Partnering With Relatives for Kinship Care

Why is kinship care important, and what are some of the challenges? Our guests are Gregory Jones, a granddad raising five grandkids from birth to now ranging in age from 9 to 12; Ana Beltran, an attorney, and director of the Grandfamilies & Kinship Support Network: A National Technical Assistance Center; and Erica Burgess, a social worker with over 25 years of experience in child welfare, specializing in kinship care.

In this episode, we discuss:

• How common is kinship care throughout the US—both formal (child welfare involved) and informal?
• Grandparents raising grandkids or aunts and uncles raising nephews and nieces is often complicated and comes with a mix of challenges and blessings.
• What are some of the blessings?
• What are some of the challenges? 
• Managing the relationship between the caregiver and the parents.
  • What are some common challenges in this relationship?
  • What are some common boundaries that need to be set in kinship care?
• Lack of preparation and training for raising kids who have experienced trauma, neglect, prenatal exposure to alcohol or drugs, etc.
• Lack of financial support.
• How can social workers and child welfare professionals make sure that kinship caregivers get the full extent of financial support?
• Access to resources. What are some typical resources that kinship caregivers should ask about and that child welfare agencies should consider providing?
• We see a significant variance between jurisdictions in social workers and child welfare professionals in the embrace of placing children with relatives.
  • Why are some social workers hesitant to place kids with relatives?
  • From an ethical perspective, why must social workers open their minds to looking for kin first when removing a child from their parents?
• Placing children with kin rather than the state taking custody. (Hidden foster care/kinship diversion)
  • Legal considerations
  • Ethical considerations with the hidden foster.

Great resources:

• Grandfamilies & Kinship Support Network: A National Technical Assistance Center 
• Grandfacts: State Fact Sheets for Grandparents and Other Relatives Raising Children
• NCKinshipFamilies.org - Legal Permanency Options for NC Kinship Families website
• Free Kinship Legal Clinic 
• Kinship Caregivers and the Child Welfare System
  • https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/f-kinshi/
• Online Kinship Support Group - email tracy@creatingafamily.org

Transcript

Please pardon any errors, this is an automated transcript.
Dawn Davenport  0:00  
Welcome to Creating a Family. Talk about foster, adoptive and kinship care. Welcome back to our regular listeners. We are so appreciative of your long term attendance and support and a special shout out. Welcome to our newbies. We're really glad to have you here. I'm Dawn Davenport. I am the host of this show, as well as the director of a nonprofit creating a family.org Today we're going to be talking about partnering with relatives for kinship care. We'll be talking with Gregory Jones. Gregory is a granddad raising five grandkids, originally from birth, but they are now ranging in age from nine to 12, and he is a valued and active member of Creating a Family's Kinship Advisory Committee. We'll also be talking with Anna Beltran. She is an attorney and director of the grand families and kinship support network, which is a National Technical Assistance Center. For over 25 years, she's worked on the array of issues impacting families, providing in person assistance and training to state agencies and nonprofit organizations throughout the US. And prior to joining generations united, Anna worked in all three branches of the federal government and was a practicing attorney. And then last but certainly not least, we have Erica Burgess. She is a social worker with over 25 years of experience in child welfare, specializing in kinship care as well as foster care and adoption as well as supporting transitional aged youth. Erica has started her own consulting company in 2020 and she serves on creating a family's board of directors. So welcome Gregory, Anna and Erica to Creating a Family. Thank you for having us all right. You know kinship care, which goes by so many names. It can be called relative care or grandparent care, or grand families or grandparent led families. It's when relatives step in to care for children whose parents are unable. And you know, we often talk about it in terms of grandparents, but we are fully cognizant that it's often aunts, uncles, cousins, and sometimes older siblings or close family friends who are stepping in to care for these kiddos. So kinship care can be permanent or temporary, and it could have child welfare being involved, or relatives stepping in before child welfare is involved. And we know that kinship care at its best, is less traumatic for children because they've had a prior connection with these people. They're not strangers. Also that's been able to maintain family and cultural traditions. So for all of these reasons, we see a lot more emphasis as well. We should on placing children with Kin. Anna, how common is kinship care throughout the US? And when I say kinship care, I'm talking about both formal meaning, where the child welfare is involved, as well as informal.

