Best Kinship Care Resource for Grandparents and Relatives in Ireland

The Ireland Foster Care Guide is the most comprehensive preparation resource for kinship carers navigating the Section 36 Relative Foster Care Assessment. It covers the specific differences between the kinship and general assessment pathways, the accelerated timeline, the financial entitlements, and the particular pressures that grandparents and relatives face when stepping in during a family crisis.

That is the short answer. The longer answer requires understanding why kinship carers need fundamentally different preparation than general applicants — and why most existing resources fail them.

Kinship Care Is Not a Subset of Foster Care

This is the critical distinction that most resources get wrong. General foster carers choose to enter the system. They attend information evenings, research the process over months, complete the Foundations in Fostering training, and begin the home study when they feel ready. Their timeline is measured in years of consideration followed by months of assessment.

Kinship carers do not choose the timing. A grandparent receives a phone call: their daughter has been hospitalised, or arrested, or is in crisis due to addiction, and Tusla needs someone to take the children now. An aunt discovers that her nephew has been placed in emergency care and she has days, not months, to signal her willingness to step in. An older sibling learns that their younger brothers face residential care unless a family member is assessed and approved.

The emotional starting point is fundamentally different. General applicants feel anticipation mixed with anxiety. Kinship carers feel urgency mixed with fear — fear that they will not be approved, fear that the children will be placed with strangers, fear that the bureaucratic process will move too slowly while the children suffer.

In Ireland, this population is significant. Kinship placements represent a substantial portion of all foster care arrangements, and the Section 36 Relative Foster Care Assessment exists specifically to assess family members who step forward during a child protection concern.

Why Standard Foster Care Resources Do Not Serve Kinship Carers

Every piece of foster care preparation content — Tusla's website, the IFCA's resources, forum discussions, agency blogs — is written with the general applicant in mind. The assumed reader is someone who has decided to foster, has time to prepare, and is entering the system on their own terms.

This creates specific problems for kinship carers:

The timeline assumption is wrong. Standard guidance describes a 9-to-18-month journey from first enquiry to approval. Kinship carers are often operating under a timeline measured in weeks. They need to understand the Section 36 assessment immediately, not after months of gradual research.

The motivation framing is wrong. Standard content opens with "Have you considered fostering?" or "Is fostering right for you?" For a grandparent who already has their grandchild sleeping in their spare room under an emergency placement, these questions are irrelevant. They are not considering fostering. They are preventing their grandchild from entering residential care.

The financial information is incomplete. Kinship carers frequently worry about a different set of financial questions than general applicants. They may already be receiving a state pension, Carer's Allowance, or other social welfare payments. They need to know whether the foster care allowance — 400 euro per week for children under 12, 425 euro for those aged 12-18 — will affect their existing entitlements. The answer is that it does not: the allowance is tax-free and disregarded for means testing. But finding that answer clearly in existing resources requires searching across Tusla, Citizens Information, and DEASP publications.

The assessment preparation is wrong. The Section 36 assessment shares elements with the general home study but has different emphases. Kinship carers are assessed on their existing relationship with the child, their understanding of the family dynamics that led to the child's removal, their ability to manage ongoing contact with the birth parents (who are their own relatives), and their capacity to maintain boundaries with family members who may be hostile, manipulative, or in crisis. Standard assessment preparation guides address none of this.

What the Section 36 Assessment Involves

The Relative Foster Care Assessment under Section 36 of the Child Care Act 1991 is Tusla's mechanism for assessing family members who step forward to care for a child who is the subject of a child protection concern.

How It Differs From the General Assessment

Shorter timeline, higher stakes. Because a kinship placement is often already in effect on an emergency or informal basis, the assessment has a practical urgency that the general pathway does not. Tusla has a statutory obligation to formalise the arrangement, which means the assessment may proceed faster — but also means the carer has less preparation time.

Pre-existing relationship changes the dynamic. In a general assessment, the social worker evaluates whether you could care for a hypothetical child. In a kinship assessment, the child is usually already known to you. The assessor is evaluating your existing relationship, your understanding of the child's specific needs, and your ability to transition from "grandparent" or "aunt" to "primary carer" — which is a psychologically demanding shift.

Birth family contact is inescapable. General foster carers can request placements where birth family contact is minimal. Kinship carers cannot, because the birth parents are their own family members. Managing contact with an adult child who has addiction issues, a sibling in a mental health crisis, or a nephew who is hostile toward Tusla's involvement is qualitatively different from facilitating contact between strangers.

The "ideal profile" anxiety is heightened. Kinship carers — particularly grandparents — frequently worry that they are too old, that their home is too small, that their health is not robust enough, that they lack formal parenting qualifications. In reality, Tusla's assessment for kinship carers acknowledges that the family connection itself is a significant protective factor for the child. But without explicit reassurance about this, kinship carers self-select out of the process or enter it defensively.

The Specific Challenges Grandparents Face

Grandparents are the largest single category of kinship carers in Ireland. They face a unique combination of pressures.

Physical and health concerns. A 60-year-old grandparent caring for a 5-year-old faces a fundamentally different physical reality than a 35-year-old general applicant. The GP medical assessment is a required part of the process, and grandparents often fear it as a potential disqualifier. In practice, Tusla assesses health in the context of the placement's likely duration — a grandparent who can provide stable care for a teenager for three years is assessed differently than one who would need to care for an infant through to adulthood.

Financial reconfiguration. Many grandparents are on fixed incomes — state pension, possibly occupational pension, possibly Carer's Allowance for a spouse. Taking on a foster placement requires understanding how the foster care allowance interacts with these existing payments. The good news is that the interaction is favourable: the foster care allowance is not income for tax purposes and is disregarded for means testing on virtually all social welfare payments. But the complexity of the interaction means grandparents need clear, consolidated financial information, not scattered references across multiple government websites.

