Across the nation, September is Kinship Caregivers Month, a time we recognize those who provide care to a relative’s child when their parents are not willing or able to do so.
Kinship care, aka Relative Care, gives children a sense of family and stability. Child-welfare experts say children fare better in kinship care than in foster care.
Kinship caregivers keep children out of foster care. This saves taxpayers over $6 billion each year. Most kinship care arrangements are informal, private arrangements between parents and relative caregivers. Other situations arise from involvement with the child welfare system.
Why are parents unable to care for their children? The opiate epidemic, addiction, poverty, increase in single families, family discord, teen pregnancy and mental health problems are reasons for this.
Although many told me I was crazy, I became a kinship caregiver when my granddaughter came to live with me. She joined the estimated 218,000 children in Georgia who live in kinship families, 1,200 of whom live in Fayette County. Sixty-nine percent of kinship caregivers are grandparents; 25 percent live below the poverty level.
In my opinion, Georgia has nothing to boast about when it comes to kinship care. Georgia receives around $70 million a year from the federal government (Title IV-E of the Social Security Act) to fund foster care. Federal and state regulations make kinship caregivers ineligible for these funds unless the family becomes an approved foster family for the child. Then the state becomes the legal decision-maker for the child. Giving custody to the state is not an option for many caregivers.
There is a solution. The Guardian Assistance Program, (GAP), part of bill P.L. 110-351 passed in 2008, allows states to use Title IV-E funds to provide a subsidy for a child that exits a foster care system to live with a relative who has assumed legal guardianship. States must submit an approval plan. So far, 43 states have been approved but not Georgia. Georgia has never even submitted an approval plan, leaving hundreds of children stuck in foster care.
Every year from 2006-2008, “The Care of a Grandchild Act,” a bill providing a monthly subsidy to kinship caregivers when the children have not been in foster care, was sent to the legislature. It never passed. The Senate approved it, but the House did not, stating reasons like, “We’re rewarding those grandparents … by saying, yeah, you kind of did a bad job with your kid but now you can take care of their kids and get paid for it.”
On the positive side we have The Kinship Navigator Program, a one-stop shop for information and referral services to grandparents and other caregivers who are raising a child (see https://dhs.georgia.gov/kinship-navigator-program).
Our grandchildren can have emotional, behavioral, and educational issues, most likely from experiencing events that are emotionally or stressful to them. Deprivation, abuse, neglect, abandonment, death or incarceration of a parent, family discord are some events that can cause changes to the developing brain and cause lifelong physical and emotional problems.
The effects of childhood trauma can be lessened by helping our children feel safe everywhere and the presence of a caring, stable caregiver in their lives. Positive relationships with others, especially adults, are paramount. These relationships and experiences, not trips to McDonald’s, help to heal the brain.
Caring for a kinship child requires an enormous supply of energy. Our energy becomes depleted by age, disabilities, single parent status, financial limitations, and no respite care. We cannot do this alone. In the absence of significant state and federal aid, kinship caregivers turn to our communities for partners to help us reach our goals.
Grandparents and Kin Raising Children is a nonprofit organization providing recreation, support, education, and training to kinship families Our newest partner is AVPride, which will provide free tutoring for our children. Heritage Community Foundation, Bloom, Peachtree City Optimist Club, Sisters for Society Corp, Grace Evangelical Church, Covenant Presbyterian Church and many individuals are also partners. Anyone interested in being a partner may contact Priscillaschell@gmail.com.
See our exhibit at the Peachtree City Library and read about a GKRC member in the September issue of Fayette Woman.
Priscilla Schell
GKRC board member
Peachtree City, Ga.
