Nebraska Kinship Foster Care Payments for Relatives

If a child in your care was placed by Nebraska's child welfare system — through a juvenile court order, not a private family agreement — you may be eligible for foster care maintenance payments as a licensed kinship foster parent. These payments are separate from the ADC child-only grant available to informal caregivers.

Equal Payment for Relative Foster Parents

The federal Administration for Children and Families approved Nebraska's Relative and Kinship Caregiver Plan on April 17, 2024; DHHS announced updates in May 2024. The plan ensures that licensed relative foster parents receive the same foster care maintenance payment rates as non-relative foster parents. Before this policy change, relatives sometimes received lower rates. The plan also introduced streamlined, kin-specific licensing standards — relatives can meet tailored, non-safety-related requirements that recognize the existing family relationship.

This applies to roughly 850 children in formal kinship foster care placements across Nebraska.

How It Works

The child must be a ward of the state — adjudicated by a juvenile court and placed in DHHS custody. The relative caregiver then applies for a foster home license through DHHS. Licensing involves background checks, home safety inspections, and training requirements, but the kin-specific standards are less burdensome than those for non-relative foster homes on non-safety items.

Once licensed, you receive monthly foster care maintenance payments that cover the child's basic living costs — food, clothing, shelter, daily supervision, and personal needs. The payment rate depends on the child's age and any special needs.

Children in foster care also receive automatic Medicaid coverage and may be eligible for additional services through their case plan.

The Path to Permanency

Foster care is designed to be temporary. Nebraska's permanency planning process works toward one of three outcomes: reunification with the biological parents, adoption, or legal guardianship. If the plan moves toward guardianship, the Subsidized Guardianship Assistance Program (GAP) can pick up where foster care payments leave off — providing ongoing monthly payments after you finalize guardianship.

The critical detail: the GAP agreement must be negotiated and signed with DHHS before the guardianship order is entered. Missing that window means losing access to subsidized payments.

This Doesn't Apply to Informal Care

Approximately 14,000 Nebraska children live in informal kinship arrangements — with a grandparent, aunt, or other relative outside the child welfare system. These families are not eligible for foster care maintenance payments or GAP. Their financial pathway runs through the ADC child-only grant, Medicaid, SNAP, and community-based support programs.

Our Nebraska Financial Help guide explains both the formal child welfare financial track and the informal kinship track side by side, so you can see which programs match your situation.

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