Triangle Trust News

Kinship Care Week

It’s Kinship Care Week (6-12 October), As valued supporters of our work we know you will want to join forces with us during this national week of awareness, recognition, and celebration of kinship families.

Kinship carers provide over 141,000 children in England and Wales with loving and stable homes. It’s a time to shine a light on these dedicated and compassionate people: the grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings, and family friends who keep children connected to their family, roots and community.

As well as being a celebration of all kinship families, Kinship Care Week is an opportunity to raise awareness of their families’ unique needs. Kinship carers have to overcome complex systems with limited support, all while ensuring their child feels safe and loved.

The week is jam-packed with local events across England and Wales, many of them driven by our Peer Support network. Peer Support makes such a difference to people’s lives, as described by Harriet* after attending her first group meeting:

I felt like I’d known everybody for years already. This was because I felt there was so much compassion within the group. I can’t quite explain in words how impactful the group was to me – it was just phenomenal. … Without Kinship, I don’t know where I’d be.

If you would like to help raise awareness this week, we’ve created this Digital Toolkit to make it quick and easy to get involved. You could like and share our social media posts, put a poster on the office noticeboard or send out an email to your contacts.

Please join us in marking this special week and read on for more news, hot off the press, from Kinship.

For nearly a decade, Kinship’s annual national survey has been amplifying the voices of kinship carers across England and Wales.

This year, nearly 2,000 carers have shared their stories with us. It’s our biggest response yet, and we’re so proud to be able to reflect the experiences of kinship families right across the country.

As we start Kinship Care Week 2025, we are pleased to share our 2025 annual survey report. Handle with Care, tells us two important things:

  1. Many kinship families are still struggling, especially financially, and are being forced to make heartbreaking sacrifices to keep their families together. 
  2. Kinship’s work is making a difference – kinship carers are feeling less isolated, less lonely, and more hopeful, even during tough times. 

Joan*, kinship carer to her grandson told us:

As it is, I go without so that he can eat. For me, it’s often a case of ‘do I eat, or do I feed him and pay the bills?’ I have had to give up my home to find somewhere even smaller. I have been in debt.

We don’t put the heating on – we just come home and get under the duvets. I love him so much, he’s so funny and smart, and I would do anything for him, but love doesn’t pay the bills.

Kinship Care Week is an opportunity for us to recognise the value of the sacrifices made, without which thousands more children would move into the statutory care system. It is also a time to step up our campaigning activity as we demand long-awaited change for kinship carers.

Yesterday, we were proud to launch our BBC Radio 4 Appeal presented by our Kinship Ambassador, Emmerdale actor Jay Kontzle, who grew up in kinship care.

Timed to take place during Kinship Care week, the appeal gives us the opportunity to raise awareness about the challenges of kinship care and attract donations to fund our support services.

Jay shares the story of Annie and Steve, a young couple who had just 24 hours to decide whether to take in their two-year-old nephew, George, or risk him going into care. Overwhelmed and unsupported, they were at breaking point, until they found Kinship. With our help, they received expert advice, emotional support, and access to a community of others who truly understood. Today, George is thriving in their care.

Kinship’s appeal will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Thursday 9 October at 15.27pm. You can listen now to Annie and Steve’s story and donate online or by cheque to help other kinship families like them. Please help us by sharing this link as widely as possible.

Kinship’s mission is to change lives and change the system.

We are the trusted voice for an ever-growing community of kinship carers, currently nearly 13,000. We provide them with specialist advice, one-to-one support, training and peer support. We undertake research and co-create our programmes with kinship families to make sure they are relevant and meet people’s needs. We’re also tirelessly campaigning with and for kinship families to receive the recognition and support they deserve.

There are many more kinship families who need our support and with your help we are growing and improving our work to reach more of the 141,000 kinship carers across England and Wales.

On behalf of our community and all at Kinship, thank you for your support. Together we are making the difference kinship families urgently need.

* names have been changed

Join our Trustee board

Are you interested in becoming a charitable trustee? Do you have a strategic perspective on grant giving and an interest in the voluntary sector?

Then why not become a Trustee for the Triangle Trust?

