As Kinship Care Week comes to a close, we’re taking the opportunity at Channel³ Consulting to celebrate an often lesser-talked-about part of the children’s care system, but one that’s no less vital.

A safe, secure, loving home is all we want for our children, and for all children. A home that keeps them connected to their family and community is the ultimate aspiration.

Across England and Wales, more than 141,000 children are growing up with kinship carers: grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings, or close family friends. These carers step in when family breakdown occurs, offering stability, love and belonging when it’s needed most.

But kinship carers often face dual pressures: the emotional challenge of caring for a family member while navigating complex family dynamics and systems. They do this quietly, often without the recognition or support they deserve.

In our work with children’s services, we see the life-changing impact of kinship carers every day, and the enormous challenges local authorities face in identifying and supporting them.

Finding potential kinship carers can be like searching for a four-leaf clover in a field of threes. We know they’re there, but we need better ways to find and support them.

When social workers are under immense pressure to secure a safe home quickly, they’re often sifting through years of case files and fragmented records. Unearthing a family connection can come down to a single note, a forgotten file, or a hunch.

Families First highlights that family networks are critical to better outcomes for children, and to the future of the system itself.

At Channel³, we believe more can be done to find and support these four-leaf clovers, harnessing the power of digital - now, next, and in the future.

Digital: Supercharging Kinship Care

At Channel³, we know that new models of care and support can be transformational, especially when supercharged by digital.

There are many ways technology can be harnessed to support this vital search for family connections.

Mapping relationships, not just records.
Imagine mapping the entirety of a child’s relationships at the click of a button, helping frontline staff find that one person who can care for a child, avoiding the long hours spent piecing together family trees by hand, and reducing the risk of missing that critical four-leaf clover who could change a child’s future.

Unearthing insight hidden in case notes.
Large language models can now sift through thousands of lines of unstructured data to identify themes, risks, and unearth connections. A single nugget of insight, hidden in a case note written years ago, could reveal a safe, stable home.

Building a richer picture through shared records.
Shared agency records can bring together the dots that professionals are too often forced to join manually. When those insights are accessible instantly, professionals can make informed decisions, supported by deep understanding rather than time-limited searches through fragmented systems.

These are just some of the ways technology can quietly amplify what social workers already do so well: protect, connect, and care.

Supporting hard-pressed teams to focus on what matters most, helping every child find the family connection that can change their life.

That’s something truly worth exploring as we celebrate Kinship Care Week.

Written by Jamie McMahon, Managing Consultant, Channel³ Consulting