The grief of the situation. Kinship care almost always originates in family crisis. A grandparent who is stepping in because their own child cannot care for their grandchild is simultaneously grieving for their child's situation, worried about their grandchild, and navigating a bureaucratic process that requires emotional composure. Standard foster care preparation materials do not acknowledge this grief.

Dual loyalty. The birth parent is the grandparent's child. Tusla expects kinship carers to prioritise the grandchild's welfare, which may conflict with the grandparent's instinct to protect their own child. The assessment specifically evaluates whether the grandparent can maintain appropriate boundaries — for example, not allowing unsupervised contact when Tusla has restricted it, even if their own child pleads for access.

What the Ireland Foster Care Guide Covers for Kinship Carers

The guide includes a dedicated kinship care section that addresses:

• The Section 36 assessment pathway — how it differs from the general assessment in scope, timeline, and emphasis
• The financial worksheet for kinship carers — how the foster care allowance interacts with the state pension, Carer's Allowance, Working Family Payment, and other social welfare entitlements, including the tax-free status and means-test disregard
• Birth family contact management — practical frameworks for managing contact with birth parents who are your own family members, including boundary-setting and communication strategies
• The "am I too old?" question — what the GP medical assessment actually evaluates and how Tusla approaches age in the context of kinship placements
• The Garda Vetting Decoder — relevant because kinship carers sometimes have adult children or household members whose vetting may surface complications related to the very family dynamics that led to the placement
• Link Social Worker communication — templates and strategies for building an effective working relationship with your assigned support worker

Who This Is For

The guide is the right choice if:

• You are a grandparent, aunt, uncle, or older sibling who has been asked to care for a child in your family
• You are already caring for the child informally and need to formalise the arrangement through Tusla
• You need to understand the Section 36 pathway quickly — within days or weeks, not months
• You are worried about the financial impact on your existing pension or social welfare payments
• You need guidance on managing birth family contact when the birth parent is your own child or sibling
• You feel overwhelmed by the bureaucracy and want a clear, structured map of the process
• You are in a rural area where Tusla offices have longer waiting times and fewer support resources

The guide is NOT the right choice if:

• You are facing an active legal dispute with Tusla about a kinship placement decision — you need the IFCA or a family law solicitor
• You need therapeutic support for the grief and emotional complexity of the situation — a counsellor or therapist is the appropriate resource
• The child has already been placed with another carer and you are seeking to challenge that decision — legal advice is required
• You are a general applicant with no existing family connection to a child in care — the guide covers this too, but the kinship-specific section may not be relevant to your situation

The Alternative Resources for Kinship Carers

Tusla's website mentions kinship care but does not provide a dedicated preparation pathway. The information is folded into the general fostering pages, which do not address the specific pressures, timelines, or assessment emphases that kinship carers face.

The IFCA has done significant advocacy work on kinship care rights, particularly around financial supports and the formalisation of informal arrangements. Their resources are excellent for understanding the policy landscape but are not structured as assessment preparation materials.

Treoir (the information service for unmarried parents) has published submissions on kinship care equity and financial supports. Their work is valuable for understanding the systemic issues but does not provide practical preparation for the Section 36 assessment.

Forums contain kinship care threads, but the advice is fragmented and often reflects individual experiences in specific Tusla areas from specific years. The variation between a kinship assessment in Cork and one in Dublin North is significant enough that generalising from one person's experience is unreliable.

None of these resources provide what kinship carers actually need: a structured, current, Ireland-specific guide to the Section 36 pathway that can be read and acted on within days of the crisis that triggered the placement.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I have to become a formal foster carer, or can I care for my grandchild informally?

If Tusla is involved — meaning a child protection concern has been raised — the arrangement must be formalised through the Section 36 assessment. Caring informally without Tusla's involvement is possible in some family situations, but you will not receive the foster care allowance, you will have no legal standing regarding the child's care, and the arrangement has no statutory protection. Formalisation is almost always in both your interest and the child's.

Am I too old to be approved as a kinship carer?

There is no upper age limit for foster carers in Ireland, including kinship carers. The assessment considers your health, energy, and capacity to meet the child's needs for the anticipated duration of the placement. A 65-year-old grandparent providing stability for a 12-year-old for six years is assessed differently than one taking on a toddler for potentially 16 years. Your GP medical will be considered in the context of the placement, not against an arbitrary age threshold.

Will becoming a foster carer affect my state pension?

No. The foster care allowance is not considered income for tax purposes and is fully disregarded in the means test for the state pension and all major social welfare payments. You will not lose your pension, Medical Card, or other entitlements by accepting a foster placement.

How quickly can the Section 36 assessment be completed?

Faster than the general assessment, but timelines vary significantly by Tusla area. In urgent cases where a child is already in your care under an emergency arrangement, Tusla has a statutory obligation to formalise the placement, which can accelerate the assessment. However, staffing constraints — 4,457 cases were awaiting social worker allocation in Q1 2025 — mean that some areas process kinship assessments more slowly than others.

What if I cannot manage contact with my own child (the birth parent)?

This is one of the most difficult aspects of kinship care, and the assessment will address it directly. The social worker will want to understand how you plan to manage contact, maintain boundaries, and prioritise the child's welfare even when it conflicts with your relationship with the birth parent. Being honest about the difficulty of this — rather than minimising it — demonstrates the self-awareness that assessors look for.

The Ireland Foster Care Guide includes the dedicated kinship care section covering the Section 36 assessment pathway, the financial worksheet for carers on existing social welfare payments, the birth family contact management framework, and the Garda Vetting Decoder — structured for kinship carers who need to understand the process quickly during a family crisis.

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