Kinship Care Tennessee: How Relatives Become Licensed Caregivers for Family Members

A grandparent gets a call from DCS. A child they love is being removed from their home and needs somewhere safe to go — tonight. Do they say yes?

That moment — urgent, emotionally loaded, and administratively unprepared — is how most kinship care placements in Tennessee begin. Relatives and close family friends who step up in these moments are called kinship caregivers, and Tennessee has a specific process designed to get them approved quickly while still protecting the child. But the process has deadlines and requirements that most kinship families find out about only after the placement has already happened.

Here is what kinship caregivers in Tennessee need to understand about how the system works and what their obligations are.

What Is Kinship Care in Tennessee?

Kinship care refers to the formal or informal arrangement in which a child in state custody is placed with a relative or close family connection rather than with an unrelated foster family. Tennessee law under T.C.A. § 37-2-414 prioritizes these placements. When DCS removes a child from their home, state policy directs workers to identify relatives first as potential placement resources before seeking an unrelated foster home.

Kinship placements preserve the child's connections to their family network, cultural identity, and community ties. Research consistently shows that children placed with relatives experience better outcomes across several stability measures compared to children in unrelated foster homes. In Tennessee, where 21.3% of children in care experienced three or more placements in a single year as of 2021, kinship placement represents one of the most effective tools for improving that number.

The state of Tennessee draws a distinction between relative placements and non-relative kinship placements. Relatives include grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings, and other blood relations. Non-relative kin may include close family friends or godparents who have an existing relationship with the child. Both can be considered for placement, though the expedited process is most clearly defined for relatives.

The Expedited Approval Process

When DCS places a child with a relative on an emergency basis, the relative does not go through the full licensing process before the child arrives. Instead, Tennessee uses an expedited approval process that involves:

• A preliminary home walk-through to check for immediate safety hazards
• Criminal background checks through TBI/FBI fingerprinting
• Registry searches including the TN Central Child Abuse Registry, the National Sexual Offender Registry, the Vulnerable Persons Registry, and the DCS internal history check

This expedited screening can be completed quickly — sometimes within days of the placement — so the child can remain in a safe relative home while the full process proceeds.

Relatives who pass the expedited approval receive an expedited board rate of $15.37 per day. This is a temporary rate tied to the preliminary approval status, not the full license rate.

The 120-Day Full Licensing Window

Here is the deadline most kinship families do not know about until they are already in the middle of it: if you want to receive the full foster care board rate, you must complete the full DCS licensing process within 120 days of the child's placement in your home.

Full licensing requires:

• Completion of TN KEY pre-service training (approximately 30 hours)
• Completion of a home study resulting in a Profile of Parenting Study (POPS)
• All background clearances finalized
• The home passing a formal DCS Policy 16 safety inspection

If the full process is not completed within 120 days, kinship caregivers may continue caring for the child but at the expedited (lower) board rate, or they may face licensing delays that affect the child's formal placement status.

The 120-day window is generous but not infinite. Kinship families who know about this deadline on day one are in a much better position than those who find out at the 90-day mark.

TN KEY Training for Kinship Caregivers

TN KEY is the same mandatory pre-service training required of all prospective foster parents in Tennessee. It covers approximately 30 hours of curriculum including trauma-informed care, attachment and bonding, supporting the child's connection to their birth family, and navigating DCS policy and court processes.

For kinship families, TN KEY may feel redundant in some areas — you already know the child, you know the family history, you have a relationship that unrelated foster parents have to build from scratch. But the training still covers material that is genuinely useful: how trauma affects brain development, how to support a child who has experienced removal and loss, and how to work with DCS workers and the court system as a formal part of the child's care team.

Arrow Child and Family Ministries provides kinship-specific training support through its Kinship Training Calendar and has resources designed specifically for relative caregivers navigating DCS processes. Several DCS regions also have dedicated Kinship Coordinators (KCs) who guide relatives through the licensing pathway separately from the standard foster family queue.

Board Rates for Fully Licensed Kinship Homes

Once a kinship caregiver completes full DCS licensing, they qualify for the same board rates as other licensed foster parents. Tennessee's 2024–2025 rates are:

• Ages 0–11: $32.62 per day
• Ages 12 and older: $37.40 per day
• Children with special needs: $35.88 to $41.14 per day (enhanced rate)

The difference between the expedited rate ($15.37/day) and the full standard rate ($32.62/day) is significant — roughly $520 per month for a younger child. Completing the full licensing process within the 120-day window is financially meaningful for families caring for children on a fixed or limited income.

All foster children in Tennessee, including those in kinship placements, are enrolled in TennCare (Medicaid), which covers all medical, dental, vision, and mental health costs for the child.

Criminal History Considerations for Kinship Applicants

The same background check requirements that apply to unrelated foster parents apply to kinship caregivers. Absolute disqualifiers include convictions for murder, child abuse, rape, sexual assault, kidnapping, spousal abuse, and arson. These bars cannot be waived, regardless of the applicant's family relationship to the child.

Some older felony convictions — physical assault or battery, drug offenses more than five years old, property crimes — may be reviewed through Tennessee's Waiver Advisory Committee process. The committee considers factors like the applicant's age at the time of the offense, time elapsed, and evidence of rehabilitation. Kinship families who have a concern about a past record should raise it with their DCS Kinship Coordinator early rather than waiting for it to become a problem during the clearance process.

The Age Exception for Siblings

Tennessee law permits individuals as young as 18 to foster a sibling or blood relative — whereas the general minimum age for fostering unrelated children is 21. This exception exists to allow adult siblings to step in when younger siblings need placement, keeping families together even when the available adult is not yet established in their own life.

Kinship Care vs. Kinship Adoption: Two Different Things

Kinship care is a foster placement — the child remains in DCS custody, the caregiver is licensed, and the goal is typically reunification with the birth parent. Kinship adoption is a separate process that occurs after parental rights have been terminated, when the kinship caregiver seeks to permanently adopt the child.

If you are a relative who is currently fostering a child and are wondering what happens if reunification does not work out, that is a separate conversation about the foster-to-adopt pathway and adoption assistance subsidies. Tennessee gives preference to foster families who have had a child in their home for 12 or more consecutive months when that child becomes available for adoption.

Finding Kinship Support Resources in Tennessee

• DCS Kinship Coordinators: Each DCS region has dedicated staff specifically to guide kinship families. Ask for your regional KC contact at the first opportunity.
• Tennessee Foster and Adoptive Care Association (TFACA): Provides peer support and advocacy for foster and kinship families statewide.
• Arrow Child and Family Ministries: Maintains a kinship-specific training calendar and support resources.
• Every Child TN: Can connect kinship families with church-based WRAP support teams (respite, meals, encouragement, prayer).

If a child has just been placed in your home and you are trying to understand what the next 120 days need to look like, the Tennessee Foster Care Licensing Guide lays out the full licensing sequence — including what documents to gather, how to sequence background checks so nothing expires, and how to work effectively with your DCS Kinship Coordinator through the home study process.

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