From Invisible to Integral - Prioritising kinship care in Africa's child protection systems through policy and practice based solutions

Presented By:

Family for Every Child

FOST

Support to parents and caregivers is a key regional agenda, yet too often the groups most in need of tailored, inclusive interventions remain overlooked. Kinship carers - who provide the majority of family-based care in Africa - require explicit recognition in law and policy, and targeted support to address their unique challenges. Without this, protection systems risk perpetuating invisibility and inequity.

This session will highlight the current challenges for Kinship care support and opportunities for how inclusive legislative frameworks, integrated programme approaches, and robust monitoring mechanisms can ensure kinship care is visible, valued, and resourced. By strengthening recognition of these caregivers, we can build protection systems that reduce violence against children, prevent unnecessary family separation, and advance sustainable, child-centred care reform across the African region.

Rise Up Session Date and Time:

June 25, 2026 3:45 pm

Country or Region Focus:

Africa

Type of Session:

The session will be interactive, involving speakers and participants, highlighting both the challenges and solutions for supporting kinship care with an opportunity to gather all experiences and knowledge from the room.

Public Health Pillar Focus:

Policy and Legislation

Speakers

Moderator and Speaker 1: Blessing Mutama (Member of Family for Every
Child - Global and regional perspective), and FOST (Zimbabwe) -
Presenting the policy perspective from the region (focus on 6 African
Countries)
Speaker 2: Levis Kagiri (Representing PKL Kenya)
Speaker 3: Government Representative Department of Social
Development Zimbabwe (TBC)

Session Aims

Share evidence from a global civil society network survey on how national laws and policies recognise and support kinship carers— formal and informal — highlighting promising practice and persistent gaps across regions, and
recommendations on approaches to public funding for Kinship Care support
Make the case for kinship carer support as integral components of family strengthening approaches— understood to include the extended family — and explore how parenting support, one of the seven high-impact INSPIRE strategies to prevent violence against children and unnecessary family separation, can and should extend to include kinship carers
Generate shared policy recommendations that governments and civil society can commit to, captured in a Rise Up Policy Brief.

Session Format

The session will run for 60 minutes with at least 40% audience interaction throughout. It incorporates a short video bringing in voices of kinship carers and children with lived experience — collected in advance and edited into a brief montage. This allows meaningful participation from contexts that cannot be represented in person, and grounds the policy discussion in lived reality.
Round table policy discussion:
● Presentation of research and survey findings (~10 min)
● Short video of lived experience voices (~5 min)
● Facilitated small-group discussion on 2–3 key dilemmas drawn from the
data (~20 min)
● Plenary synthesis and shared policy asks (~10 min)
● Open Q&A (~10 min).
Delegates actively shape the session’s conclusions, informed by both evidence
and experience.