Kinship Care Program

Project Utani assists families caring for related children by providing financial and social assistance. Often the families we serve come together by happenstance rather than as a result of a plan or particular choice. Our project targets the relative caregivers that find themselves with an additional mouth to feed and one more person to take care of at a time when they are hardly able to take care of themselves. Our clients frequently fall outside the traditional foster care system and so do not have easy access to many of the state benefits that a standard surrogate family structure might expect. Through Project Utani, PLC provides specific support—rent, utility payments, and food—in addition to parent education, in-home family therapy, and individual and family counseling.

The programs primary objectives are to;

1. Reduce the number of relative children entering the foster care system;

2. Provide assistance to families in need that care for relative children;

3. End dependence of needy families by promoting job preparation, work, and education;

4. Reduce the number of child only FIA grants; and

5. Encourage adequate permanency for children living with relative caregivers.
   
   Services provided through the program include: