There are 10,000 kids in Michigan’s foster care system. About half of them are placed with a relative, known as kinship care. 

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) recently piloted a program with 16 kinship care support workers, or caseworkers, across nine counties: Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Genesee, Kalamazoo, Muskegon, Grand Traverse, Lenawee and Ingham. 

MDHHS Director Elizabeth Hertel says when children are not able to stay with their parents safely, the state prioritizes placing them with a relative. 

“We’ve been able to create some specialized programs and positions to work with family members to make sure that they have all the supports and resources that they need to feel comfortable to take that child in on behalf of their relative,” she said.

Hertel met with kinship caregivers, advisory council members, and support staff this week at the MDHHS South Central Wayne Office in Detroit to discuss the state’s commitment toward children and kinship caregivers.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer proposed a $24.4 million budget to expand a pilot kinship care support program next year. 

The expansion would provide 70 additional kinship care support workers and family resources, Hertel said.

“Outside of just the concrete physical supports, the emotional and behavioral health supports as well,” she said. “So if children are needing therapy sessions or psychiatry, that we work to make sure that we’re connecting services to the family, not just the child, but everyone involved.”

The next step is expanding the pilot statewide. 

“We’ve been really lucky that we’ve had such support from the governor and from the legislature that they believe that this program is effective, and I’m really optimistic that we’ll be able to see an expansion next year,” Hertel said.

The money will also go toward kinship care support resource centers.

According to the MDHHS’s website, kinship care can include biological relatives or family friends caring for children through a placement by MDHHS’s foster care program, or arrangements made outside the welfare system. 

Hertel says the resource centers support all families. 

“We also support kinship care resources so that other families who may not be involved in the system have a place to reach out to,” she said, such as the Kinship Care Resource Center (KCRC) at Michigan State University.

Hertel says these caseworkers are specialized to work with families who take in foster youth who are placed with relatives.  

“In places where we have seen implementing this pilot, we are seeing an increase in some of those areas, in placements with family members,” she said.

Hertel says it’s a priority to place kids in the foster care system with next of kin whenever possible. She says this usually reduces trauma, provides more stability for children, and reduces the time they are in foster care.

The funding is part of a larger proposed $90 million budget going toward helping kids stay safe.