A WOMAN who took on the care of four grandchildren is calling for more state support for so-called 'kin-carers,' the grandparents, siblings and friends who look after children in order to prevent them being taken into care.

Some 173,000 British children are brought up by relatives and carers, often without any kind of support network.

In an effort to help, Patricia Leake, of Marske, east Cleveland, set up the North-East's first branch of Kinkids Support, a group established in Rotherham a year ago to offer support for parental guardians and to campaign for better recognition.

Ms Leake, 47, who has three grown up children of her own, took on caring for her daughter's children, Maisie, five, Jack six, Harold, three and Bradley, nine, in 2011 when she could no longer look after them.

The children had always been loved and there had never been any serious issues of care, but Ms Leake needed to offer them accommodation at short notice.

When she agreed to give them a home she was living with a long-term partner and her son and the family were already moving house. She had just one week to find much larger accommodation.

One of the children was then just a seven-month-old baby.

The family had to leave their native Middlesbrough and Ms Leake found it was impossible to work and very hard to have a social life of her own.

After a couple of years she split up from her partner and started to feel even more isolated.

"Foster carers get training courses, they get a number to call, there's a network there," said Ms Leake. "We're on our own."

Searching Facebook one night she stumbled across Kinkids Support. She and a friend set up their own Teesside branch for carers to meet while the children play on the weekend.

"I do have days when I think, 'what am I doing?', you know," she said. "But I could never give up on them, no, never."

Despite the problems, the life outcomes of the 'kincare kids' are better than those in state care, and Ms Leake believes the state should offer the same kind of support it does to foster carers.

She challenged Labour leader Ed Miliband on the topic when he visited Redcar College recently, leading to him to say the issue of greater state support to kin-carers was being examined by his party.

*Kinkids national helpline is 07773661786. The Teesside branch can be contacted by emailing kinkids-teesside@outlook.com