Respite Care for Kinship Families = minute to win it games & glow stick dance parties

All parents needs occasional breaks for date nights, errand running, or just some time alone- and the same is true for kinship caregivers.

When family members step in to care for provide kinship care, they often feel an extra weight of responsibility. These kids are after all, their “kin”. Asking for help, in these cases, can be difficult. But throughout the year we heard our kinship caregivers speak about their need for access to respite care during our kinship dinners.

Respite care allows a responsible party to care for a foster child, giving the foster parent(s) a short break from caregiving. Respite care can be for just a few hours, overnight, or even for several days. And while respite care is common in the foster care community, many of our kinship families have a hard time finding the support they need.

Enter our Parent Night Out event.

Our kinship youth and their foster siblings got a chance to join our staff for a night full of activities, all built around their needs and joy. We played minute to win it games together, created sensory bins, watched a movie on the big screen (with as much popcorn as they could stand), and danced the night away in one big glow stick dance party. It was a night to remember and all our kids had such a blast.

We can’t wait until we can host all our friends again soon!