For most of the relatively short history of child welfare practice in theunited states we have erroneously assumed that children’s emotionaland behavioral challenges stemmed solely from the maltreatment thatthey experienced while in the care of parents or other caregivers. it isonly recently that the field has come to understand that a significantpart of children’s inability to “adjust” and “function” is the result of sec-ondary trauma experienced as a result of removal, broken and incom-plete attachments, or the interruption of essential relationship buildingand formation. As described by the Child Welfare information gateway,children are separated from their parents and placed with relatives inresponse to a multitude of circumstances, including child maltreatment,health problems, addiction, imprisonment, unemployment, desertion,and death (Child Welfare information gateway, Administration onChildren, Youth and Families, Children’s Bureau, 2010).The pathway to nonparental care can be unique to a particular child’sexperiences, but some themes and commonalities emerge. A significantnumber of caregivers voluntarily serve in the caregiving role. some doso to avoid formal public child welfare intervention in their family’s life.still others volunteer to care for their relatives’ children but do so afterthe child welfare system has engaged the family. in some cases, the localchild welfare authority may remove a child from the relative’s care andplace the child in the caregiver’s home. Many caregivers report experi-ences where their relative (e.g., adult son, daughter) and their relative’schildren all lived with the caregiver and then the relative left, leaving theresponsibility of providing care to the caregiver. Parents leave for a hostof reasons, but some exit their parental responsibility as a result of beingjailed or incarcerated for long periods of time. For some children, theirhistory of living with a relative caregiver is episodic, as the children haveexperienced multiple transitions (and at times placements with different

Kinship care is not a new phenomenon. Families have historicallycared for their relatives’ dependent children. indeed, even in the fieldof child welfare, the use of informal and formal caregiving arrange-ments has long existed. However, in the professional realm we havenot embraced the notion of kinship care for its utility, and we have notviewed caregivers as “the intervention.” Caregivers are often viewedas a resource, as support, or as a “placement.” The purpose of thisbook is to demonstrate the curative role played by kinship caregiv-ers in helping children to establish healthy and trusting relationshipswith adults. Here we explore why and how kinship care should befully developed as a formal intervention. starting with the relation-ship-building framework presented here, this chapter establishesbenchmarks and guides that direct attention to meeting the needs ofchildren who do not have the benefit of parental care.PARENTAL CAREBasic Aspects of Parentingin our relentless quest to understand “how to parent” and the typeof child that is “produced” as a result of a particular parenting style,we have amassed a voluminous amount of literature and research.Parenting classifications, styles, or dimensions are typically groupedinto four broad categories: (a) responsiveness (landry et al., 2012);(b) control (including both behavioral and psychological; Barber, 1996,2002; garber, Robinson, & Valentiner, 1997; gray & steinberg, 1999;schaefer, 1965a, 1965b); (c) autonomy support (Koestner, Ryan,Bernieri, & Holt, 1984; Ryan, deci, grolnick, & la guardia, 2006); and(d) mindful parenting (Baer, 2003; Fjorback, Arendt, Ørnbøl, Fink, & Walach,2011; Kabat-Zinn & Kabat-Zinn, 1997; Keng, smoski, & Robins, 2011).