Kinship Care and the Situation for Grandparents

Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Nursing,  May 2008  by Raphel, Sally

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Kinship care. What is it? What's needed? What's being done? A totally new swing in child welfare is before us. In 1996, 2.5 million U.S. families were maintained by grandparent(s) who had one or more grandchildren living with them. According to census records, this number increased 30% in the decade ending 2000. The 2000 census revealed that one in twelve children under age 18 lives in a home headed by a grandparent. Another startling figure is that 6 million children are being raised in households headed by grandparent(s) and other relatives. Of these, 2.5 million are in households with neither parent present. Approximately 150,000 foster care children, 1/3 of all foster care children (known to Child Protective Services) are being cared for by relatives. However, the majority of children living with grandparent(s) are not in custody of child welfare system. The grandparent(s) provide a safety net to children inside and outside the Social Welfare System in cases where parents struggle with substance abuse, incarceration, mental illness, economic hardship, divorce, domestic violence, and other issues leading to their absence as primary caregivers for their children. Although this informal, private or voluntary arrangement has many advantages for the child, there are fewer resources available to the kin caregiver. Kinship care arrangements tend to be complex. Some families find themselves in both formal and informal situations with related children. Many caregivers are still raising their own children or caring for elder parents.

For additional data about grandparents who are responsible for the basic needs of their grandchildren broken down by county, congressional district, and other categories, log on to http://factfinder.census.gov/ population/ or www.socdemo/grandparents.html or www.aarp.org/families/grandparents.

The goals for the child are safe placement stability. The results may sometimes be reunification, adoption, or legal guardianship. Adoption is least likely to occur even though the caregiver is willing to permanently care for and raise the child to adulthood. Research has shown that alternatives to adoption such as subsidized guardianship may be more appealing to certain ethnic and cultural groups. This way responsibility for the child is legally turned over to the kin caregiver without requiring termination of the parents' rights. Also this way the same level of financial support they would receive as a licensed foster care parent is available. The National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being found no difference between kinship care and foster care regarding the child's physical environment or community's level of violence. Evaluating the quality of kinship care involves many views. The quality indicators are appropriate behavior, school performance, happiness, and the caregiver's experience with raising other children. Working with as many members of the child's extended family to design and implement a plan results in the best assessment and increases the number of people who may intervene to protect the child, should that become necessary. Whether the goals are ensuring permanency and safety or giving love and moral/spiritual guidance, some believe either scenario is most helped through partnership between the kin caregiver and the child welfare system to deliver outcomes of educational support, mental health and behavioral support, and healthy development. The wellbeing issue has moved past the question of whether children are better off in kinship or foster care to questions about the factors that influence the functioning of the child, such as caregiver stress, number of children in the home, unmet service needs, dissatisfaction with services received, and barriers to accessing services, including transportation (Kinship Reporter, 2007).

On the local level, many service providers are unaware of grandparent or relative caregivers and have no system for identifying them or helping them access appropriate services. Several states have developed fact sheets containing national and state data about the children, the grandparents, and local programs that can help find organized resources for kinship care (www.gilocalsupport.org/pages/ state_fact_sheets.cfm). Other examples are groups like Kids n' Kin of Philadelphia, Skip Generation in Rochester, One Generation in California, and Intergenerational Networks in Hawaii, Massachusetts, Maryland, New York, and New Jersey (www.gu.org/ State6271213.asp). Another one is the governmentfunded project Grandparents Raising Resilient Youth: A Reading, PA program serving grandparent-headed households where the child has preexisting problems (abuse, neglect, prenatal drug or alcohol exposure). Many of these gather information about kinship and legal, financial, health, and support services areas. A well-organized listing of research abstracts can be found on the Child Welfare League of America Web site at www.cwla.org/programs/kinship/factsheet.htrn under research/data.