Bradford Children & Families Trust and Foster for Bradford marked Kinship Care Week (2-12 October) with an event aimed at connecting the district’s kinship carers with services that can support their families.
Kinship Care Week is a national celebration of kinship families across England and Wales. Kinship carers are grandparents, aunts and uncles, older brothers or sisters, and family friends who step up to raise a child when the parents cannot.
Kinship carers play a vital role in providing children with loving, stable homes while keeping them connected to their families and communities.
The event brought together kinship carers, Bradford Children and Families Trust and Foster for Bradford colleagues and other partners to provide an opportunity for Bradford’s kinship carers and their families to meet with services and groups that can provide help and meet others in similar circumstances and share experiences.
On Thursday 9 October at St Peter’s Church in Shipley, 17 services, organisations and charities came together to engage and talk with carers.
Local partners who attended included Bradford’s Local Offer, part of Bradford Council’s services to children and young people with disabilities; Book Trust, which helps get children into reading; Family Action’s trauma therapy service; SkillsHouse, the careers and employment service for people in the Bradford district; Kinship, the national charity that supports family and friends who step up to raise a child; Bradford’s Virtual School; and Carers Resource, a local charity that supports unpaid carers.
Bradford Children and Families Trust services included the Early Help team; the integrated front door; training services; the SGO support team; and MASH.
Kim Bray, Foster for Bradford service manager, said: “Our kinship carers are just extraordinary, truly inspiring. They step forward, often in challenging circumstances, to provide children with stability and love within their family networks. Kinship Care Week gives us the chance to shine a light on the important role they play.”
As part of the Kinship Care Week 2025 celebrations, Foster for Bradford launched the online version of the Kinship Local Offer, which outlines all the support available for children in kinship care and their carers.
The Kinship Local Offer links up information on local services and provides support based on a child’s needs, not just their legal status. The offer helps kinship carers access resources like financial aid, information on health and education services, and legal support.
To learn more about the Bradford Kinship Local Offer, visit https://www.bradfordcft.org.uk/adoption-and-fostering/kinship-care/kinship-local-offer/
To learn more about kinship care, visit the Kinship website or watch this video.