Children raised by friends or relatives are being ‘plunged into poverty’, says UK charity

Fiona, 65, had to give up her well-paid factory job when she started looking after her toddler grandson. Photograph: Karen Robinson/The Observer

Children are being “plunged into ­poverty”, a charity says, because of a lack of support for kinship ­carers – relatives or family friends who step in to look after children after a crisis.

Kinship carers, who are often grandparents, are twice as likely as other adults to rely on food banks and four times as likely to fall behind on their bills, according to a new report.