When Nash, a former NHS midwife, lost her sister to a brief illness in 2024, she opened her arms – and home – to her children.

“It was a no-brainer for me to take on her children,” she told HuffPost UK. “It was a decision made in a heartbeat.”

Nash had been incredibly close to her sister – they were born just 11 months apart – so it made sense that her children would move in with the family.

But it meant she and her husband were now left trying to support her sister’s four children, in addition to their own four children. All with very little support themselves.

While one of her sister’s older children lives in supported accommodation, and two of her own children are working adults and live independently, Nash and her husband became the carers of five children ranging from GCSE age to primary school age overnight – all with no paid leave or support to help them settle into this completely new way of life.

“Making space for my nieces and nephew in our home, getting them into new schools and adjusting to a new way of life while grieving for my sister – it’s been a massive turmoil,” Nash said.

In England and Wales, 141,000 children are being raised by kinship carers, who in the majority of cases are keeping children out of the care system and within their loving families, saving the state billions.

Yet unlike working parents, including adoptive parents, kinship carers have no right to paid employment leave when they take on the care of a child.

It often........

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