Significant increase in children being brought up by relatives in England

A University of Bristol study reveals the most comprehensive evidence to date on the extent of kinship care in England. Kinship care is when children are brought up by relatives in the absence of parent/s1. The briefing paper , published today [13 October], analysed microdata from the latest 2011 Census to map the number of children growing up in kinship care households. The study, led by researchers from Bristol's Hadley Centre for Adoption and Foster Care Studies , found that the seven per cent growth in the kinship child population between 2001 and 2011 was more than three times that of the population growth rate of all children in England, which was 2 per cent over the same time period. An estimated 152,910 (1.4 per cent) of the 11.3 million children in England in 2011 were living in kinship care. The highest prevalence of kinship care was seen within the black ethnic group with one in every 37 black children growing up in the care of relatives compared to only one in every 83 white children. The findings also show that grandparents were the main carer for 51 per cent of the kinship children, while 23 per cent of the carers were siblings.