As Kinship Care Week 2025 (6-12 October) gets underway, a study by Coram, commissioned by Foundations, shows the potential of mediation to support kinship families by improving communication, reducing conflict and helping to create stable, child-focused arrangements. With further development and backing, the approach could become a vital part of the support offered to kinship families across the country.
Around 138,000 children in the UK live in kinship care, meaning they are raised by relatives or family friends instead of their parents. These families often face stress and conflict, especially between kinship carers and birth parents, which can harm children’s long-term wellbeing. Mediation, where a neutral third party helps people reach agreement, can support kinship families to resolve disputes and make decisions together in the child’s best interests.
Coram conducted a feasibility study of a mediation intervention delivered by Family Solutions involving 17 kinship families across five local authority areas in South England. The study explored the feasibility of delivering structured mediation as an intervention and its potential to improve outcomes for both children and families in kinship care arrangements.
The study found signs of promise that mediation could lead to:
- Improved communication: Mediation can enable open dialogue and streamlined communication between kinship carers and birth parents, improving understanding and cooperation.
- Conflict reduction: Many kinship families reported fewer disputes and referring professionals observed greater emotional relief for kinship families, and clearer roles and expectations around contact arrangements.
- Alternative to court proceedings: Mediation was perceived by some kinship carers and birth parents to offer an alternative to formal legal interventions, helping families resolve disputes collaboratively.
- Birth parent increased confidence: Birth parents who took part in mediation felt more confident, included and empowered, often for the first time. Many described the process as a turning point that helped them feel heard, supported and more involved in decisions about their child.
Birth parents and kinship carers reported valuing the structure of the intervention with one kinship carer who participated noting: “It enabled us to talk through difficult situations in a more controlled environment”.
Kinship families also appreciated support in keeping the child at the centre, with one birth parent saying: “[We learnt] how to keep things child focused as well. So not all about me. Not all about [the] kinship carer. It’s kind of all about the children and we keep it centred to them.”
Overall, there was strong support for the model from participants and professionals, with the Family Solutions’ mediators and team praised for their flexible and compassionate approach.
Recommendations:
Coram makes five key recommendations about how the service, and other mediation services working with kinship families, can be strengthened and rolled out in the future:
- Raise awareness and debunk preconceptions of mediation
- Refer kinship families to mediation earlier, allocating additional resources for engagement
- Support birth parents more effectively to increase their understanding and engagement with mediation
- Strengthen multi-agency training and knowledge of mediation with a focus on engagement
- Consider building in follow-up sessions with participants which may help kinship families maintain progress, reinforce agreements made, and address any issues that resurface.
For the next phase of evaluating the intervention, Coram recommends further feasibility work before progressing to an experimental or quasi-experimental design. This should include improving evaluation methods, exploring appropriate outcome measures and control groups and ensuring consistency across sites. Future studies should also embed a participatory approach, giving children and young people in kinship care a meaningful role in shaping and evaluating the service.
Hannah Lawrence, principal investigator of the study, said: “Kinship families often face complex relationships and high levels of stress, particularly when tensions arise between kinship carers and birth parents. This study is a first step in establishing an evidence base for mediation as an intervention that could reduce conflict, improve communication, and support joint decision-making focused on the child’s best interests. With further development, this kind of approach could become a valuable part of the support available to kinship families across England.”