When a family faces crisis, the children are often the most vulnerable. But before a child ever needs to move to a foster home, there is frequently a closer option: a grandparent, an aunt, an uncle, or an older sibling already known and loved.
What Is Kinship Care?
Kinship care is family-based care provided by relatives or close family friends. It keeps a child within their existing network of relationships, language, and culture.
Why It Comes First
Children placed with kin tend to settle more quickly and experience fewer disruptions. They keep their name, their stories, and the people they already trust.
Strengthening, Not Just Placing
Kinship carers are often older or living on limited means. Placing a child with them without support can stretch a household past its breaking point.
The Support We Provide
- Regular home visits and case monitoring
- Help with school costs and basic needs
- Counseling and parenting support where needed
Listening to the Child
At every stage we ask the child what they want and need. Their voice shapes the plan, not just the adults around them.
A Picture of Hope
For many children, kinship care means never losing the thread of family at all. It is quiet, ordinary, and profoundly powerful.
Children in Families (CIF) is a local Christian non-profit working across the Kingdom of Cambodia to place vulnerable children in loving families. Through foster care, kinship care, emergency care, domestic adoption, and family-strengthening outreach, CIF works so that every child can grow up known, safe, and loved within a family — not an institution.
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