Serving Adams, Chelan, Douglas,

Grant, Lincoln, and Okanogan Counties

in Central Washington

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Kinship Navigator Program:

What is a Kinship Navigator Program?

• A Kinship Navigator program provides staff positions (Navigators) to assist those raising a relative's child, including "fictive relatives" with understanding, navigating and accessing the system of out-of-home care supports and services for children.

• Kinship caregivers find it difficult to access services. Many kinship caregivers describe the service system as cumbersome and difficult to navigate, detailing providers' widely varying levels of helpfulness, professionalism, and knowledge.


• Kinship caregivers can use "Kinship Navigators" as community-based and consistent direct service providers to help reduce or eliminate systems barriers to family and child-serving resources.


• Kinship caregivers need information and support to access services before situations become crises, potentially reducing more costly and intensive chronic situations, such as foster care or therapeutic placements.

Kinship Caregivers are family members - most often grandparents, but also aunts, uncles and even siblings and can include non-blood related "fictive kin" - who serve as short-term or long-term primary caregivers for children whose own parents are unable to care for them. The majority of "kinship care" arrangements are informal, private arrangements between parents and relative caregivers, while other situations involve the child welfare system. There are also more formal kinship care arrangements, including third-party custody and guardianship arrangements. Estimates of the number of children living informally with relatives range as high as nine for every one in formal placement in the child welfare system.

• Educating kinship caregivers/service providers about resources and supports


• Directly refering kinship caregivers to appropriate services


• Help establish and maintain relationships between caregivers, and public and private service providers, and formal supports through the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS)


• Help establish a community collaboration focused on kinship services


• Provide consultation and education about kinship caregivers to service providers


• Advocating for services and resources for kinship caregivers


• Provide follow-up with kinship caregivers


• Collect necessary data to support evaluation and system improvement.


• Provide educational resources/materials related to the caregiver's situation