Kentucky Partnership for Families and Children

I have been raising my granddaughter for eleven years; Child Protective Services placed her with me just before her fourth birthday. There was no real help for children with disabilities when her mom, my daughter, was growing up. She lives on disability, has mental health issues, and has lost all three of her children. Today there is so much help out there that we can make a difference. There wasn’t that much available for my daughter.

My granddaughter, Shawna, was like most of our grandchildren that we are raising. She was out of control, full of anger and frustration, and so full of energy that she wore me out just watching her. She had been physically, verbally, and emotionally abused. She was a beautiful little girl with long blonde hair that was always tangled because she was never still. There is so much that I would like to share with you about our struggles and our successes, but that would take a whole book.

We have come so far together, and I say “we” because Shawna and I together have overcome the obstacles and barriers in our life together. From the beginning we always had “a plan” for anything that might come up, and a lot has come up over the years. She has been in counseling from age four. We have worked as a team, first at Bingham Child Guidance and then with J.P. Interventions, our IMPACT Plus provider. She has been blessed with the same IMPACT Plus workers for over five years, she is seen twice a week and really needs the support system to deal with her daily life, and so do I.

I knew that our Lord wanted me to take Shawna in and I rebelled at first because I had other plans. Just like all of us I could not refuse to help a child that I loved. And in knowing that raising her was God’s plan, I knew that he would provide the way for me to do so. I want to share some of the ways and resources that have aided our way to the success and hope for the future that we now have.

Our grandparents/other relatives raising children support group “Open Arms”, founded and directed by Greg and Laura Cooper in Hardin County has been a blessing for us all. One example is when I was seriously injured, and unable to walk except for very short spaces or drive. I was unable to work, so Open Arms pitched in with food, money and transportation so that no one could say that I couldn’t take care of Shawna. Members of our group went to their churches and got help with paying bills, etc. That Christmas, Shawna said to me “Mamaw, I think I like being poor.” We live way out in the country, twenty-six miles from Laura Cooper’s house one way. I can’t count how many trips she made so that we could stay in our home. We have meetings twice a month and breakfast together every Wednesday. Our group is very close and we support each other in every way. We share resources about education, disability issues, medical and legal issues. I am an advocate for special needs children and their families and I connect people to the right organizations and resources, and assist with Individual Education Plans for our children.

Our local Department of Aging, Lincoln Trail Area Development District (ADD) has federal funding to help caregivers of grandchildren who are 60 and over with certain needs. Each region has its own ADD, to find yours, go to http://chfs.ky.gov/dhss/das/seniorcenters.htm, or call (502) 564-6930. Lincoln Trail ADD sponsors our yearly Grandparents Conference/ Training in Elizabethtown and Monika Ruehling also holds a meeting every other month for coordinators of grandparent support groups in Hardin and the surrounding counties, helping us to pool our resources and information. We also need to talk about our frustrations and what’s going on with our groups.

They also referred us to a company called Repair Affair, who helps disabled people with ramps, repairs and other needs. When the man came to our home to see if they wanted to help us, he was very kind to Shawna and I by asking us what our needs and wishes were, he could see that we had a lot of needs. I listed the repairs and my wish was for materials to build a bedroom for Shawna. When he came back, he had a big smile on and said that they were going to do it all and that they were going to build a room for Shawna, and then asked her what color she wanted for her room. She thought a minute and said the color of the ocean when you first go under water. He said that she had better pick that out herself. It took her two months and was a wonderful experience. Local businesses provided the materials and people volunteered one weekend in June. It took over two weeks to do our house. Mary, the team leader, was really dedicated to helping us, and even got someone to donate a new bed for Shawna. In the end we had a new roof, a new room for Shawna, new kitchen and bathroom fixtures, and new plumbing. The website for Repair Affair is www.hcrepairaffair.org.

KinCare
There are more than 65,000 children in Kentucky living with their grandparents. A great number of them are attending Kentucky schools. The Kentucky KinCare Project represents an effort to assist grandparents and other relative caregivers both in accessing available services which will help them better function in the caregiver role, and in identifying needs that are going unmet because some services are not being provided.

Support Groups
The focus of the KinCare Project is the development of caregiver support groups through the family resource and youth services centers which are attached to the schools across the state. The intent is to intervene, where appropriate, with surrogate caregivers of children attending school who may be experiencing difficulty in adjusting to the parenting role. More caregiver support groups meet on a regular basis for programs on topical issues, such as the kinship care financial assistance program, as well as presentations by representatives of local provider agencies. Most follow a general pattern of surveying members’ needs and arranging for referrals to appropriate sources of assistance. Educational concerns and legal assistance are among the subject areas for which help is most often requested. The KinCare Project currently has 28 support groups in operation with many others in the works.

Grandparent support groups organized under the Kentucky KinCare Project umbrella generally are cooperative efforts at the local level between family resource and youth service centers, senior citizen centers and county cooperative extension services offices.
*This portion was excerpted from the KinCare Project website which can be found at http://chfs.ky.gov/dhss/das/Programs.htm

Another great resource for grandparents is from AARP. This information can be found at www.aarp.org/families/grandparents.