Providing kinship care for a loved one’s child can be one of the most loving acts of support you can offer a struggling family. Often, the adults involved intend for these arrangements to be temporary while the birth parents heal and get back on their feet. The early goal is to return the children to their parents once they can resume full-time parenting.

However, goals don’t always come to fruition, and you may face several significant issues while raising this grandchild, nephew, or other relative child. One of the first decisions you may have is what type of legal arrangement is best for you, the child, and the child’s parent. You must consider the many emotional, legal, and financial issues of kinship caregiving so that you can continue caring well for this child and meet their needs. Some options include becoming a licensed foster parent, guardian, informal childcare provider, or some variation of these arrangements.

Sometimes, with the help of wise counsel and an understanding of the legal options, you may decide to pursue the adoption of this child. Kinship adoption is becoming more common as a means of securing a child’s future and assuring that caregivers have access to all the rights and resources they need to raise this child well.

Kinship adoption, once finalized, is not much different than foster care adoption or other types of adoption in terms of your rights to advocate and access educational, medical, or other legal resources to help the child thrive. Raising an adopted kinship child requires the same attention to the impacts of trauma, prenatal exposure, or loss. You will likely find that the most significant differences are how you navigate relationships with the child’s birth family. Learning to keep the child’s best interests at the heart of everything you do is foundational to successfully managing birth parent relationships.