California KIN Accelerator Pilot: Accelerating Kin-First Practice Through Rapid Innovations
Quick Summary
- California’s KIN Accelerator Pilot helps counties strengthen kin-first child welfare. Eight counties partner with CDSS and UC Davis to increase relative placements and keep children connected to family and culture.
Every child deserves to grow up surrounded by family and community. We know that, when children are rooted in their families, they remain connected to their culture and identity, experience less trauma and achieve greater stability with higher long-term well-being.
This is not a new idea—California has long been committed to creating a kin-first culture. Yet persistent system barriers have made it difficult to realize this vision consistently across counties. The KIN Accelerator Pilot was created in response to this challenge, supported by aligned resources and strong buy-in from state leaders and local counties.
"Statewide, we only have 30–40% of youth initially placed with kin, only 50–60% of kids predominantly placed with relatives and only 60–70% of kids have stability. We can do so much better. This is how the Accelerator idea was born. Let’s talk about a way to improve these outcomes that is very intentional."
Angie Schwartz, CDSS Deputy Director of Children and Family Services
The KIN Accelerator Pilot advances California’s kin-first vision by empowering local county teams to co-design, test and scale solutions that keep children connected to those who know and love them. Eight California counties—supported by Think of Us; the California Department of Social Services; the UC Davis Center for Excellence in Family Finding, Engagement and Support; and Casey Family Programs—are embarking on this shared journey.
Modeled after proven approaches from the technology and social impact fields, the Accelerator blends customized support, data-driven learning and local insight to move faster and smarter toward a kin-first child welfare system.
We began this journey by conducting kinship research sprints in participating counties, which engaged nearly 500 lived experts, county staff and local partners. Qualitative findings generated by these engagements inform each county’s Accelerator activities, beginning with Launch events in which participants aligned on goals and began to co-design tailored strategies for kin-first practice.
At the core of the Accelerator is the recognition that counties are already doing great work. This process is about intentionally picking one priority that could meaningfully improve kinship outcomes and focusing on achieving a demonstrable, measurable impact in that area in order to accelerate toward a kin-first culture. As such, each county identifies a single Impact Area—such as increasing first placements with kin or strengthening worker empowerment—to focus its Accelerator efforts.
Through targeted discovery activities, we are able to gain a more holistic understanding of each county’s current kinship practices. County leaders and Accelerator partners then gather for county-specific analysis workshops to lay the groundwork for the county team’s Innovation Step Co-Design workshops, where the team will design targeted strategies to work toward their Impact Area.
In the following months, counties rapidly test and scale their innovation steps, supported by Accelerator partners and peer learning across the full county cohort through ongoing communication and targeted monthly programming.
An in-person Midpoint Convening will provide a space for counties to share knowledge and gain feedback, and the Accelerator Pilot will culminate with planning supports to scale and sustain successes, alongside a Demo Day where each county will showcase findings and impacts.
We’re thrilled to partner with these standout counties and incredible collaborators to pilot a new approach to building a kin-first culture—one grounded in local expertise, shared learning and a commitment to doing better for children and families.
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Think of Us is a research and design lab for the social sector, working to transform child welfare. Our work is guided and led by people with lived experience.