This guide was developed to help child welfare professionals design an effective strength-base process for working mutually with kinship families to assess their ability and willingness to provide care for a relative child in their home. The guide, designed for use with an accompanying curriculum, is organized into four parts. Part 1 introduces the guide and describes its use. Part 2 provides an overview of kinship care, its history, and the philosophy of kinship care services in child welfare. This part also discusses the role of assessment in working with kinship families; presents a rationale for using mutuality in kinship assessments; provides information regarding challenges in conducting assessments with kinship families; and offers recommendations for building relationships and providing support to families during assessment. Part 3 describes the process of mutual assessment, including combining family assessment and training, conducting initial meetings, and continuing the assessment in relation to desired outcomes related to: (1) understanding the child welfare service system; (2) supporting healthy development and managing loss; (3) identifying and meeting special needs; (4) providing guidance and discipline; (5) maintaining family connections; (6) connecting children to safe, nurturing, lifelong relationships; and (7) adapting to family change; and (8)getting help finding and using resources. Part 4 delineates the tools and resources from the accompanying curriculum that can be utilized in the kinship assessment process. (KB)