Kinship Care vs Traditional Foster Care in Saskatchewan
If a grandchild or nephew has been placed with you through the Ministry, or if you've stepped in to care for a relative's child in a crisis, you may find yourself in kinship care — a placement type that operates differently from traditional foster care in several important ways. Understanding the distinction matters because it affects your legal rights, your financial support, and what the Ministry expects of you.
What Kinship Care Is
Kinship care in Saskatchewan means a child is placed with someone who has a pre-existing relationship with them — typically a relative (grandparent, aunt, uncle, older sibling) or a close family friend with a significant connection to the child. The provincial Child and Family Services Act specifically identifies kinship care as the preferred placement type when a child cannot remain with their birth parents.
This preference is reinforced federally. Bill C-92, the federal legislation affirmed by the Supreme Court in 2024, explicitly prioritizes extended family placements for Indigenous children before considering other options.
Kinship vs. Traditional Foster Care: The Key Differences
How the placement starts
Traditional foster care: You apply proactively, complete PRIDE training, go through a home study, and receive a foster home licence. The Ministry places children with you from their general caseload based on your "range of acceptance."
Kinship care: Often starts reactively. A child you know is in crisis — parents arrested, hospitalized, or subject to a Ministry intervention — and you've indicated you want to care for them, or the Ministry has approached you. The placement may begin before the formal approval process is complete, with emergency provisional approval.
The licensing process
Both kinship and traditional foster caregivers must be licensed (or at minimum provisionally approved) by the Ministry or a First Nations delegated agency. This means background checks, a home safety inspection, and a family assessment still occur for kinship placements. The difference is urgency — kinship placements can begin under emergency provisional approval while the full process is completed, where a proactive traditional placement requires full licensing first.
PRIDE pre-service training may be required for kinship caregivers, though in urgent situations the Ministry may allow a modified or shortened training pathway with completed training required within a set timeframe after placement.
Financial support
Both kinship and traditional foster caregivers receive financial support. The basic maintenance rates are the same structure:
- Ages 0–5: approximately $573/month (southern rate)
- Ages 6–11: approximately $603/month
- Ages 12–15: approximately $680/month
- Ages 16+: approximately $767/month
Northern rates are higher. Kinship caregivers generally access the same supplementary allowances for clothing, recreation, and travel reimbursement.
Where kinship caregivers differ is in the PRIDE Levels of Pay supplemental fees. These higher service fees — ranging from roughly $500 to $2,900/month per child on top of basic maintenance — are tied to specialized training and are primarily accessed by traditional foster parents who have advanced through the PRIDE system. Most kinship caregivers start at the basic maintenance rate without immediate access to the supplemental tier system.
Legal authority over the child
In both kinship and traditional foster care, the Ministry or First Nations agency retains legal guardianship of the child. The caregiver provides the physical care, but the agency holds the legal authority to make major decisions about education, medical treatment, and placement changes.
This is the critical distinction from a Person of Sufficient Interest (PSI) order, where a court grants legal custody directly to the individual caregiver. PSI caregivers have more autonomy — they can make more decisions without checking with a caseworker — but that's a separate legal pathway that usually comes after an extended kinship placement has stabilized.
Relationship with the birth family
Traditional foster parents may or may not have any prior connection to the child's birth family. Kinship caregivers are, by definition, often the birth parents' own relatives. This creates both strengths and complications.
On the positive side: the child maintains family connections, there's often pre-existing trust, and the cultural continuity (especially important for Indigenous children) is easier to maintain.
On the complicated side: navigating boundaries with birth parents who are your own sibling, child, or cousin requires a different kind of emotional management. The Ministry will still require supervised or scheduled family visits, and kinship caregivers can find themselves caught between loyalty to the birth parent and their protective obligations to the child.
Why Saskatchewan Heavily Favours Kinship
As of 2024 data, 57% of Saskatchewan children in out-of-home care are in kinship or PSI placements. This isn't just preference — it reflects active policy direction. Both the CFSA and Bill C-92 establish placement preference hierarchies that put family and community first. The Ministry actively works to identify kin before considering licensed strangers, particularly for Indigenous children where cultural and community continuity carries additional legal weight.
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If You're a Kinship Caregiver Who Didn't Plan to Be
The hardest kinship situations are the ones that weren't chosen. A grandparent who gets a call from the Ministry. An aunt who takes in three children over a weekend. These caregivers are often doing everything right without knowing the system at all.
If that's your situation, the immediate steps are:
- Ask the Ministry for provisional approval so the placement is officially supported and financial assistance begins
- Understand that a formal home study and background checks will follow — start gathering documents
- Ask for your caseworker's direct contact and the after-hours emergency line
- Get clarity on the child's care plan and what the Ministry's plan is (reunification, long-term kinship, PSI, other)
- Contact the SFFA (1-800-667-7002) — they support kinship caregivers, not just traditional foster parents
The Saskatchewan Foster Care Guide covers both kinship and traditional foster care pathways, including the PSI order process that often follows a kinship placement — useful if you're in the system already and trying to understand where it's headed.
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