Amazing grace for grandmas

Lutheran, The, Feb 2004 by Lovell, Linda Nansteel

Lutheran groups support grandparents who parent grandchildren

Come closer, grandmothers !" the high-pitched little voices call in unison. Somewhat reluctantly, not quite a dozen women break off their conversations. Dodging stray folding chairs in the basement of Amazing Grace Lutheran Church in the heart of east Baltimore, they make their way toward a tight circle of squirming youngsters. Another monthly session of the Amazing Grandmothers Project is under way.

As the older grandchildren and student nurses from nearby Johns Hopkins bustle to and from the narrow kitchen, bringing out large pots of chili for a family style dinner, Kati Kluckman-Ault holds up a storybook, Kinda Blue. "Anybody here ever been lonely?" she asks.

The group meets weekly, with grandmothers bringing grandchildren aged 3 to 15. Sometimes as many as 20 kids come. At the end of the first eight intense weeks, the group will move to monthly meetings.

After dinner, student nurses take the grandchildren to an adjacent building where they play games, organize crafts, oversee homework and get to know them. The brief respite lets the grandmothers gather for a program on nurturing themselves as well as their grandchildren. Led by Johns Hopkins School of Nursing faculty, Kluckman-Ault or occasionally a guest speaker, programs can cover everything from new methods of discipline or women's health to ways to navigate the city's support services.

Kluckman-Ault is a member of the Lutheran Deaconess Conference based in Valparaiso, Ind., and is studying to become an ELCA diaconal minister. As a parish nurse at Amazing Grace and educational coordinator for Diakon Lutheran Social Ministries' congregational and community programs, she facilitates these grandmothers' groups.

Not what they expected

Kluckman-Ault knows well that grandparents of all ages, ethnicities and socioeconomic levels are finding themselves parenting again. "[Raising their grandchildren] isn't what they expected to do, and they get really tired," she explains. "But they love their grandchildren very much."

Each of Kluckman-Ault's groups draws from a specific Baltimore elementary school. Tench Tilghman Elementary, with a largely African American study body, is just up the block from Amazing Grace. The seed for the group was planted five years ago when an Annie E. Casey Foundation grant drew together representatives from the congregation, school and nearby Johns Hopkins School of Nursing. Their conversations revealed a need for the project, now in its second year, with its second group of grandmothers.

Karen Brau, pastor of Amazing Grace, works with community outreach staff at the nursing school to find funding for the project. The church provides a site for student nurses, under faculty supervision, to work with the community.

Three miles away in a south Baltimore neighborhood around Thomas Johnson Elementary School, the "Grandmothers' Club," as the kids call it, meets with the same goal in mind. One night a month, a handful of women bring their grandchildren to a classroom where two teachers voluntarily supervise and offer one-on-one homework help. Then the grandmothers and Kluckman-Ault head to a nearby eatery for two hours of dinner and talk.

The south Baltimore group dates back to 1998, when Tressler (now Diakon) Lutheran Services' childcare center saw a number of caregiver grandparents. In recent years, the primarily white community around the school has also experienced problems with crime, drugs and violence, Kluckman-Ault says.

Despite some ethnic and neighborhood differences, the grandmothers have much in common, says Terry Langdon, Diakon's director of congregational and community ministries in Baltimore. "They're dealing with some of the same issues in terms of needing financial resources, needing support and respite," she says.

All ELCA congregations are in "a unique position to help families in general and to help support what we call kinship-care families," she adds (see page 45).

The need is urgent. "A lot of the grandmothers put their lives on hold, whether it's physical care or mental health care or doing fun things, in order to do what they feel they want to do and have to do," Brau explains.

One of the original members of the south Baltimore Grandmothers' Club, June Fairall, 57, has cared for her 9-year-old grandson since he was 2 days old. Her son, the boy's father, lives with her some of the time. "[Raising a grandchild is] very hard, and it's very demanding," she says. "You have to give up a lot, but it's been worth it in the long run."

Fairall values the monthly meetings, saying, "It's a big help when I go out with Kati. I'm so relaxed because it's two hours that I get to myself and can talk to adults."

Another south Baltimore grandmother, Charmaine Compton, says she and her husband have taken in their daughter, a 12-year-old granddaughter and a grandson, 7. "I know it's hard because my home is small, and we're on top of one another," she says. "There's little privacy and lots of conflict."