Developing clear and accessible kin caregiver policies
Making policies clearer for kin caregivers to better support youth in care
The challenge
Keeping youth with family and known adults
When children need to be removed from their parents, they often have better outcomes when they’re placed with relatives or adults they already know (known as “kin”), compared to care in an unknown foster parent's home. The state of Washington has been continually working to place more youth with kin. But barriers in the licensing process have historically made this difficult.
In 2023, a federal rule created an opportunity for change. States could create dedicated standards for licensing kin and still receive federal funding. New kin-specific licensing standards meant that caregivers could more easily get the money and resources they needed to provide stability and safety for youth in their care.
To take advantage of this new federal rule, states like Washington needed to adopt new licensing standards and update their own administrative codes.
Updating Washington’s administrative codes (known as WACs)
Prior to the federal rule change, kin had to go through the same process as foster parents to get licensed—caregivers with no prior relationship with youth entering their care. It was also a confusing experience for kin caregivers to look for information about getting licensed.
The process of changing Washington’s administrative codes (known as WACs) can typically take around 3 to 5 years. This process includes collecting public comments, and if necessary, rewriting regulations and redoing approvals. It’s time-consuming for resource-strapped staff—and it’s expensive.
In 2024, the state of Washington’s Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF) set out to develop new regulations for kin caregivers—but they had only 11 months to do it.
DCYF worked quickly with Bloom to develop and communicate updated regulations for their state.
The project
Developing the WACs
To make sure the new kin WACs were written to reflect caregiver needs and realities, we collected feedback from various community members. We engaged over 60 caregivers, 30 employees from DCYF, and 20 employees from private and tribal child placement agencies.
Since the codes were written intentionally and informed by people with lived experiences, when the public comments were collected, the state did not need to substantially change the codes. Instead of taking 3 to 5 years, as is typical, it took Washington a year and a half from concept to rollout. The new WACs and plain language public-facing versions were released by early 2025.
“The impacts of having real lived experience feedback has been so incredible and has made such a better and accessible product for our families."
—
Washington DCYF client
Designing the website
Bloom worked with DCYF to make sure the WACs were available in plain language for current and potential kin caregivers to access on their website.
We reviewed the accessibility and the content on the existing site and implemented a shift from large PDF libraries to plain language, accessible, web-based content, designed for daily use and easier maintenance. The new web content went live on June 30, 2025.
Improving the website
We tested and revised content across 5 topic areas (63 WACs) in the Kinship Caregiver Rules hub. We gathered input from 31 kin caregivers, Washington’s DCYF staff and subject matter experts, and 15 Tribal staff from child placing agencies.
We then edited the content and recommended a new site structure to respond to their needs, making information easier to find and understand.
“We could not have pulled this off without the support of Bloom Works. All of our staff are tapped out, maxed out, doing two or three jobs."
—
Washington DCYF client
The result
New licensing policies led to better supported caregivers
Washington reports that in their state, about 59% of youth are placed with kin. And about 80% of those kin caregivers are licensed. That means that grandparents and other kin caregivers in Washington are being given the stipend and support they need to care for youth.
Washington also reduced unnecessary burden on families. People applying to be kinship caregivers have 50% less paperwork burden following the updated WACs.
Early engagement and human-centered research created more efficiency
Early engagement with caregivers in the WACs process led to a more efficient process compared to parallel efforts.
Caregiver needs informed the policy, and content design principles then made that policy usable in practice. DCYF was able to develop codes within 11 months.
“It gives you a step by step… [it's] more informational.”
—
Research participant
Awareness and action helped caregivers more confidently understand their role
DCYF’s growing understanding of caregivers’ information and access needs is now driving its commitment to better, modern methods of information sharing.
DCYF staff are able to communicate more effectively with the families they serve.
The updated content helped DCYF make meaningful improvements within the existing site—better serving caregivers while staying within current resource limits and setting the stage for a future site overhaul. DCYF is already incorporating the recommended site changes and insights into ongoing efforts.
Initial testing of the new webpages generated highly positive feedback from kin caregivers.
“I wish I would have known to look at this [website] stuff when I first started.”
—
Research participant
Sharing success helped scale the impact within DCYF and beyond
DCYF is currently working with Bloom to update a new section on their site—foster care content for non-kin caregivers.
The success of this project creates a strong foundation for continued strategic impact. Washington serves as a model for other states in the way they’ve centered caregivers’ needs in policy and web content to strengthen child welfare systems.
