What is kinship care?

Kinship care, or family caring for family, is a natural, out-of-home placement option for children that successfully meets their need for safety, permanency and well-being. 

Impact

Better Outcomes for Children

Children in care have already experienced the trauma of being removed from their homes and families. Placing them with strangers only compounds that trauma. Placing them in the homes of relatives or fictive kin reduces the chance for further trauma, while at the same time maintains their connection to their communities and cultures.

Model

A Value for Family

As the only agency in the country that exclusively delivers services to the entire kinship triad (child, caregiver and birth family), our approach is pure kinship. We provide strengths-based, trauma-informed, culturally competent kinship care services that support stability and continuity and maintain a child's cultural identity and contact with their birth family.

Values

What Is Important to Us?

ASCI values diversity, equity and inclusion. We show our kinship families and birth families respect and help them maintain their dignity. We are honest and transparent. And we always consider the culture of those with whom we interact, responding sensitively and respectfully based on their beliefs, practices and needs.

How We Have Helped


ASCI has served approximately 31,000 children, 10,000 kinship caregivers and 30,000 birth parents since its founding.

Reunification

70% of our children reach reunification within the first year of service.

70%

Education

98% of our youth graduate high school, compared to the national average of 50%.

98%

Adoption

42% of our children have closed to adoption.

42%
Activism
Celebrating Rosa Parks Day

Did you know that there are two celebrations of Rosa Parks each year? This first day of commemoration is celebrated on the date of her birth, February 4. The second Rosa Parks…

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Industry News
ASCI Launches New Office in New Hampshire

ASCI is excited to announce the launch of its newest office in Concord, New Hampshire! After identifying the great need for more support for kinship families, the state of New…

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Adoption
We Are A Family! A Look Into The Klein’s Adoption Journey

According to The Children’s Information Gateway, there are over 391,000 children and youth in foster care and 38 percent were placed with relatives or kin. At ASCI, we know that kinship care is…

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Activism
The Reaffirmation of ICWA: Reaffirming Native Cultural Identities and Family Structure

During November, we celebrate National American Indian Heritage Month by respecting the distinctive and divergent histories of American Indians and Alaskan Natives (AI/AN). While we celebrate their rich histories, we…

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