When a child or youth enters foster care, family members and “like-family” friends are often the first ones child welfare agencies approach to care for children until they can safely return home to their biological family. Becoming a kinship caregiver is both a rewarding and challenging experience. This issue of Fostering Perspectives, North Carolina’s resource publication for foster, adoptive, and kinship caregivers seeks to provide the information, support, and encouragement kin caregivers so richly deserve.
Jamie Bazemore, our Adoption Facilitator is a contributor to Fostering Perspectives and participates on the steering committee. She lends her expertise on supporting the needs of kinship caregivers in this issue’s article Overcoming Kinship Care Obstacles by Educating Yourself and Asking for Help.
Additional articles you will find in this issue include:
- Lessons from my kinship care journey
- NC’s child welfare system: An introduction for kin caregivers
- Support for permanence through kinship care in NC
- Parenting a child with complex trauma as a kinship caregiver
- Self-care for relative caregivers
- Resources for relatives when the children are and are not involved with child welfare
- And much more.
This issue also features essays from youth in care, news from FFA-NC (our statewide foster parent association), and profiles of children and youth seeking permanence through adoption. Click here to read the entire issue.
