Kentucky DCBS Relative Placement and Caregiver Consent

When the Cabinet for Health and Family Services (CHFS) removes a child from a home, the Department for Community Based Services (DCBS) often looks to place that child with a relative first. This is an agency-involved kinship placement, and it works differently from informal caregiving where a grandparent or relative simply takes in a child on a family arrangement.

The consent documents, the financial support, and the decision-making authority are different in each situation. Knowing which one you are in determines what paperwork you need and what help is available.

Agency-Involved Placement vs. Informal Kinship Care

Agency-involved placement happens when CHFS/DCBS removes a child in an abuse, neglect, or dependency matter under KRS Chapter 620 and the child is placed under court-ordered temporary custody or protective agency custody. A DCBS social worker oversees the case plan. Decision-making authority flows from the court order and case plan — not from a caregiver affidavit.

Informal kinship care happens when a parent hands off a child to a relative without any DCBS involvement. There is no court order, no case plan, and no social worker. The relative may use a Caregiver's Authorization Affidavit under KRS 405.024 for health care decisions and KRS 158.144 for school decisions.

If DCBS placed the child with you, your social worker should have explained what decisions you can and cannot make. If a parent asked you to take the child directly — even if DCBS was investigating the family — you may be in an informal arrangement and need the affidavit.

What DCBS Provides in a Formal Placement

Relatives who accept a DCBS placement may be eligible for:

• Relative Placement Support Benefit (RPSB): a one-time payment governed by 922 KAR 1:400 and 922 KAR 1:565 to help with immediate concrete needs — bedding, clothing, furniture, deposits. Prioritized for households at or below 200% of the federal poverty level.
• Foster care per diem: if the relative becomes a licensed foster parent through the state, they receive monthly foster care payments. This is a separate licensing track.
• Medicaid coverage: ask the DCBS caseworker which coverage applies to the child.

Relatives in an informal arrangement — without DCBS involvement — are not eligible for RPSB or foster care payments. They can apply for K-TAP child-only grants and KCHIP/Medicaid through kynect.ky.gov.

The DCBS Memorandum on Caregiver Affidavits

DCBS's Protection and Permanency Memorandum PPM 26-07, effective June 15, 2026, removed the Caregiver's Authorization Affidavit from its internal Standard Operating Procedures manual. The memorandum clarified that non-abuse/neglect placement matters should be referred to county attorneys or private legal resources under KRS 405.024.

This does not mean the affidavit is invalid — it is still state law. It means DCBS workers are no longer distributing the form themselves. Caregivers in informal arrangements can download the free model affidavit from Kentucky Youth Advocates (kyyouth.org) or the Kinship Families Coalition (kinshipky.org).

Grandparent Raising a Grandchild Without Custody

The most common informal kinship situation in Kentucky is a grandparent caring for a grandchild without any court order. Maybe a parent entered treatment, went to jail, moved away, or died. The grandparent has physical care of the child but no legal paper saying so.

The caregiver affidavit provides an administrative path for school enrollment and health care decisions within the statutes' scope. It does not grant custody, change child support obligations, or give you standing in a future custody dispute.

If you need more than consent — if you need actual legal custody — the path is through Circuit or Family Court (de facto custodian petition under KRS 403.270 or guardianship in District Court under KRS Chapter 387).

For a step-by-step walkthrough of the caregiver affidavit, the power of attorney alternative, and when to move to court, the Kentucky School and Medical Consent Guide covers the full process for informal kinship caregivers.

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