Speaker 1  2:59  
We see a number of grandparents and other relatives and other kin, as you mentioned, Don raising children throughout the United States in all socioeconomic levels, in all races, ethnicities, genders, you name it. There are about two and a half million children being raised by their grandparents and other relatives and kin without a parent present in the home. So that number sounds kind of small, but it's because of that, you know, without the parent in the home, right? And a lot of these homes, the parent is in and out, right? So that number sounds a little lower than we suspect it is, but it's still quite dramatic. And we calculate that there's a ratio about 19 children with Kin outside of foster care for every one child with Kin inside of foster care. So there are just many, many more children who don't have the support of the child welfare agency in their lives.

Dawn Davenport  3:54  
And that can vary greatly by state. Generations United has a kin fact sheet, and you can check and see in your state what the percentage is to informal care, where grandparents have stepped in and without Child Welfare being involved, compared to formal where child welfare is involved. But in all states, it's a significantly higher percentage of informal kinship caregivers.

Speaker 1  4:18  
Absolutely in the southeast, it's often triple digits to one right?

Dawn Davenport  4:23  
Very good point, all right. So you know, grandparents raising grandkids or aunts and uncles raising nieces and nephews, it's often complicated and comes with a mix of both challenges and blessings. So let's start with some of the blessings. And Gregory, you're living this experience. So what are some of the blessings that you see to being a granddad, raising your grandkids

Speaker 2  4:46  
Well, for me, we were able to keep maintain family alliances, relationships with the kids. The kids know who their relatives are. That's a biggie. That was a plus for us. One blessing. It. Gives those unable to have kids an opportunity to raise kids, those those folks that for whatever reason, weren't able to have kids on their own, this path gives them that opportunity. It also gives others a second chance to improve upon their first situation. Yeah, we hear

Dawn Davenport  5:19  
that. We do, we? Do we hear that a lot, yeah, this is a do over, and I'm gonna do it different, yeah, yeah,

Speaker 2  5:24  
yeah. And it also offers the biological parents time to get their act together, you know, yeah. And the grandparents or the relative care, tends to provide a stable environment, you know, from from my lived experience, we were jumping from apartment to house. I mean, there was a lot of housing issues going on with your grandchildren, with my grandchildren, at the spur of the moment, you know, I had to hop up and help the parents, get the kids, get the whole family move to another, another situation, and and with them being local, in close proximity, it was a blessing that we were in close proximity so that we could do that. So those are some of the blessings that came my way. You

Dawn Davenport  6:11  
know, when I will throw it, we've at creating a family. We've done a lot of listening sessions. We also run support groups for for Ken, but we've done a lot of listening sessions, and something that we hear very often, because we do talk about the blessings in the listening sessions and, of course, in support groups, is that just the knowledge that the kids are safe, that grandparents and aunts, uncles and others have carried this worry for so long, because they know the situation with the Kids has been up and down, and it's a constant sense of of worry. And when the kids have moved in, that worry is gone. I know the kids are safe, so it's less stressful for me, because at least I know where they are, and I get that So Greg, we've talked about some of the blessings, so let's talk about some of the challenges, because it's not all either good nor bad. There are also, in addition to the light, there is also some things that are challenging about it. So what are some of the things that either have you've experienced, or you've heard other grandparents talk about as challenges

Speaker 2  7:19  
right off the top, the behavioral issues, okay, if the kids have disabilities, like ADHD or OCD, some of those kinds of things, you've got to deal with those. Okay? And then there's the doctor's appointments. There's a vision appointments, getting the kids to and from. Those are some challenges. There's money issues. If all the participants are not on the same page, you know, you may start out on the same page, but then as things go, things change, believe me, you know, you see my eyes pop when I say it can get to you know for sure. So there's the money issues, there's the housing, the clothing, the health care, the tutoring, the extracurricular activities, you know, going to camp, engaging in sports activities, basketball, tennis, golf, all of those things add up, especially if the kids are interested in doing those things. There's the peer pressure that they're receiving. Hey, why can't I do this? Why can't I do that well, because either we don't have the money or we don't have the ability to get you there or pick you up. Another challenge is the parents bouncing in and out of their lives. You know, one month they're here, the next three months or year, they're gone, and you're dealing with the kids wanting to know where, Where's Mom, where's Dad, you know, how do you answer those questions? You know, depending upon what the situation is that those parent, biological parents, are in. And then there's the leveraging of the kids. You know, the parents says, Well, if you do this, then you can have the kid for this weekend or for this month, I'll give you full permission for their educational or medical power of attorney so that you can make those decisions. Another one is the custom work interruptions. I remember I'd be getting calls at work. Hey, Dad, I need you to go get the kids now. Or if there's a CPS case involved, CPS will call, Hey, Mr. Jones, can you come get the kids now,

Dawn Davenport  9:23  
with no preparation, it's constant when you're having to step up. Gotcha you were mentioning, and I was glad you raised it. It's it's hard for the kids as well. Do you find that the children struggle with divided loyalties? If I really like living with my grandparents, does that mean that I am I being disloyal to my parents?

