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Once you are licensed, there should be NO difference in the Title IV-E protections, services and benefits your fc is entitled to whether or not you are related. If a local agency is trying to tell you that you are somehow not entitled, they are, well, not understanding and doing their job properly.
Title IV-E is for the kids; any eligible child in foster care with a licensed provider should get just as much help. Check your state's website, there is information there. Where it talks about licensed foster care, it does not say "unless a relative." Where it talks about kinship care, it does not talk about licensed care. Once you are licensed, you are a licensed home that just happens to be related--a reason for placement, but not a reason to discount services. The reason for kinship "discount" is not that you are related and the child is therefore somehow less worthy, it is that the "kinship" designation is for unlicensed placement.
Even then, though legal, I think it is illogical to pay unlicensed relatives a smaller subsidy. The subsidy is meant to be reimbursement, not compensation. Please don't flame me, but I would guess that the average relative pulled into a family crisis situation has fewer resources and is less prepared than the average middle-class foster family that chose and planned this course and could therefore use more help, not less. Anyway, I like the idea of requiring relatives to start the licensing process as soon as possible.
Again, good luck on this journey.
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