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Support for kinship families is highly variable and typically dependent on the type of kinship arrangement and the child’s journey into that arrangement. The type of kinship care arrangement that provides the greatest level of guaranteed financial, practical and emotional support to kinship carers and their children is kinship foster care. This is where the child is placed in local authority care and therefore becomes looked after and their kinship carers are supported as foster carers. Kinship families secured by special guardianship or child arrangement orders have fewer entitlements to support and less security as regards permanence and parental responsibility; this is particularly so if the order is made in private law proceedings and the child was not previously looked after. As such, there is a perverse incentive for children to enter kinship foster care or another local authority care placement, even briefly, to secure their, and their carer’s, future eligibility to additional support and entitlements such as pupil premium plus, the adoption and special guardianship support fund and enhanced access to financial allowances.