Speaker 2  9:43  
Glad you brought that up dawn. Yes, we've experienced that. We had a situation where the mother, we don't know where the mother is, okay, I'm gonna be honest, we don't, we don't know where she is. She's been missing in action for a while, and the kids were really, really, really, you. Are interested in seeing their mom, and they didn't believe us when we kept saying we don't know where she is, we don't know where she is. Well, she's where she was last month. No, she's not. We've called we visited. Then they don't believe that. Okay, so, so that's tough. And then sometimes they'll be with their dad, but they want to be with us. Hey, I want to stay with you, Grandpa, I want to stay with you. Grandma. Dad says no, because we don't have custody. We don't have legal custody. We're not involved with CPS. We're not part of the mandated child custody thing. We have an informal agreement with the parents that you know will be the guardians of the kids, because we're providing stability for them, whereas you're still trying to get your act together, right?

Dawn Davenport  10:45  
Do you ever feel divided loyalty? I mean, these are your sons, our son and daughter. And do you feel divided loyalty? Who is my loyalty? Does it to the kids, or does it to my I want to believe that my son is going to get it together, and I want to give him another chance and another chance. And we often hear that it's the divided loyalty. Am I? Am I a parent first, or a grandparent first?

Speaker 2  11:08  
I'm a grandparent. My wife and I, we're grandparents first. It's all about the kids. My sons have had the opportunity. They're both in their 30s. One is almost 40. They've had the opportunity to get their lives together. They're progressing slowly, not at the rate that my wife and I would prefer they get it together. But the kids are first. Okay,

Dawn Davenport  11:32  
so for you, you've, yeah, it's not divided. You've made that. I will say that I think other kin struggled with that. You know, I'm a parent. I love it's it's just we hear that in in our listening sessions and in our support groups. And there's so many conflicting emotions. Can you talk a little about just the it's hard to have very conflicting emotions about anything, and this is one that it lends itself to a lot of conflicted, conflicted emotions.

Speaker 2  12:01  
Well, we have the heart to heart talks. We've had plenty of Heart to Heart talks, and yes, at the end of the day, they are my sons, and I'm not going to I'm going to do my best to not allow them to put themselves in danger or harm's way, or definitely kids in harm's way, okay, but the choices I told them, get comfortable being uncomfortable, okay, because you didn't do what you were supposed to do. So you may not want to listen to me, but I'm going to say what I need to say, because you didn't do what you were supposed to do, and I'm having to step in and step up. Okay, so until you do that, you know you gotta hear me, whether you want to or not.

Dawn Davenport  12:46  
Yeah. Talking about the relationship between the you, the grandparent, and your child, we often hear that is a very challenging relationship to manage, partly because sometimes you might feel anger at them, you might feel guilt about their behaviors. I mean, just a whole host of things that you might feel. What are some of the challenges in that relationship between you and your in your case, it's sons as it relates to the children as you're that you're trying to raise.

Speaker 2  13:21  
Again, leveraging is the biggest thing when my sons want to get their way. Well, you can't see the kids. They're my kids, and we're constantly being reminded, well, these are my kids. You know, the state hasn't given you custody, and I haven't given you complete custody, so that's always high on the list with us in terms of what we're bickering about the most.

Dawn Davenport  13:44  
Yeah, I hear that as well. Or I'll come and take the kids, or you can't tell me that I can't drive with my kids, even though you think I'm stoned or high, or it's fine with me if the kids are, you know, playing whatever the video game you've told them they can't play I don't care if they can play it, you know, I'm telling them they can, and I'm the parent, okay, yes, well, thanks, Gregory, because you have done a great job of summing up some of the the challenges as well as the blessings. Before we continue, let me remind you that we have a podcast called weekend wisdom, where we answer your questions. That means we need your questions, so please send us any questions you have in the area of foster, adoptive or kinship care, send them to info hat, creating a family.org and now I'll let you get back to the show. All right, one of the things that you mentioned Gregory was the children's behavior. And what we know is that many, many, and I would say the majority, of children in kinship care have experienced some type of trauma or neglect or prenatal exposure to alcohol or drugs or something like that, which. It definitely can impact the children's behavior. We know that all of those things impact behavior. Anna, let's talk some about across the US, what type of preparation and training is going on for grandparents who are stepping in to raise kids who have experienced trauma, neglect, their prenatal exposure and a host of things that impact their health, but also their mental health and their behavioral health.

