Kinship Care and Customary Care in the Northwest Territories

Across the Northwest Territories, many of the people providing the most stable care for children in difficult family situations are grandparents, aunts, uncles, and community members who stepped up because a child they knew needed someone. They are often doing this work without a licence, without a per diem, and without the formal support structure that licensed foster parents receive. If that describes your situation, you need to know what changing your status from informal caregiver to licensed kinship or customary caregiver would actually mean for you and the child you are caring for.

What Kinship Care Is in the NWT

Kinship care is the formal placement of a child with an extended family member or a person who has a significant pre-existing relationship with the child. Under the NWT Child and Family Services Act, placement with extended family is the first priority after a child has been apprehended or removed from their home — before placement with an unrelated Indigenous family, and well before placement with a non-Indigenous family.

This priority is not accidental. It reflects the core principle that children fare better when connected to people they already know, in communities that are already familiar to them. For Indigenous children — who make up approximately 99% of the NWT's children in care — kinship placement also serves the legal requirement to maintain cultural, linguistic, and community ties.

A kinship caregiver in the NWT is not required to be a blood relative. A close family friend, a neighbour who has known the child since birth, or a community Elder who has a meaningful relationship with the child can qualify. What matters is the nature of the existing relationship and whether the placement serves the child's best interests.

Becoming a Licensed Kinship Caregiver

If you are currently providing informal care to a family member or community child and want to formalize that arrangement, the pathway is the same as standard foster care — you must apply for a foster home licence through your regional social services office.

The requirements are identical: minimum age of 19, NWT residency, RCMP Vulnerable Sector Check, HSS Child Protection Records Check, medical clearance, references, a home safety assessment, and pre-service training. The process can feel unnecessarily bureaucratic when you are already caring for the child in question, and that frustration is common among kinship applicants. But formal licencing matters for concrete reasons:

Access to the per diem. Licensed kinship caregivers receive the same daily maintenance rate as unrelated foster parents — ranging from $33/day in Yellowknife to $65/day in Sachs Harbour, plus age-based supplements. Unlicensed informal caregivers do not. For grandparents or aunts who have taken on a child's care without the financial resources to sustain it, the per diem can be the difference between a stable placement and a crisis.

Access to clothing allowances and supplemental funding. The initial clothing allowance, specialized needs funding, and additional supports available to licensed foster families are not accessible without a licence.

Legal standing. As a licensed caregiver, you have formal standing in the child's case — you can attend Plan of Care meetings, receive information about the child's legal status, and be included in decisions about their future. Informal caregivers often find themselves excluded from decisions about children they are raising.

Stability for the child. A licensed placement is a legally documented arrangement. If the child's situation changes — if reunification with the parents becomes an option, or if permanency planning begins — your status as a licensed caregiver gives you a recognized role in those conversations.

Customary Care: The Indigenous Framework

Customary care is a distinct concept from kinship care, rooted in Indigenous law and tradition. In Indigenous communities across the NWT, the practice of children being raised by extended family or community members — according to the customs and laws of the community, not the territorial state — predates Canadian governance by millennia.

The NWT's legal framework formally recognizes customary care under the Child and Family Services Act, which acknowledges that Indigenous traditions of child-rearing can co-exist with and supplement territorial legislation. Under customary care arrangements, a child can be placed with a designated community member according to Indigenous custom, with HSS providing support and, where appropriate, licensing that caregiver under the standard foster care framework.

The 2020 federal Bill C-92 — An Act respecting First Nations, Inuit and Métis children, youth and families — has significantly strengthened the legal standing of customary care by affirming the right of Indigenous governing bodies to exercise jurisdiction over child and family services under their own laws. In the NWT, this means that the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation, the Tłı̨chǫ Government, the Dene Nation, and other Indigenous bodies have increasing authority to determine how customary care is structured and recognized for children from their communities.

For Inuvialuit children specifically, the Inuvialuit Qitunrariit Inuuniarnikkun Maligaksat (the Inuvialuit Family Way of Living Law) — which came into force in 2021 — creates a framework for Inuvialuit-led customary care that prioritizes keeping Inuvialuit children within the Inuvialuit Settlement Region and connected to Inuvialuit community and culture.

What Customary Care Looks Like in Practice

A family member or community member recognized under Indigenous custom as the appropriate caregiver for a child may enter into an arrangement with HSS that provides financial support and formal recognition without requiring the same procedural pathway as a standard foster home application. The specific form this takes depends on the Indigenous governing body involved and the applicable Indigenous law.

For non-Indigenous caregivers, customary care in the strict sense is not applicable — it is a framework grounded in Indigenous law and cultural tradition. However, non-Indigenous caregivers who are caring for an Indigenous child in a kinship capacity will still be expected to understand and support the child's customary connections — their ties to their community, language, land, and family — as part of their formal caregiving responsibilities.

The "Both/And" Reality

Many people providing kinship or customary care in the NWT are doing so in the "both/and" space — they are family or community members acting according to traditional obligations, but they are also operating within a territorial licensing framework that provides financial support and legal recognition. These two things are compatible and, when managed well, mutually reinforcing.

The key step for anyone in this situation is to contact their regional social services office and ask specifically about the kinship caregiver pathway — how the home study process works when a placement is already in place, how quickly financial support can begin, and whether an expedited licensing process is available given the existing relationship with the child.

The Northwest Territories Foster Care Guide covers the kinship and customary care frameworks in NWT-specific detail, including how to approach the formal application when you are already providing care and how to navigate the intersection of Indigenous law and territorial licensing requirements.

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