Best Foster Care Guide for Kentucky Kinship Caregivers Raising Relatives' Children

If you are a grandparent, aunt, uncle, or family friend in Kentucky who already has a relative's child living with you — whether that happened last week or last year — the most important thing to know is this: your licensing status directly determines how much financial support you receive, and the difference is substantial. Unlicensed kinship caregivers receive the Kentucky Kinship Care Program payment, which is significantly lower than the licensed foster care per-diem. Getting licensed through DCBS closes that financial gap, but the path to licensure is not the same for a grandparent responding to a family crisis as it is for someone who planned and applied months in advance. This guide is specifically for people in the second situation — the ones who did not have time to plan.

The Kinship Care Reality in Kentucky

Kentucky's child welfare crisis is concentrated in Eastern Kentucky and Western Kentucky, where the opioid epidemic has driven removal rates that overwhelm both DCBS capacity and family networks. Approximately 25.9% of Kentucky's child removals cite parental drug use as a factor. When a child is removed from a home affected by substance use disorder, DCBS's first choice — under Kentucky's KinFirst initiative — is to place the child with a relative or fictive kin rather than a traditional foster home.

This means the phone call comes to you. You become a kinship caregiver not because you went to an orientation and filled out an application, but because your grandchild, niece, nephew, or neighbor's child needed somewhere to go and you said yes. Kentucky has 8,735 children in out-of-home care against only 4,516 licensed foster homes. The system is counting on relatives to absorb the overflow. What the system does not always explain clearly at that first emergency placement meeting is what it means for your finances if you remain unlicensed.

The Financial Gap Between Licensed and Unlicensed

This is the number that changes the calculation for most kinship caregivers.

Kentucky's licensed foster care per-diem rates range from $27 per day at the basic level to $108.64 per day for medically complex placements. For a child at the basic rate, that is approximately $810 per month. For a child with higher medical or behavioral needs, the monthly figure is substantially higher. Licensed foster parents also receive a clothing allowance, childcare reimbursement for working caregivers, access to respite care, and Medicaid coverage for all foster children in their care.

Unlicensed kinship caregivers in Kentucky receive Kinship Care Program payments. These payments exist to provide some support, but they are not equivalent to the licensed per-diem. Kentucky Youth Advocates' 2024 Kinship Across KY report found that 83% of kinship care providers say financial support is inadequate. For grandparents on fixed incomes in Eastern Kentucky — already absorbing the costs of an unexpected placement — the gap between what an unlicensed kinship payment provides and what a licensed foster care per-diem provides can be the difference between stability and crisis.

Getting licensed through DCBS converts you from an unlicensed relative placement to a certified foster home. The financial support you receive goes up. The bureaucratic relationship with DCBS shifts. And your ability to maintain stability for the child you are already raising improves.

The KinFirst Pathway: What It Is and How It Works

Kentucky's KinFirst initiative, updated in 2025, formally prioritizes relative and fictive kin placements over traditional foster homes. Under KinFirst, when DCBS removes a child, workers are required to first identify relatives and people with significant relationships to the child before considering unrelated foster placements.

For you, this means you entered the system with DCBS's support, not against it. The agency that placed the child with you wants you to succeed. KinFirst also means DCBS has a specific track for moving kinship caregivers from informal placement to formal licensure. This is not the same track as a brand-new applicant who has never had a child placed. An expedited kinship licensing process exists, and knowing how to activate it — which means knowing who to ask and how to ask — is one of the most practically valuable things you can have in writing.

Why Standard Foster Care Resources Don't Work for Kinship Caregivers

Most foster care resources — including the CHFS website, the KYFaces portal, and national books on fostering — are written for people who are starting the process from scratch. They walk you through orientation, application, training, home study, and license issuance as a sequential path that takes three to nine months.

That timeline assumes you do not already have a child in your home.

If you are a grandmother in Floyd County with a grandchild DCBS placed with you six weeks ago, the relevant questions are different. You need to know how to start the licensing process retroactively. You need to know whether your home — possibly an older rural house with a well and a wood stove — will pass the 922 KAR 1:350 home safety inspection. You need to know whether you have to complete all 30 hours of TIPS-MAPP training before your license is issued or whether the expedited process has different requirements. You need to know what happens to the child's placement if you do not complete licensing within a certain window. These are the questions that keep kinship caregivers up at night, and they are not answered by resources written for proactive applicants.

KAFAP (the Kentucky Foster and Adoptive Parent Training Support Network) is designed for already-licensed parents. The "crisis intervention" and "critical stress debriefing" language on their materials signals that they expect you to already be in the system. Their support is valuable once you are licensed — but getting to the license is the problem for kinship caregivers.

