National Opinion: Let's celebrate Kinship Family Month

Did you know that in September, Arizona celebrates Kinship Family Month? May I tell you about these families, how they serve the community, and how they can be strengthened? I’m a member of Arizona Grandparent Ambassadors (AZGA), advocates for increased recognition and support for kinship families.

In a kinship family, grandparents, other extended family members or close family friends are raising children without parents in the home. Census data indicate that over 55,000 children in Arizona live in these families. Kinship families may be created voluntarily or after intervention by child protection authorities for reasons including death of parents, military deployment, incarceration or abuse. Here’s a typical story:

Dorothy and Mike had retired, beginning to enjoy a new stage of life when the call came from the Department of Child Safety (DCS.) Three grandchildren were about to be placed in foster care because of neglect and abandonment. Would they be willing to take the children in? Dorothy had been worried that something was wrong in their grandchildren’s home, but their daughter-in-law had cut off contact with them after their son went to prison. Now they learned that the children had been left with a neighbor weeks ago. Their mother could not be located. The grandparents agreed to accept them.

Imagine what it was like to suddenly have small children to care for in your retirement years. Immediate needs were for beds, clothing, food. They had to find doctors, dentists, therapists, all without financial support. A caseworker had provided a list of resources, but they hardly had time to look at it. They surrounded the children with comfort as best they could and took one day at a time, using their savings and credit cards to pay for many needs.

When children enter DCS foster care, priority is given to placing them with family members. Research has shown that staying with relatives is less disruptive and has better outcomes for the children. Arizona is increasingly successful in locating kinship homes, but there is a serious downside to this trend. Families are being impoverished as the state saves money by shifting the burden to grandparents and other kin.

On June 30, 2020, 6,770 children were in kinship foster care — 51% of all children in the Arizona foster care system. The monthly stipend for a foster child in standard licensed out-of-home care is $684.73. In unlicensed kinship foster care it is $118.74. The actual cost of raising a child is the same in both families.

When children are placed with relatives, DCS notifies them that they may qualify to become a licensed foster home if they can meet all necessary standards and conditions. Requirements are related to size and safety of the home, background of the caretakers, parenting skills and other factors. The home study and training take at least six months to complete, while receiving no compensation.

Barriers to licensure are great. In June 2020, 545 Arizona DCS kinship foster caregivers were licensed and 3,661, nearly 90%, were unlicensed. The licensed kinship families are treated the same as standard out-of-home placements, with full compensation. The unlicensed receive about one-sixth as much. And those informal voluntary kinship families who never come to DCS attention carry the entire burden alone. In fact, kinship caretakers are nearly twice as likely to be living in poverty as parents in the general population.

AZGA holds an annual summit to hear from kinship families about struggles and accomplishments. We celebrate joys of nurturing children and identify issues around finances, mental health and navigating the support system. We learn from experts about parenting traumatized children and develop practice skills in advocacy for our families.

Please join me in recognizing the contribution of kinship families as providers of stable loving homes and in calling for more equitable financial support.