Kinship Care in NSW: Finding a Way Forward: Report on a Research Project: an Examination of Issues Around the Support and Supervision of Kinship Carers with a Particular Focus on NSW

The number of children deemed to be in Out of Home Care (OOHC) has burgeoned at an alarming rate in NSW. A proportion of this increase can be attributed to some kinship carers now receiving payments from the NSW Government, although not formally constituting a child protection concern. The many developments on the OOHC front in NSW in recent times, and its enmeshment within the broader child protection system, has brought into sharp focus the nature of what gets classified as kinship care. What then do we know of the kinship carers’ experiences? Where do they see themselves in the scheme of things? Is it realistic to aspire to definitional clarity around the term beyond that which relates to familial ties? Therein lies the primary aim and dilemma of this research: “An examination of issues around support and supervision of kinship carers with a particular focus on NSW.”