Growing up in kinship care

Objectives

This study will progress two objectives:

1. Increased knowledge of the characteristics, circumstances and outcomes of children living in formal kinship care and the requirements that welfare, universal, and targeted services should meet, in the context of the statutory duties focused on promoting the safety, health, education and wellbeing of all children.

2. Construct a feasible approach to the sampling, structuring and analysis of an established linked dataset, to foster the potential for its routine application as part of a future annual statistical bulletin produced by government.

Research focus

1. What are the levels of formal kinship care usage in the most recent year, including overall proportions of children looked after, regional patterns, and length of time looked after? How do these differ over time?
2. What are the routes into formal kinship care? On what basis and for what reasons are children formally looked after in kinship care? 
3. How do children fare when living in kinship care, in terms of the stability of their living arrangements, their early childhood development, and their educational outcomes? 
4. What are the pathways out of formal kinship care? How do these differ over time?

Data this research aims to link and analyse

The dataset combined for analysis will include data variables derived from the following statistical collections:

• Looked After Children
• Child Protection
• Child Health Surveillance Programme data
• Achievement of Curriculum for Excellence Levels
• Attendance, Absence & Exclusions
• Educational attainment, attendances, absences and exclusion

The study will also explore if it is possible to include data collated regarding decisions made by the Children’s Hearings System.

Research team

Project lead: Robert Porter and Joanna Soraghan.