Nonprofit Advocacy Groups Take On the Cause of Custodial Grandparents

Grandparents who are raising their grandchildren have several nonprofit organizations pleading their case with the nation’s lawmakers.

For example, advocacy groups including the AARP Foundation and the Children’s Defense Fund — both in Washington — and GrandFamilies of America, in Thurmont, Md., have sponsored rallies at the U.S. Capitol in recent years to make policy makers aware of the problems grandparents face in making ends meet and gaining the legal status they need to properly care for children.

Last year, those groups won a big victory: In October, a federal law was enacted that gave states more flexibility in how they spend their federal foster-care dollars. Now, for the first time, grandparents who raise kids are more likely to be eligible for the same federal funds as foster families if they need them.

“Our next goal is to make sure that states implement the policy so that relative caregivers can tap those funds,” says John Sciamanna, co-director of government affairs at the Child Welfare League of America, in Arlington, Va. “The current economy may make them take their eye off the ball.”

The law also makes it mandatory for local or state agencies to notify grandparents within 30 days that their grandchild will be placed in the foster-care system, giving them an option to vie for custody of the child.

Many grandparents are awakened during the night, usually after a parent is hospitalized or thrown in jail, and confronted with the choice of either immediately taking in their children’s children or letting them go into foster care, say grandparent advocates. But some states have been remiss in involving grandparents in the children’s future, particularly if a grandparent lives out of state — something the new federal law is designed to change.

Helping the ‘Hidden’

Some groups will expand their advocacy efforts to encourage government officials to develop services that include health and housing programs. But reaching custodial grandparents who remain “hidden” from official view is important too, advocates say. Organizations should be seeking ways to help those people, say some advocates.

“There are a lot of grandparents who care for children outside of the child-welfare system. They often need support from groups that provide services as well,” says Tiffany Conway, a policy analyst at the Center for Law and Social Policy, in Washington. Better coordination of services would benefit both grandparents and the children they shelter, she says.

Some advocacy groups have taken steps to consolidate facets of their work. State-by-state fact sheets developed by the AARP Foundation, the Brookdale Foundation, in New York, and several groups, including Generations United, in Washington, are available online at http://www.grandfactsheets.org. Designed to serve as guides for grandparents who need help with child-rearing, the sheets include information on each state’s foster-care policies, how to contact state agencies, and a listing of groups that can offer support.

“We’ve worked the last several years at the national level to bridge the gaps between these smaller grass-roots groups,” says MaryLee Allen, director of child welfare and mental health at the Children’s Defense Fund. Still, the group fields calls from two or three caregivers every day because of the wide range of their concerns — and the lack of a prominent, national organization to handle them all.