Are you a kin caregiver raising grandchildren, relative children, or children of family friends?

Child Trends, in partnership with Wayfinder Family Services, is nearing the end of a 3-year evaluation of the Kinnections Kinship Support & Navigation Program to investigate whether kinship caregiver well-being, access to services, referral to services, satisfaction with programs and services, and their kinship children’s placement stability improves as a result of receiving services from a Kinnections kinship navigator. Beginning in June 2022, we surveyed kinship caregivers when they first requested services (treatment) or when they first heard about the study (comparison) and then again four months later (both groups). As of July 2024, a total of 302 kinship caregivers have been enrolled in the five treatment counties and received Kinnections services, and 254 kinship caregivers have been enrolled in the eight comparison counties and received services as usual in their counties. We have concluded our enrollment into the study but are continuing to collect 4-month follow up surveys through the end of January 2025. We are currently beginning our analysis phase and plan to submit our final report on findings in September 2025.

Kinship navigator programs offer information, referral, education and linkages to vital resources and supports for grandparents and other relatives raising children. Kinship navigator programs have been found to support positive outcomes in safety, permanency and stability for children in the care of their relative(s) and there is a continued need for evidence-based research for these programs.

Wayfinder Family Services, is the sole national awardee to demonstrate an evidence-based model of kinship navigation programming through funding by the Department of Health & Human Services Administration of Children & Families Family Connection Grants: Building the Evidence for Kinship Navigator Programs. This project is a multi-agency partnership with five counties where Lilliput provides kinship navigation programs: Butte, Placer, Sacramento, Santa Cruz and Sonoma and supported by the State of California Department of Health & Human Services. Child Trends, a nonprofit research organization that provides science-based information to improve the decisions, programs, and policies that affect children and their families, is leading the evaluation to measure outcomes of well-being, access to services, referral to services, and overall client satisfaction across the five participating counties and compare to kinship caregivers not served by Wayfinder's kinship program.