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More Grandparents Head Families
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Grandpa Chuck
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May 27, 2001 15:30 PDT
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Here is an article from Florida Today News called "More Grandparents
Head Families" that ran today
May 27, 2001
More grandparents head families
Older generation battling shame, financial burden of raising their kids'
kids By Marjorie Menzel
Gannett News Service TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -
Twenty years ago, nobody even bothered to count the number of
grandparents raising their grandchildren, but the numbers are rising as
families disintegrate, experts say.
Four million U.S. households are headed by a grandparent, according to
the American Association of Retired Persons, and they contain 2.5
million children, one-third of whom never see their parents.
Advocates say most grandparents who raise grandchildren do so because
their children have fallen prey to substance abuse, bad relationships or
both.
"They're ashamed," said Eileen Olson, spokeswoman for the advocacy group
Grandparents United for Children's Rights in Jacksonville. She is
raising her three grandsons. "It looks bad on us that we have our
children's children - because what did we do wrong?"
According to Gary Gershowitz, spokesman for the state Department of
Children and Families, as of March 31, there were 11,518 Florida
children in the Relative Caregiver Program, which provides a stipend to
grandparents and other blood relations who take in a child.
But advocates suspect many more are eligible. Mary Ann Sterling, leader
of the support group Grandparents Raising Grandchildren in Brevard
County, said as many as 200,000 Florida children are being cared for by
relatives.
She also said 75 to 80 percent of her group's 80 members are raising
their grandchildren because their children have drug and alcohol
problems.
Olson and Terry White, director of Senior Solutions of Southwest Florida
in Fort Myers, agreed that substance abuse plays an increasing role in
making guardians out of grandparents - at a time in life when they may
have neither the health nor the resources they need for the job.
"It's expensive," said Clare Hushbeck, an economist with AARP. "And it
puts them on 24-hour duty when they thought they'd be slowing down."
What's more, Olson said, for every grandparent "in the system" - that
is, getting services from the government - there are three who are not.
That's partly due to shame, she said, but also to the fact that many
grandparents who qualify don't know what services are available.
Olson blamed the state Department of Children and Families for doing a
poor job of advising grandparents of the resources available to them.
Sterling agreed.
But Gershowitz did not. "We make every effort to get the word out," he
said. "Based on law, administrative rule and operating procedure, we are
responsible for informing the relative caregivers of children what their
options are. And we do a pretty good job of doing that."
Most grandparents don't qualify for much support, Hushbeck said.
"Mostly, these are moderate income families."
According to Gershowitz, DCF gives foster parents a stipend of $369 to
$455 per child each month, depending on the child's age. In the Relative
Caregiver Program, the stipend is smaller - $242 to $298 per month.
"I told DCF we are the most inexpensive foster parents they have - and
the most dependable," Sterling said. "We would like to get the same
benefits as foster parents."
Sterling and Olson both said DCF doesn't give grandparents the help they
need to keep siblings together - and out of foster care.
Olson offers herself as an example. She never knew, she said, when she
took in her three grandsons about the Women, Infants and Children
Program, which supplies baby formula.
"That's the way it is with grandparents," she said. "Most of them have
never been part of the system. All of a sudden, they've got three
children and they're buying formula when they could get WIC . . . If the
grandparents cannot afford to support the other children, they are put
into the system," she said.
Olson said the state could keep more kids out of foster care - where
they are more likely to be abused or neglected - by supporting the
grandparents who want to raise them as a family.
Nationally, AARP supports cash payments, respite care and guardianship
subsidies for grandparents who raise their grandchildren.
And according to White in Fort Myers, a new federal program called the
National Family and Caregivers Support Act could bring grandparents some
relief - and validate their difficult roles.
"It's the first time we've seen recognition that not only are folks
living longer, but they're playing integral roles in their families,"
said White.
Meanwhile, Sterling and Olson are making referrals for the grandparents
who call them for help.
And Olson is waiting for new census data to come out, which she predicts
will prove the scope of the problem - if the grandparents filled it out
right.
"Some of them are so ashamed, they don't want to admit it," she said
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