Care experience and family
Handle With Care: Annual Survey of Kinship Carers 2025
Kinship · 2025
About this report
This report shares key findings from Kinship's 2025 annual survey of more than 1,900 kinship carers across England and Wales, providing a 'state of the nation' overview of kinship families. It finds that financial hardship, unsuitable sleeping conditions, and poor local authority support continue to pose significant risks to family stability and children's outcomes, with 13% of carers concerned about their ability to continue. While some improvement is noted in health, loneliness, and local authority trust ratings, progress is slow and from a very low base. The report also examines policy developments including the Kinship Allowance Pilot and the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill, finding that awareness of new entitlements remains low and that family group decision making is often poorly supported.
Research details
- Methodology
- Survey
- Sample size
- 1,929
- Sample
- Kinship carers across England and Wales; predominantly female (87%), median age 55–59, with nearly half aged 60 or over; 69% grandparents; caring for at least 2,789 kinship children.
- Who it's about
- Care-experienced / care leavers
- Place
- EnglandWales
- Youth involvement
- No youth involvement
- Funder
- People's Postcode Lottery