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Q&A
Financial supports and overview of kinship care in the foster care system
0:29:21
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154 sec
The Deputy Commissioner provides an overview of financial supports available for kinship caregivers in the foster care system, including KinGAP (Kinship Guardianship Assistance Program).
- 45% of children in foster care (about 2,800 out of 6,500) are living with kin.
- 620 out of 2,082 foster parents in the system are over age 60.
- Kinship foster parents receive subsidies based on the age and needs of the child.
- For permanent kinship arrangements, the Kinship Guardianship Assistance Program (KinGAP) provides ongoing subsidies similar to adoption subsidies.
Crystal Hudson
0:29:21
Older adult caregivers often live on fixed incomes, as we know.
0:29:25
What steps does the city take to simplify access to financial supports like TANF, SNAP, and KinGAP for older caregivers?
Lorraine Cortés-Vázquez
0:29:35
Do you wanna take that?
UNKNOWN
0:29:38
I can answer for not for TANF and SNAP, but I can answer for KinGAP and kinship subsidy through foster care.
0:29:48
Sure.
0:29:48
So for children who've been found to be abused or neglected and come into foster care, which requires family court oversight and review, we prioritize placing children with kin.
0:30:04
At this time, forty five percent of the children in foster care, so about 2,800 out of 6,500 are living with kin, which we define very broadly to include grandparents, aunts, uncles, relatives, but also like a close family friend, a godparent we'd consider kin.
0:30:24
And just to put it in the sense of this hearing, currently we have 2,082 foster parents in the system and 600 and 20 of them are over age 60.
Crystal Hudson
0:30:37
Six hundred and 20?
UNKNOWN
0:30:38
Yeah.
0:30:41
But for all kinship foster parents, they would get a kinship foster care subsidy that's based on there's several different rates based on the age of the child and the needs of the child.
0:30:55
There's a basic rate and then special exceptional rate.
0:30:59
When children are in foster care, our goal for almost all children is to reunify them with their families and to send them back home.
0:31:08
And so a lot of the work we do is about providing their parents and the children and the foster parents the services and support so kids can go home.
0:31:17
And so most children in foster care return home, but each year, roughly three fifty children or have finalized kinshipguardianship.
0:31:28
It changes by the year and it goes down each year because fewer children are in foster care and more children return home.
0:31:36
But for kids who are going to live permanently with their relative, we would connect them to the kinship guardianship assistance program, which is similar to adoption subsidy in that the relative would get guardianship and they would continue to get the subsidy, which is usually equivalent to what they were getting as a foster care subsidy.