Kinship Care in Wales: Your Rights and What Support Is Available

What "Kinship Care" Means in Wales

Kinship care is when a child is raised by a relative or close family friend instead of their birth parents. In Wales, the law and social services departments often use the phrase "family and friends care" interchangeably with kinship care. Whether you are a grandparent, aunt, uncle, older sibling or family friend, the same statutory framework applies.

Welsh kinship care operates under two main pieces of legislation: the Children Act 1989 (which establishes SGOs, Child Arrangements Orders and care proceedings) and the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014 (which governs how Welsh local authorities assess and deliver support services).

The Three Legal Arrangements

Kinship carers in Wales typically fall into one of three categories:

Informal carers — You are looking after the child with no court order. You have no parental responsibility and limited access to financial support. This is the most common starting point, but it leaves both you and the child without legal protection.

Child Arrangements Order holders — A court order that confirms the child lives with you. You share parental responsibility with the birth parents, and major decisions require agreement.

Special guardians — An SGO gives you enhanced parental responsibility that you can exercise independently for day-to-day decisions. It provides the strongest legal position short of adoption.

Your Rights Under Welsh Law

Regardless of which legal arrangement you hold, Welsh law gives kinship carers certain rights:

• Right to request a support needs assessment — Under Section 14F of the Children Act 1989, any special guardian or prospective special guardian can request an assessment. Even informal carers can request support under Part 4 of the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014.
• Right to complain formally — If a local authority refuses or reduces support, you can use the statutory complaints procedure under the Social Services Complaints Procedure (Wales) Regulations.
• Right to Welsh-language services — You can communicate with social services and the courts in Welsh, and all court forms are available bilingually.

What Support Is Available

Welsh local authorities can provide:

• Regular financial allowances for SGO holders (means-tested, benchmarked against fostering rates)
• One-off settling-in grants
• Respite care and short breaks
• Therapeutic services for the child (accessed through local authority social services and NHS Wales, not the English ASGSF)
• Training and support groups for carers
• Help with legal costs

The key word is "can" — most of this support is discretionary and varies significantly between Wales's 22 councils. Swansea's Family and Friends Team (FAFT), for example, provides a dedicated SGO support team with crisis response and a minimum six-month post-order support offer. Other councils may not have specialist teams.

How Wales Differs from England

Two critical differences matter for kinship carers:

No ASGSF in Wales — The Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund, which provides therapeutic funding for children with SGOs in England, does not extend to Wales. If you see online resources about the ASGSF, they do not apply to you. Therapeutic support in Wales must be accessed through your local authority and NHS Wales.

Separate regulations — Wales has its own Special Guardianship (Wales) Regulations 2005 and Code of Practice, updated in 2018. Assessment requirements, support plan obligations and out-of-area transfer rules have their own Welsh framework.

Free Support Organisations

Several organisations provide free help to kinship carers in Wales:

• Kinship Cymru — dedicated advice line, peer support groups and factsheets for Welsh carers
• Family Rights Group — free telephone advice on SGOs, care proceedings and your rights (0808 801 0366)
• Citizens Advice Cymru — benefits checks, debt counselling and housing advice across all 22 Welsh councils
• Child Law Advice — free legal advice covering family court matters in England and Wales

Getting Organised

The Kinship Care in Wales guide pulls together the forms, the assessment process, the financial support rules and the post-order steps into a single walkthrough designed specifically for Welsh kinship carers.

See more Wales guides →