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a ready-to-run workshopSupporting Students in Kinship Care
Inclusion · Workshop

Supporting Students in Kinship Care (Workshop)

Everything you need to lead this with your staff or PLC: a minute-by-minute run-of-show, what to say, what to hand out, and how to make it stick. Pick the length that fits your slot.

Key takeaway

A significant number of students are being raised by grandparents or other relatives rather than their parents, and schools routinely overlook this, assuming a parent at home and sending home language and logistics that do not fit, when a little awareness of kinship care lets a teacher support these students and the relatives raising them instead of quietly adding to their difficulty.

Format
PLC / team meeting
Length
45 minutes
Group size
Any (works 4-40)
Who can run it
Any teacher-leader
You will need
Slides (5)Printed handoutYour family communicationA timer
Aligned to
Learning Forward: Rigorous ContentInTASC 3: Learning EnvironmentsResearch on kinship care and school partnership
Share / assign

Why it works

A substantial and often invisible group of students are being raised not by their parents but by grandparents, aunts, uncles, older siblings, or other relatives, an arrangement known as kinship care, which may be formal (with legal custody or guardianship) or informal, and which arises from many circumstances: a parent's death, illness, incarceration, military deployment, substance use, immigration situation, or inability to care for the child. Schools tend to be built around an unexamined assumption of a parent at home, and that assumption quietly fails kinship families in ways teachers rarely notice. Forms and communications ask for mother and father, address the parents, and presume a family structure the child does not have, which can be alienating or painful for both the child and the relative caregiver. The caregiving relative, often a grandparent, may be navigating school systems that are unfamiliar or have changed enormously since they last did this, may face real barriers of technology, energy, health, or confidence, and may be carrying significant financial and emotional strain while stepping into a parenting role they did not necessarily expect. The child may be dealing with the loss or difficulty that led to the arrangement, with a complicated sense of their family, with questions from peers, and sometimes with instability if the arrangement itself is uncertain. None of this means a student in kinship care is destined to struggle, kinship care is often a profound source of stability and love, and keeping a child within their family is generally far better than the alternatives, but it does mean the child and their caregiver have realities a teacher should understand rather than overlook. Supporting them well involves a few shifts. First, awareness: simply knowing that kinship care exists and is common, and not assuming every student lives with their parents, which changes how a teacher interprets a situation and relates to a family. Second, inclusive language and practice: using language like your family or the adults who care for you rather than your parents, making forms and communications work for a relative caregiver, and not requiring the child to explain or justify their family structure. Third, partnering with the caregiver as the parent figure they are: treating a grandparent or relative raising a child as the full partner in that child's education, communicating with them as such, and being mindful of the barriers they may face in engaging with school. Fourth, sensitivity to the child: being gentle around assignments and conversations that assume a conventional family (the Mother's Day or Father's Day project, the family tree), following the child's lead about what they share, and protecting them from having to repeatedly account for their situation. Fifth, connecting to support: knowing that kinship caregivers often need and qualify for support and services they may not know about, and helping connect them where the school can. The workshop helps teachers understand kinship care, drop the parent-at-home assumption in their language and practice, and partner with relative caregivers so these students and families are supported rather than quietly disadvantaged.

The research: Research and practice on kinship care, grandfamilies, and school partnership.

The run-of-show

Choose your slot. The agenda, timings, and length update to match.

    The core activity: fit school practice to the family a child has

    The heart of the session is dropping the parent-at-home assumption in language and practice and partnering with relative caregivers as the parent figures they are.

    Fit the school to the family the child hasSchools assume a parent at home, and kinship families, grandparents and relatives raising children, quietly bear the cost in alienating forms and projects. A little awareness and inclusive language let you support these students instead of adding to their difficulty.

    Facilitator notes

    Do not make the child account for their familyFollowing the child's lead about what they share, and designing assignments and conversations that do not force an explanation, protects a student in kinship care from having to repeatedly explain a situation that may be painful or private.

    Adapt it

    Participant handout

    One page for every teacher. Print it, or save it as a PDF.

    K12 Academics · Professional Learning

    Supporting Students in Kinship Care: fit school to the real family

    Support students raised by relatives: drop the parent-at-home assumption in your language and practice, partner with the caregiver as the parent figure, and be gentle with the child.

    1. Something I say or send home that assumes a parent, and my fix:
    2. Inclusive language I will use (your family, the adults who care for you):
    3. How I partner with the relative caregiver as the parent figure:
    4. A family-assuming assignment I will rework:
    5. Support or services I can help connect a caregiver to:

    Make it stick

    Awareness of kinship care lets you support rather than overlook. Close by setting the follow-up:

    Common questions

    How common is kinship care, really, is this worth a whole workshop?
    It is far more common than most teachers assume, which is precisely why it is worth attention: a significant number of children are being raised by grandparents or other relatives rather than their parents, and because the arrangement is often informal and invisible, teachers routinely have such students without realizing it. The point of the workshop is not that kinship care is exotic but that it is common and overlooked, and that the overlooking is what causes harm. Schools built around an unexamined assumption of a parent at home send home forms asking for mother and father, address communications to the parents, and assign family-tree and Mother's Day projects, all of which quietly fail a child being raised by a grandparent and the relative raising them. Because the arrangement is often invisible, these small failures accumulate unnoticed. So the value of even brief awareness is high relative to its cost: simply knowing kinship care exists and is common, and adjusting your language and practice accordingly, prevents a steady, unseen source of alienation for a group of students larger than most teachers realize they have.
    Should I treat a grandparent raising a student differently from a parent?
    You treat them as the full parent figure they are, which means the same partnership you would offer any parent, with awareness of some realities that may differ. The relative raising a child, a grandparent, aunt, uncle, or other family member, is functioning as that child's parent and deserves to be treated as the complete partner in the child's education: communicated with as the decision-maker, welcomed at conferences and events, respected as the authority on the child. So in that sense you do not treat them differently; you treat them as the parent figure. Where awareness helps is in recognizing realities that may accompany kinship care so you can partner effectively. A grandparent may be navigating school systems that have changed dramatically since they last did this, may face barriers of technology, health, or energy, may be under financial and emotional strain from unexpectedly taking on a child, and may not know about support and services they qualify for. Being mindful of these lets you communicate and partner in ways that actually work, offering a phone call where a parent portal is a barrier, for instance, rather than assuming disengagement. So the stance is full partnership as a parent figure, informed by sensitivity to the particular barriers a relative caregiver may face.
    How do I handle family-themed assignments like family trees or Mother's Day projects?
    You rework them so they include any family structure rather than assuming a conventional one, which serves students in kinship care and many others besides. Assignments and activities that presume a child has a mother and father at home, the family tree, the Mother's Day or Father's Day craft, the write about your parents prompt, can be genuinely painful for a child being raised by a grandparent or other relative, and can force them to either publicly explain their situation or complete an assignment that does not fit their life. The fix is usually simple and makes the activity better for everyone: broaden the framing so any family works. A family tree becomes a chance to represent whatever family the child has, in whatever shape it takes; a Mother's or Father's Day project becomes a card or gift for someone special who cares for them; a prompt about parents becomes a prompt about the adults in their family. This small reframing removes the assumption without singling anyone out, so a child in kinship care, and children in foster care, single-parent, same-sex-parent, and many other families, can complete it honestly and comfortably. The principle is to follow the child's lead about what they share and never design an activity that forces a student to account for or justify their family structure in front of peers.

    Go deeper

    Build it into a bigger day

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