Kinship Care week is an online campaign to raise awareness of the role kinship carers play in the lives of UK children, led by the charity GrandparentsPlus. We are taking part this year, to celebrate all the amazing fashion and textile families kinship families and highlight how our grants can help them. 

What is kinship care?

Kinship care often begins with a family crisis, with a child whose parents are no longer able to care for them. When a loved one steps in – a grandparent, brother, sister, aunt, uncle or family friend, they become a kinship carer, bringing up the children they love.

Kinship families in the UK are raising over 200,000 children and kinship care can be life changing and challenging. Plans are pushed aside. Relationships, jobs and savings are sacrificed. Yet kinship carers do it without a thought for themselves because they put the children first.

Kinship Care Week increases understanding and recognition of the role of kinship carers and the challenges they often face, but importantly, it’s also an opportunity to thank kinship carers for the incredible job they do raising children.

How our Kinship Care grants help

Our Kinship Care grants grants help families who are raising children of relatives or friends. Grants can help to cover set-up costs for the children or support with ongoing health and wellbeing needs. 

To apply for an FTCT grant, one carer/parent must work OR have recently worked in the UK fashion and textile industry, for at least one year within the last nine years.

Find out more about our kinship grants and apply today.

You can see what Grandparents Plus – the kinship care charity is doing to celebrate #KinshipCareWeek here.