About Step Up

The Step Up Coalition works to ensure that California’s child welfare system is child-centered and responsive to the needs and circumstances of the families stepping up to care for children in foster care. Together, we work to elevate kin voice, advocate for state and local policies to improve supports and services for kin families, and develop training resources and materials.

Initially, Step Up was formed to advocate for equal funding and supports for relative foster parents. As a result of our persistent advocacy, relative foster parents now have the right to receive all the same financial supports and services as a non-relative foster parent. In addition, the Step Up Coalition has worked to improve the process by which families are approved to be foster parents by advocating for the creation of a child-specific approval process, working with individual counties to provide short-term financial support for relatives who take in children on an emergency basis prior to being fully approved, and the creation of a Resource Family Approval Toolkit so that families feel empowered through the process.