Kinship Navigator

FIVE18 provides support and training for those offering kinship.

If you are caring for the child of a family member, then YOU are a kinship caregiver.

The Kinship Navigator program works to support and empower kinship families in the central region of Virginia. The program offers services that are individualized and specific to the needs of each family. The family is offered opportunities to grow their financial, educational, and relational skills so that they can thrive.

In partnership with DSS, the program provides a pathway for interested kinship caregivers to become certified as foster parents. This occurs through Kinship Resource Family Training – offered regionally three times yearly through a multi-week course based on established evidence-based curriculums (Pride, Traditions of Caring, and Foster Parent College) but with a focus on the unique needs and concerns of kinship families. The training is open to kin who intend to foster, relative custodians, as well as diversionary families.

Services

The grace-filled compassion of Christ is the heartbeat of our motivation to serve vulnerable children and distressed families. It is the “why” behind our “what.”

Our goal is to assist kinship caregivers in learning about, finding, and using programs and services to meet the needs of the children they are raising as well as their own needs as caregivers.

This can include:

Family evaluations to ID strengths and needs,
Referral to community resources,
Support groups for local kinship caregivers,
Assistance applying for financial/food/heating,
Assistance applying to medical insurance, and
Parent and youth education opportunities, including but not limited to: trauma informed care, trust-based relational intervention, teaching family model of care, families first phase model to percent out-of-home placements, and circle of security and circle of support.