Exploring risk and resilience in school environments for students in kinship care

Kinship care is provided by members of a child’s extended family or friend network when they can no longer live with their parents. This study explores risk and resilience in UK school environments for students in kinship care. Eight professionals experienced in working with students in kinship care and their schools took part in individual, semi-structured interviews. Interviews focussed on kinship students’ needs and how professionals perceive schools respond to those needs. Reflexive thematic analysis generated over-arching themes indicating that: children in kinship care have multiple needs and are looked after by kinship carers who find themselves “between a rock and a hard place”; in some schools kinship care is “under the radar”; other schools respond to kinship families with the attitude of “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree”; and in some schools kinship care is “on the agenda”. A model is presented that integrates risk and protective factors within schools, generated from this study, with risk and protective factors for kinship students within families, identified by previous literature. Implications for educational psychology (EP) practice are presented, and further research needs discussed.