Dear Secretary of State, You know every child needs love. That is why when parents can't look after a child, it's often best if they can be brought up by a grandparent, uncle, aunt, other relative or a family friend. Someone they know, who can provide the love and stability children need, rather than grow up in the care system. As you are aware, there are 162,000 children in kinship families across England and Wales. Kinship families might be invisible but they are at every school gate. The love in kinship families gives children certainty; love reduces stress, anxiety and fear; love allows children to concentrate on school work and build friendships; love grows confidence, self-esteem and happiness. That is why children do better when they are kept within their families. Yet kinship families are unfairly blocked from the essential support that children in care and those looking after them can get. 84% of the public agree that it's unfair that kinship carers do not receive more support. Kinship families can’t wait - they are facing a cost of loving crisis. 44% of kinship carers are struggling to pay all their household bills and almost 4 in 10 (38%) may be unable to continue to care for their kinship child due to lack of support. Love is free, but raising children isn’t. The cost to kinship carers isn’t just financial. 75% of carers receive no support for managing their child’s difficult behaviours caused by trauma. The Government-commissioned Independent Review of Children’s Social Care made some critical and long-overdue recommendations to improve kinship care and I am writing to ask you to implement these as a matter of urgency. In your response to the Care Review I urge you to go further and commit to a first ever kinship care strategy which includes these four critical changes so that kinship families are entitled to the same support as foster and adoptive families. Please: ● Equalise allowances between foster and kinship families ● Equalise access to training and support between kinship carers and foster carers ● Equalise leave between adoptive and kinship families ● Equalise support between children in kinship care and those in care We know that we face tough economic headwinds. In a time when departments have been asked to outline areas of savings - choosing not to value the love of kinship families not only risks the futures of thousands of children but is also economically short-sighted. Love provides the best value to children, society and the economy - the love and sacrifice of kinship carers saves the public purse millions a year by preventing children from going into the care system. For every 1000 children that are raised in kinship families rather than the care system it saves the government £40million and increases the lifetime earnings of those children by £20million. As the Secretary of State kinship carers across the country are looking to you to implement the four changes outlined above as quickly as possible to keep children within their families, support kinship carers, and ‘Value Our Love.’ I look forward to your response.