Merseyside Youth Association

A kinship kid is someone who cannot live with their birth parents, so they’re looked after by extended family members or others with whom they have a relationship. Most kinship carers are related to the kinship children they look after, and the majority are grandparents, aunts and uncles, siblings or other family members.

Liverpool CAMHS asked us to create a very simple animation to raise awareness of the challenges and struggles kinship children, and their kinship families face daily.

This animation aims to highlight the issues that affect an estimated 180,000 children in the UK. Many of these children are overlooked in society and experience challenging situations daily: bullying, shame, stigma and emotional distress, but with the right training, understanding and support, these children can live happy and fulfilled lives. The mental health promotion team at Liverpool CAMHS deliver training to professionals supporting kin kids, this animation is used as a marketing tool to promote training opportunities.

We worked with the team at Merseyside Youth Association and Kinship Carers, an organisation that supports kinship families, to develop the animation. Young people shared their own experiences of being a kin kid, and together, we wrote the script, which was then voiced over by the young people themselves. A real collaborative approach.