When children have parents who are unable to care for them—due to incarceration, substance abuse, mental health disorder, or other issues—they often find a new home with a familial caregiver, usually their grandmothers. Oftentimes, these caregivers need legal, financial, and other related services to raise the children. DC KinCare Alliance (DCKC) is a DC Bar Foundation grantee partner and an organization that supports relative caregivers who are raising and caring for DC children.
DCKC specifically helps caregivers in DC who are related to a child through blood, marriage, or adoption, or someone who is a close family friend. DCKC supports clients in three key ways: representation, education, and advocacy.
Through representation, they help relative caregivers obtain custody of a child and also help them apply for and receive benefits so the child (or children) transitions safely into the home. Education services include presentations to educate the DC community about legal rights and services needed to support kinship families. Finally, their advocacy initiatives help advance DC laws and policies to create safer, more stable homes for kinship families. DCKC testified before the DC Council to advocate for reduced barriers to accessing public benefits, funding for the DC Access to Justice initiative, enhancements to the DC Grandparent and Close Caregiver Subsidy, and much more. They have also filed impact litigation suits in federal court to redress illegal and discriminatory practices that harm DC’s kinship families.
DC KinCare Alliance operates with a small but nimble team that prioritizes feedback. Since its founding in 2017, DCKC has endeavored to learn what the community needs by asking the community directly. Marla Spindel, DC KinCare Alliances’ co-founder and executive director, said that community members most recently have inquired about adoption services. “People have asked about how to file an adoption case, or they might want to know if they have been caring for a child since birth and the parents are not around, how to make that child feel like they are a permanent part of the family?” Due to these ongoing questions about adoption from community members and their clients, earlier this year, DCKC launched PROJECT ADOPT, which will help clients through the adoption process.
PROJECT ADOPT launched as a two-year pilot, with the full launch planned for 2026. Adoptions in DC are confidential proceedings, so if you are an attorney who is not immersed in this work, it is difficult to learn the processes and procedures. While adoptions have not been part of DCKC’s portfolio in the past, they were committed to making this an immediate priority. This year, they handled contested and uncontested adoptions and began co-counseling with law firms to handle these cases. Marla notes, “This project has been a learning process for the DCKC team and the attorneys we have partnered with at DC law firms. We are learning as we go, and by the end of the pilot, we feel we will have the capacity to fully implement the program.”
In 2025, DCKC plans to release new training materials, which are currently in development, and begin offering formalized training on adoption processes for lawyers. The pilot program has proved to be beneficial. Marla said, “Co-counseling with law firms, teaching attorneys as they work on a case, and mentoring will prepare us to launch at the end of the two-year pilot.”
Client testimonies on the DCKC website say that the services the team has provided helped to change their lives. PROJECT ADOPT will go even further to help more families and address the need for adoption support. Marla emphasized that “PROJECT ADOPT promotes one of DCKC’s essential goals – for all DC children to live in safe and stable homes where they can grow and thrive.”
Please visit the DCBF website to learn more about how the DC Bar Foundation supports grantee partners like DC KinCare Alliance.
Comments