September is Kinship Appreciation and Awareness Month in South Dakota.
Kinship care is an arrangement in which children live with and are cared for by a family member or people who have an emotionally significant relationship with the child.
State Department of Social Services Secretary Laurie Gill says kinship care improves children’s well-being, preserves sibling ties, promotes permanency, and helps preserve the child’s identity, family and cultural traditions. She says having the children cared for by other family members or loved ones helps minimize the trauma for everyone.
LaCosta McGhee, is a foster parent and a member of the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe. She says kinship care is important because children gravitate back to where they came from. They need that connection so when kids must be removed from their families for safety, kinship care is the preferred placement.
DSS works with families, tribes and public and private agencies to ensure children have the support they need to remain with kin. Kinship care can be a formal or informal arrangement. Licensure is not required to provide kinship care through DSS. The goal of foster care is for families to make changes so the children can safely return home. When that is not possible, adoptive kinship families are needed.
To find out more about becoming a foster parent or helping support foster parents in your community, visit https://fosterone.sd.gov/ and fill out the online “Commit to know more” card.
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