Alliance for Children’s Rights: Meet A Kinship Hero
In this new series, KinshipCareCA.org will be routinely featuring kinship heroes across the state of California.
Alliance for Children’s Rights is one such hero and is a California-based organization that works to protect the rights of children and young adults in poverty and those overcoming abuse and neglect. Since 1992, the Alliance has served more than 150,000 children impacted by the child welfare system through its holistic approach—providing direct legal advocacy and social services, training those who work with or care for these children, and developing solutions through local and statewide policy reform.
Clearing barriers to safety, stability, and opportunity, the Alliance for Children’s Rights directly advocates for children, teens, and their families, so that they can access permanency and the supports and services they need to thrive. In addition to aiding families with legal guardianship, adoptions from foster care, benefits, education, health care, and services tailored to the unique and urgent needs of transition age youth, the Alliance also focuses on supporting kin caregivers.
Recognizing that relatives are an invaluable source of connection and stability for children, the Alliance advocates for relative caregivers who step up to ensure that the children placed with them receive the same benefits available to children in non-relative placements. The Alliance successfully led efforts to reverse a decades old policy of denying relative foster families access to state foster care funding and advocated to ensure that funding for relatives starts at the time of placement in instances when the child is placed on an emergency basis prior to the relative being approved as a foster family. These efforts have been profoundly impactful for the nearly 20,000 children placed in foster care with a relative.
To ensure that kinship caregivers lived experiences are always at the forefront of their advocacy, the Alliance hosts a Kinship Caregiver Council which advises the Alliance and the Step Up Coalition to ensure that their needs are fully considered in legislation, policy, and child welfare practice. To read more about the work of the Step Up Coalition and the Kinship Caregiver Council, including the stories councilmembers have shared through blog posts, visit www.stepupforkin.org
Alliance for Children’s Rights is just one of the organizations featured in KinshipCareCA.org’s Resource Library. KinshipCareCA.org, California’s Kinship Navigator, pays tribute to this vital, restorative program that does so much for families and children in their time of need.
In search of legal resources in California? Input your city or zip code in KinshipCareCA.org’s main search page and click on “Legal Resources,” and then select “Kinship Rights” in the dropdown menu. In search of other kinship and foster resources? Explore our site and get assistance from 24/7 call specialists. You may also text KINSHIP to 211 211.