Eye on Washington

Eye on XXXX XXX 2008 USA 1073-6077 Journal Blackwell Publishing Ltd. JCAP Washington Malden,of Child and Inc Blackwell PublishingAdolescent Psychiatric Nursing

Kinship Care and the Situation for Grandparents

Kinship care. What is it? Whats needed? Whats

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
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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 childs physical environment or communitys level of violence. Evaluating the quality of kinship care involves many views. The quality indicators are appropriate behavior, school performance, happiness, and the caregivers experience with raising other children. Working with as many members of the childs 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
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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.htm under research/data. Kinship Policy Reports The 2000 Report to Congress on Kinship Foster Care was developed by a panel of advisors convened by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Resources. Highlights of the summary from the existing literature and research include: Kin caregivers often receive less financial and nonfinancial assistance compared with foster parents. Research indicates kin caregivers are often poorer, older, and less educated than foster parents. A growing number of children are in kinship care and tend to stay longer with fewer moves. Costs of kinship care are rising. Kin caregivers have less preparation time, receive less supervision and interaction from caseworkers than foster caregivers. Many states are encouraging kin caregivers to become licensed foster parents. Study Evaluation and Recommendations The advisory panel recommended minimal federal oversight, allowing states to determine their own needs. Kin caregivers need to be made fully aware of programs and services for which they are eligible. No matter where the child is placed, permanence must be the ultimate goal.
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The federal government needs to provide basic kinship care research to states without burdening them with extra data. The recommendations and accompanying appendices of the report contained helpful information for agencies that provide kinship care. In 1999, the U.S. General Accounting Office published Foster care: Kinship care quality and permanency issues. This was a report to the Chairman, Subcommittee of Human Resources, Committee on Ways and Means, U.S. House of Representatives. The study had three sections: A description of the quality of kinship care compared with foster care in terms of caseworker assessment of caregivers parenting skills, maintenance of child contact with familiar people and surroundings, and caregivers willingness to enforce court-ordered restrictions on parental visits. A time-in-care comparison of children in kinship care and foster care. An evaluation of quality of care and placement in a permanent home in a timely manner. The authors collected research, federal statutes, and regulations on kinship care. They also reviewed California and Illinois legislation and initiatives from samples of foster care cases because these states had large kinship care populations and different systems. The Results Childrens experiences in kinship care and foster care were comparable. More continuity existed in the lives of children in kinship care. Illinois actively pursued adoption or guardianship with kin care providers; therefore, kinship care children in that state spent less time in state custody. In California, the authors found no significant relationship between length of stay and kinship care or foster care. Overall, in both states, children were in kinship care longer than the maximum time allotted by the Adoption and Safe Families Act. This GAO report offered a comprehensive document on kinship care. Results indicated that each state had a different way of dealing with kinship care populations Source (www.cwla.org/programs/kinship/ factsheet.htm).
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Eye on Washington

Legislation There are two kinship bills currently in the U.S. Congress. Both bills establish kinship guardianship assistance payments by expanding federal Title IV-E funding. At present, funding is only available for foster care payments and to help families with special needs adoptions. One new bill sponsored by Senators Olympia Snow (R-ME) and Hillary Clinton (D-NY) is Senate Bill S.661, which they reintroduced in February 2007. In May 2007, the House version, H.R. 2188, was introduced by Representatives Danny Davis (D-IL) and Tim Johnson (R-IL). Both bills are known as the Kinship Caregiver Support Act. This legislation would form a kinship navigator program that will provide grants to state governments to assist development of information and referral systems for all kinship families regardless of financial need. Further, the bills require states to have a notification process in place so relatives will be informed when a child enters the child welfare system. At the time of this writing, the House Bill is just starting to pick up additional sponsors. The Senate Bill cosponsors include Thad Cochran (R-MS), Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Robert Menendez (D-NJ), John Kerry (D-MA), Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), Norm Coleman (R-MN), Charles Schumer (D-NY), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and Patty Murray (D-WA). It would be good to keep the momentum on both bills going with communications (frequent and strong) to your Congressional Representatives! Advocacy Groups/Community Partnerships Examples of national models of addressing the problems facing kinship care are: Generations United National Center on Grandparents and Other Relatives Raising Children (GU) The center is educating policymakers at the national, state, and local levels, raising awareness among

professionals in the public and private sectors, and providing education and training to service practitioners. GU represents more than 100 national, state, and local organizations and individuals representing more than 70 million Americans. AARP Grandparent Information Center Provides national and state data on grandparents raising children with links to a range of benefits and services available to AARP members who are raising grandchildren, in addition to policy and research related to this population. Some Additional National Resources AARP Grandparent Information Center (888) 687-2277 www.aarp.org/grandparents Adoption Information Clearinghouse (888) 251-0075 http://naic.acf.hhs.gov/ The Brookdale Foundation Group (212) 308-7355 www.brookdalefoundation.org Child Welfare League of America (202) 638-2952 www.cwla.org Childrens Defense Fund (202) 628-8787 www.childrensdefense.org Generations United (202) 289-3979 www.gu.org GrandsPlace (860) 763-5789 www.grandsplace.com Grandfamilies of America (866) 272-3761 www.grandfamiliesofamerica.com KINship Information Network (772) 501-0502 www.kinsupport.org National Aging Information Center (202) 619-0724 www.aoa.dhhs.gov National Committee of Grandparents for Childrens Rights (866) 624-9900 www.grandparentsforchildren.org Sally Raphel, MS, APRN, FAAN Consultant, Health Policy & Nursing Practice
Author contact: parthree99@yahoo.com, with a copy to the Editor: poster@uta.edu

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JCAPN Volume 21, Number 2, May, 2008