Taking into account the difficulty to translate the concept of care in French, this article reviews some of the main contributions of interest in the field of social policy. In this debate, the notion of care is not limited to its private and interpersonal dimensions but also concerns the political and institutional ones. The author distinguishes different levels in this discussion and proposes to speak in terms of “social care” to analyse the problem of articulation of the primary forms of solidarity which occur in kinship networks and the collective and institutionalized dimension of collective solidarity, which supports people and groups to face social risks.