‘I'm Raising My Sister’s Children After She Died. Where's The Support For People Like Me?'

When Nash, a former NHS midwife, lost her sister to a brief illness in 2024, she opened her arms – and home – to her children. 

“It was a no-brainer for me to take on her children,” she told HuffPost UK. “It was a decision made in a heartbeat.”

Nash had been incredibly close to her sister – they were born just 11 months apart – so it made sense that her children would move in with the family. 

But it meant she and her husband were now left trying to support her sister’s four children, in addition to their own four children. All with very little support themselves.

While one of her sister’s older children lives in supported accommodation, and two of her own children are working adults and live independently, Nash and her husband became the carers of five children ranging from GCSE age to primary school age overnight – all with no paid leave or support to help them settle into this completely new way of life. 

“Making space for my nieces and nephew in our home, getting them into new schools and adjusting to a new way of life while grieving for my sister – it’s been a massive turmoil,” Nash said. 

In England and Wales, 141,000 children are being raised by kinship carers, who in the majority of cases are keeping children out of the care system and within their loving families, saving the state billions. 

Yet unlike working parents, including adoptive parents, kinship carers have no right to paid employment leave when they take on the care of a child.

It often means they’re forced to quit work and face financial insecurity at the same time as taking on the unexpected costs of raising a child or multiple children.

After a mental health breakdown last spring, Nash made the difficult decision to hand in her notice at work, as she was unable to take any parental leave to care for the children due to there being no policies in place for kinship carers.

“Without any support offered to me, this is my only option. If I’d been offered paid leave from work, it would have given me huge peace of mind and that time to adjust to our new future,” she said.

Since giving up her job, money has been especially tight. “Without my extra income things are very restricted,” she said. “Our food shopping bill has increased massively. We had to purchase (finance) a seven-seater car.”

Then there are the school uniform costs, dinners, extra curricular activity costs and all the other outgoings associated with raising kids.

Almost half (45%) of kinship carers lost their jobs and careers when they stepped up to raise a relative or friend’s child, according to research from leading charity Kinship.

As a result of not being able to continue working when they take on a child, many kinship carers are being pushed below the breadline – 26% struggled to afford essentials, 28% have had to borrow money and 25% say they fell behind on paying bills.

Four in 10 kinship carers (40%) were forced to claim benefits or increase their benefits.

Nash noted that being allowed the time to sort their new lives out with some form of paid leave would have made a huge difference to their family. 

She believes kinship carers would also hugely benefit from some form of ongoing financial support – “even if it were for a year or so, just so we could get back on our feet”.

The government’s parental leave and pay review is currently considering the rights of kinship carers alongside other working parents. 

Kinship wants to see kinship carers’ value recognised by giving them the same parental leave rights as other working parents, including adoptive parents.

The charity recommends a two-pronged approach – to help kinship carers and employers best manage the often unplanned and uncertain period at the beginning of a kinship arrangement, and then to provide the ongoing stability needed to build bonds and support the child’s emotional needs as they grow up following the trauma, loss and disruption they have experienced.

Lucy Peake, CEO of Kinship, said kinship carers not receiving paid leave from work is “an absurd gap in the law”.

“You wouldn’t expect a parent with a newborn baby to go back to work the next day, so there’s no justifiable reason why kinship carers should be expected to do the same. They are being treated as second-class citizens,” she said.

“Kinship care rarely comes with notice, but it frequently comes in traumatic circumstances and with a need to navigate complex systems. Many kinship carers we speak to feel they would have been able to maintain employment if they’d had some time to adjust, but this isn’t currently an option.

“Instead, they are forced out of the workforce and most never return. The government has recognised that this needs to be considered in the upcoming parental leave review. We now need to see a commitment to a statutory entitlement to paid leave for kinship carers.”

A Department for Education spokesperson told HuffPost UK: “Kinship carers play an incredible role looking after family members and helping to give every child in our country the best possible start in life. This is why [we] are expanding the support available to them, including through a new financial allowance that we’re piloting very soon in some local authorities in England.”

The government is introducing a new law to make sure councils set out clear and accessible support for kinship carers. It is also piloting Family Network Support Packages, which offer practical support and funding to support family members to step in and provide support to prevent a child entering the care system.

“Our ambitious reforms to children’s social care will help keep more families together safely, reducing the number of children needing care across the country as part of our Plan for Change,” they added.