The Triangle Trust 1949 Fund is a national grant-making charity providing grants to voluntary organisations, currently focusing on young people in contact with the criminal justice system or those highly vulnerable to entering it.

We are recruiting new Trustees to join our small, sociable board in the next four-six months. The role would require attending Board meetings five times a year in central London.

If you have an interest in the voluntary sector and offer relevant skills, we would love to hear from you. We are particularly keen to hear from applicants outside the Greater London area, and welcome applications from candidates from backgrounds currently underrepresented on our Board. We aim for the board to represent the diversity of the communities we support.

Full details and how to apply

The closing date for applications is 10am on Monday 7 October and interviews will be held in central London on Thursday 24 October. The successful candidate will be invited to attend our December meeting on Thursday 12 December as an observer. They would then formally join the Board as a Trustee at the meeting on 30 January 2025.

A warm welcome to our new Trustees!

The Triangle Trust is delighted to announce the appointment of two new Trustees to its Board. Hindpal Bhui and Clio Carpenter. Both bring a broad range of experience and knowledge to the role and will be supporting the organisation as it delivers its strategy to reduce reoffending rates for young offenders and first offences for young people at high risk of offending. Hindpal has worked for the Probation Service and now works for HM Inspectorate of Prisons and is a visiting Law Professor at the Centre for Criminology, University of Oxford. Clio has experience of working for statutory and third-sector services supporting and safeguarding young people who have offended or are being criminally exploited.

Grants Assistant vacancy

The Triangle Trust 1949 is recruiting a part-time Grants Assistant to help distribute up to £1m annually to organisations working with young carers and young people with criminal convictions. The role is based in our central Brighton office. Check our job vacancy page for further details, job description and personal specification.

The Sparks Programme

We have recently launched our new Sparks Programme, which is dedicated exclusively to 2021 grantees working to support young carers – a select group of 7 organisations working in different parts of the UK but sharing similar aims. 

The Sparks Programme will provide the opportunity to share experiences and challenges through facilitated group sessions, as well as exploring how the Cranfield Trust can best support Young Carer organisations. 

We recognise that all grantees are different and will be at different points in their journey, therefore the support from Cranfield Trust will be tailored to address specific individual needs and priorities.

The Triangle Trust Sparks Programme will be rolled out to Young Offender grantees during 2022.

Pirate Day with MYTIME Young Carers

Join our Trustee board

Are you interested in becoming a charitable trustee? Do you have a strategic perspective on grant giving and an interest in the voluntary sector?

Then why not become a Trustee for the Triangle Trust?

The Triangle Trust 1949 Fund is a national grant-making charity providing Development grants to voluntary organisations; currently we focus on two specific areas – unpaid carers and the rehabilitation of offenders and ex-offenders. In 2021, are shifting our strategy slightly and focusing on young people in both of these areas.

We are recruiting one new Trustee to join our small, sociable board in the next four-six months, an exciting time as we help to support our beneficiaries through the pandemic and develop a new strategy post-2021.

As well as attending Board meetings four times a year, Trustees are encouraged to visit one or two beneficiary organisations during the year. Currently these meetings and visits are taking place virtually, although in future we hope to return to face to face.

If you have an interest in the voluntary sector and offer relevant skills, we would love to hear from you. We are particularly keen to hear from applicants outside the Greater London area, and welcome applications from candidates from backgrounds currently underrepresented on our Board. We aim for the board to represent the diversity of the communities we support.

Full details and how to apply

Applications must be received before 14 May and interviews will take place via Zoom on Thursday 10 June. The successful candidate will be invited to attend our June meeting (again on Zoom) on Thursday 24 June as an observer. They would then formally join the Board as a Trustee at the meeting on 14 October 2021.

Young carers application window now open

Covid-19 has had a huge impact on children and young people across the UK and those with caring responsibilities are likely to be disproportionately affected. We are interested in applications that seek to address learning gaps linked to the pandemic.

We are not looking for standalone new projects to be set up, but funding work that amplifies the impact of what you are already doing with young carers (up to the age of 25) and develops your existing support. Discover if your organisation is eligibile to apply.

Application window closes at noon on 11 May 2021 and we are unable to consider applications received after this time.