The Kentucky Foster Care Licensing Guide includes a dedicated Kinship and Relative Care chapter covering the KinFirst pathway, the financial difference between licensed and unlicensed care, the expedited kinship licensing process, and the specific 922 KAR 1:350 standards that affect older rural homes — because those are the homes most kinship caregivers in Eastern and Western Kentucky are actually living in.

The 922 KAR 1:350 Challenge for Rural Kinship Homes

The administrative regulation that governs home safety in Kentucky — 922 KAR 1:350 — was written against a baseline of suburban residential housing. When you are an older grandparent in rural Kentucky with a well instead of municipal water, a wood stove supplementing electric heat, a multi-generational household, or a home built before current code standards, the inspection process has specific requirements you need to understand before the R&C worker arrives.

Well water must meet state drinking water standards. The guide will tell you what test to get and how to document results. Wood stoves require specific clearances and safety measures. Bedroom square footage and sleeping arrangements have specific requirements per child. Firearms must be locked. Medications and cleaning supplies must be stored out of reach. These are not impossibly high standards — DCBS is actively seeking more kinship homes, not looking for reasons to fail them — but they need to be addressed systematically before your home study.

Rural County Challenges

Eastern Kentucky kinship caregivers face a specific operational challenge with TIPS-MAPP training. The 30-hour pre-service training requirement exists for both traditional foster parents and kinship caregivers seeking full licensure. In rural DCBS regions, cohort cycles may only run twice a year, and the training location may require a two-hour round trip. For a 65-year-old grandmother in Letcher County who does not drive long distances and is managing a child's school schedule, this logistical barrier is real.

Knowing that this barrier exists, and knowing the specific contacts at your regional KAFAP team who can help arrange local or online training options, is information that can make the difference between completing licensure and stalling out permanently.

Who This Is For

• Grandparents, aunts, uncles, or family friends in Kentucky who have a relative's child living with them, whether formally placed by DCBS or informally
• Kinship caregivers who are currently unlicensed and want to understand what getting licensed would mean for their financial support
• Families in Eastern Kentucky or rural counties who need guidance specific to older housing, well water, and distance from training sites
• Anyone who has been told by DCBS that they need to "get licensed" but has not received a clear explanation of what that process looks like when you already have a child in your home
• Grandparents on fixed incomes who need to understand the full picture of available financial support before deciding whether to pursue licensure

Who This Is NOT For

• People who have not yet had a child placed and are exploring foster care proactively (the standard licensing timeline applies in that case)
• Kinship caregivers who have already completed licensure and are looking for post-licensing support (KAFAP is the right resource)
• Families pursuing private adoption of a non-relative child (a different process entirely)
• Anyone whose primary concern is TPR or long-term legal custody (those are legal questions that require an attorney at the appropriate stage)

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I get licensed as a kinship caregiver if a child has already been placed with me?

Yes. DCBS has an expedited kinship licensing pathway under the KinFirst initiative specifically for relatives who have received an emergency placement. You do not need to start over from the beginning of the standard process. The first step is contacting the DCBS caseworker managing the child's case and explicitly asking about the kinship licensing track and expedited home study process.

How much more money will I receive as a licensed kinship foster parent vs an unlicensed kinship caregiver?

Kentucky's licensed foster care per-diem starts at $27 per day at the basic level, which is approximately $810 per month per child. Unlicensed kinship care payments through the Kinship Care Program are lower. The exact difference depends on your specific situation and the child's needs, but Kentucky Youth Advocates found that 83% of kinship providers consider the unlicensed support inadequate. Full licensure also adds clothing allowance, childcare reimbursement, and access to respite care, which are not available to unlicensed kinship caregivers.

Does my home need to meet the same inspection standards as a traditional foster home?

Yes. The 922 KAR 1:350 home safety standards apply regardless of whether you are a traditional foster parent or a kinship caregiver seeking licensure. This includes smoke detector placement, bedroom standards, medication and firearm storage, and water quality for homes with well water. The standards are achievable for most rural homes, but they require deliberate preparation before the R&C worker visits.

What if I cannot complete all 30 hours of TIPS-MAPP training because of distance or schedule?

DCBS does have provisions for kinship caregivers in some circumstances, and regional KAFAP teams can sometimes arrange local training options or help identify online alternatives. This is an area where asking directly — at the DCBS level and through your regional KAFAP team — is more productive than waiting for the system to offer alternatives. The guide covers your training rights and the regional contacts who can help work through scheduling barriers.

What happens if I decide not to pursue licensure?

The child may remain in your home as an unlicensed kinship placement, depending on DCBS's case plan and the child's safety assessment. You would continue to receive unlicensed kinship support rather than the licensed per-diem. DCBS may also place the child with a licensed foster home if the unlicensed placement is assessed as unstable. The decision affects both the financial support available to you and DCBS's long-term case planning, so understanding the full picture before deciding is important.

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