young people connected to their family network. • Leaders should publish a local policy setting out the approach towards promoting and supporting the needs of children in kinship care in their area8. This should include a named responsible manager for kinship care within the local authority who will oversee the policy. • Leaders design services to include family networks from a family’s first interactions with services and empowers practitioners to work with networks at every stage of support for children, young people, and families. This includes how to support disabled children with the help of their family network. • Leaders provide clear information and advice to families, which helps them to feel empowered to make decisions about how best to care for children and young people in their family networks, and to explore the option of kinship care when it is needed. • Leaders use their funding flexibly so that when it is in the child’s best interests, members of the family network and kinship carers can access the right support, without needing to become foster carers. 8 Family and Friends Care: Statutory Guidance for Local Authorities 38 • Leaders put in place meaningful and collaborative forums with children, young people and families, such as family group decision making9. They prioritise formal and informal kinship care arrangements, where safe to do so, to avoid children and young people unnecessarily entering care. • Leaders recognise the complex family dynamics that surround kinship care and they commission services that can provide support to kinship carers who are managing challenging family relationships. • Leaders recognise that kinship carers may require additional support to look after children and young people when they cannot live with their birth parent.