grandparents over her objections. In affirming the lower courts’ reversal of the trial court’s order, the Supreme Court articulated a “fit parent’s minimum protection against state intrusion in his or her parenting decisions” and described this parental interest as “perhaps the oldest of the fundamental liberty interests recognized.”¹⁴ The Court in Troxel articulated the limits on a court’s ability to interfere with a parent’s decision-making absent safety risks and state involvement. A similar conflict between parents and grandparents involving a child in foster care has not been litigated in the Supreme Court.  

Federal and state law and policy promoting kinship placements stems from social science research which demonstrates that children removed from their homes do better in kin placements. Research has shown that the preexisting relationship between kin and children can lessen the trauma of removal for children removed from their homes.

Additionally, studies that compare outcomes for children and youth in kinship placements as compared to children in non-relative care have found that children in kin placements have better outcomes in areas including placement stability; achieving permanency; behavioral and mental health outcomes; and preservation of cultural and community connections.¹⁵ Further, children in kinship placements are more likely to continue living with their siblings, have better educational outcomes, and experience greater placement satisfaction than children in non-relative homes.¹⁶