Who is considered relatives?

Its usually controlled by statute in each state and it does vary. You can look it up for your state fairly easily on the internet.

I had a kinship placement of a former student. I was considered a "relative" because I knew the family. I'm guessing it's a pretty subjective thing.

I have a placement of my cousin's daughter's children. To the children, I am 1st cousin, twice removed. However, I have had a very close relationship with the whole family...my cousin on down. In fact, I used to foster my "neice's" much younger sister. I don't believe I would have been considered if I didn't have such a close relationship. I'm Auntie K to the kids, always have been and hopefully, always will be. I will be able to give these kids a connection to their bio family that another family might not be able to. I'm very close to their whole family, especially their Great-Grandfather. Even though I don't share much blood, I share family ties, cultural and religious ties, and they will be included in all their family functions until they can go home to Mama.

in some states, anyone with ANY relationship to the child at all- teacher, neighbor, friend, adoptive parent of the child's sibling- can be a relative. if it is not a "biological relative" for lack of a better term, they call it something like fictitious kin or non-related extended family member. i was a relative to our last child through this means. we share no genetic link, but i had standing as a relative over strangers.

My FD younger sisters were placed in kinship care....with a family friend. S refers to her as "aunt", but they are no blood relatives. Just an ex-friend of her bio mom. She declined to take S and her baby to be, but she could have if she wanted to. :(

I know with my tribe (I am Native American) they can go as far as 9th cousin. I am not exactly sure what the state law on that is though.

I fostered and subsequently adopted my 2nd cousin. It is a great way to keep him tied closely to his biological family that is safe (not his parents), my grandparents were and now thanks to adoption still are his great grandparents, his paternal grandfather has stayed in his life as his adoptive great uncle. I know the foster family that had him for the first month (while we got licensed) wanted to adopt him, and I am sure they would have been great parents, but they could not have provided for him, what we can and that is the close connection that he currently has with "where he came from". I feel sad that I will not be able to provided that for my youngest son who is not kinship but also adopted from foster care. If he had any family that could have taken him I would have whole-heartedly supported RU to them, unfortunately that is not the case and instead, I fear in years to come I will have a difficult time explaining why T knows all about "where he comes from" and there is such little information/access to P's biology.

I got a kinship placement with my second cousin's half sister my mom's sister's son's son's half sister on his mom's side. No blood relation at all

We had a placement last fall of a then 8 month old. Her father requested that she be placed with his new girlfriend's parents. The new girlfriend was pregnant at the time, so it would have been considered a kinship placement. The parents decided not to follow through with the homestudy/placement, but if they had CPS would have been obligated to explore that as an option.