Kinship's 2024 annual survey

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Thank you for your interest in Kinship’s 2024 annual survey, and for the incredible work you do every single day to ensure that children grow up in a safe and loving home.  


About Kinship’s annual survey 

As the leading kinship care charity in England and Wales, Kinship has delivered an annual survey of kinship carers for more than a decade. Each year, thousands of you kindly give up your valuable time to share your experiences and expert views with us. Your responses help us to design better services to support kinship families like yours and bolster our efforts to campaign for improved recognition and support.


And we know that you are making a huge difference.


Up and down the country, kinship carers like you are using this information to campaign for change in your local areas and push your MPs to support our #ValueOurLove campaign. The figures from our surveys have featured across national and local TV, radio and newspapers to boost awareness of kinship care and help more families get the support they need.


Last year, the previous UK Government used evidence from our surveys to finally recognise that kinship families had been overlooked for too long and celebrated kinship carers in a first-ever National Kinship Care Strategy for England. Across both England and Wales, more local authorities are stepping up and improving their services to recognise the unique needs of kinship families.


But we also know that the pace of reform is too slow. We need decision makers to move much further and faster to deliver the urgent support which kinship families deserve. A new UK Government and forthcoming new First Minister in Wales offer a major opportunity to secure lasting change for kinship families.  


This change doesn’t happen on its own – and that’s where you come in. Please do consider completing our 2024 annual survey to join with thousands of other kinship carers to help us create a better system. We’re very grateful for your time and your thoughts.


Important information


The survey will take around 20 minutes to complete and your responses are completely confidential. No identifiable information about you or your family will be included in any reports based on the survey findings.


However, if you want to let us know who you are (at the very end of the survey), your details will be kept confidential and stored securely. We never share personal information with any third parties. You can find out more about how we protect your privacy here: https://kinship.org.uk/privacy-statement/.


Kinship is committed to understanding the views and experiences of groups of kinship carers who we have struggled to reach in previous surveys, and especially where this does not align with what we understand to be the likely representation of kinship families. As such, we are especially keen to hear from informal kinship carers, kinship carers from Black and minority ethnic backgrounds, kinship carers aged under 45, sibling or family friend kinship carers, and male kinship carers.


For information, expert advice and support for every stage of your kinship care journey, tailored to your situation, please visit Kinship Compass.  


For any questions about the annual survey, please contact us at comms@kinship.org.uk. 

Section 1: About you and your household

We are asking these questions… to understand more about the kinship carers and kinship families that are represented through the findings of this survey. We want to ensure we’re reaching as representative and diverse a group of kinship carers as possible, and these questions help us find out how well we’re doing this and where we need to improve. These questions will also allow us to analyse the whole of our survey responses based on things like age, ethnicity and other personal characteristics – this helps us to identify patterns in which groups of kinship carers might be facing particular challenges and target new services and policies to help support them.  


About you










Your partner or spouse








Section 2: About your Kinship family
We are asking these questions… to understand more about the circumstances and structure of your kinship family. As with the previous section, this enables us to delve further into how experiences of support differ between families with different types of kinship arrangements and backgrounds. In particular, we want to learn more about why you have the current type of kinship arrangement(s) you do now, if you expect these to change or not, and the reasons for this.  


















This survey is for kinship carers living in England or Wales only. If you’re a kinship carer living in Scotland, you can access advice and information at kinship.scot. If you’re a kinship carer living in Northern Ireland, please visit kinshipcareni.com. Thank you.

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Section 3: Employment
We are asking these questions… because many kinship carers tell us they were forced to give up work or reduce their hours after taking on the care of a child, often due to a lack of paid leave or other employment support. We want to understand this issue further and advocate for the right solutions which prevent kinship carers from falling into poverty and give them the workplace rights they need to step up for children during times of crisis. Some of these questions might feel a bit odd or very specific (and even familiar) – this is because we’re copying questions included within the most recent Census in 2021 to allows us to compare and contrast kinship carers’ responses with other groups to make the best possible case to the UK Government for improved support.  













Section 4: Health and wellbeing
We are asking these questions… because we know from our advice and support services that many kinship carers struggle with their health and wellbeing. Understanding more about things like long-term illness, other caring responsibilities and loneliness for kinship carers can help us to advocate for better support and deliver new services which meet your needs. Again, we’re asking similar questions to those asked in surveys of the wider public so we can compare kinship carers as a group to others.  






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Section 5: Finances and benefits
We are asking these questions… as we want to generate a clear picture about how kinship families are coping during the ongoing cost of living crisis in order to push local authorities and the Government to deliver better financial support. Some of these questions mirror those asked in large, national surveys carried out by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) – by asking the same questions, we’ll be able to compare the financial experiences of kinship families directly with other groups and highlight any key differences. 










Section 6: Housing
We are asking these questions… as kinship carers tell us that housing is a major challenge for their families, and they want to see improved local authority support with finding and funding appropriate accommodation. These questions will allow us to compare how kinship families and their living situations compare to other groups and to illustrate how taking on the care of a kinship child impacts on experiences of housing.  






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Section 7: Local authority and wider support
We are asking these questions... to understand more about how kinship families are receiving ongoing support from the local authority and other services, and to push local authorities in particular to improve the advice, information and support they provide to kinship carers. This will also help us identify areas of good as well as poor practice across the country, and track how things change year-to-year.
We appreciate some of the questions below might feel uncomfortable to think about, but it is vital we present an honest picture about the urgent and significant needs of many kinship families in order to convince decision makers in local authorities and Government to change things. Remember - you don't have to answer any questions you'd prefer not to, and we're here at Kinship to support you and your family at any point.





















Section 8: Kinship carer networks
We are asking these questions…  as part of an exciting research project led by the University of Exeter in collaboration with Kinship. These questions ask about the types of support you receive – from family, friends, community and voluntary groups and from statutory services. We are also very keen to hear about the types of support you would like, but do not currently have. The information given in answer to these questions will be analysed by the team conducting this research. You can read more about this here
The completion of this survey implies your consent to participate.
How strongly connected do you feel to the following people/organisations?  
Very strong Strong Neither strong nor weak Weak Not connected Not applicable
How much do you agree or disagree with the following statements? 
Strongly agree Agree Neither agree nor disagree Disagree Strongly disagree
For yourself: When you need emotional support, how likely are you to go to these people/organisations?  
Very likely Likely Neither likely nor unlikely Unlikely Would not go to Not applicable
For the children: When you need support or advice in relation to your kinship children, how likely are you to go to these people/organisations?  
Very likely Likely Neither likely nor unlikely Unlikely Would not go to Not applicable
For the day-to-day: When you need practical support or advice (e.g. help with household tasks, transport or childcare) how likely are you to go to these people/organisations? 
Very likely Likely Neither likely nor unlikely Unlikely Would not go to


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Section 9: Closing questions


Your contact details






Contact Information