Speaker 1  15:30  
It's pocket so it happens to be where the king caregiver is lucky enough to live and where that family is lucky enough to live. In some places like Salt Lake City, Utah, they have a fabulous program where they provide a support group to the caregiver at the same time, they provide a support group to the young children and the teenagers in a separate group, and they have counseling. So it really is pockets. There's a number of good national resources that we have on our website, and I know you have on your website. Mostly it depends on where you live,

Dawn Davenport  16:04  
and there's a movement towards less we certainly see that there's a movement nationally towards requiring no training in advance, and which often results in there being no training and no support after. So we certainly see that across the US as well. Erica, let's talk about financial support. These are folks who are not planning on raising a child at this time, and often don't have the financial resources. What type of financial support is available, and then who can social workers and child welfare professionals do to try to make sure that any financial support kinship caregivers receive.

Speaker 3  16:47  
So yeah, it depends, kind of like what Anna was saying. It depends on where you are, what state you're in, and how you're being supported. So informal versus formal care can be very different on financial support, we find that in families that informally come to involved, they don't even know of any of the supports. And a lot often families that call me, there are programs that they can reach out to, like TANF and Medicaid, they aren't even aware of those. And so for a lot of the informal families, if they don't have somebody navigating and guiding them. They're really doing it on their own, and so that's a huge barrier for informal in formalized care. It just depends on the state. There are some states that provide room and board assistance immediately while a family is working with the Department of Social Services through a certification or a licensure process. There are some jurisdictions that provide half of a stipend to families that are willing to bring young people in that are child welfare involved, and they have, like no stipulation related to if their status is going to be certified or licensure. And then there's some jurisdictions that I've talked to that there's nothing at all, even for some of those, those formal families, except for TANF and Medicaid. So it really comes down to where you are, and if you have a good kinship navigator program, if you have good resources in your area, a lot of families that I speak to, it's the grassroots companies around them that have started and do food drives and clothing drives that have been the most beneficial to them, and

Dawn Davenport  18:25  
that's for both those with child welfare involvement as well as non Child Welfare involved. Yeah.

Speaker 3  18:30  
So I, you know, I talk to people on both sides, and so again, it really just depends on on where you live. But I'd give you an example, even with child welfare involved. If we have a relative that's not necessarily blood in the state that I'm in, they don't receive any additional assistance other than the TANF and the the Medicaid card. And so that could be huge, especially whenever a young person has lots of needs, lots of trauma, and they are involved in the child welfare system, but they maybe aren't moving forward to a licensure or certification process, and so then there's no no dollars available for them. So again, it's really a difficult question, because it really depends on where you are, what part of the state you're in, and what part of the country you're in, but we do notice that people that are thriving, I'll just say this, they are getting a financial assistance upfront. There are not barriers to financial assistance, and they can get assistance whether they are formally involved or if it's informal, and for families that are formal, if they're in a jurisdiction that recognizes and has a broad definition of kinship, they're doing pretty well, because if there's other funding that's coming in, they're being able to receive that. But again, that's all in stages and parts of the country and and even in my state, it depends on where you are in the state, if you're familiar with all of. At and some areas might approve some of the funding, and some areas may not approve some of the funding. It's really tricky. And so my recommendation to Families always is, you know, to call somebody in the space, somebody that's providing a support group, like creating a family, to call a kinship navigator if there's one in your area, because they should know whether formal or informal, where you can receive financial assistance.

Dawn Davenport  20:24  
And also, I believe you could go to the grand families and kinship Support Network website, Anna, don't you guys have on your website, which is G, k, s, network.org, don't you have a map that shows what different states are able or providing, as far as financial support,

Speaker 1  20:45  
we don't have a map, but we do have a number of resources for professionals working with the families, and that can be used by the families directly. So in terms of benefits that are kind of available regardless of where you live, or should be available regardless of where you live, there's snap WIC, the food assistance, school meals. We have resources on all of those. None of those should require legal custody or legal relationship to the child in order to access there's, as Eric mentioned, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF. It's usually called, it's often called something different in each state. Taffy, Tammy, yeah, just all kinds of acronyms. But federally, it's temporary assistance for needy families and relatives should be able to access child only grants that are only based on the income of the children to help meet the needs of the children. You know, because what distinguishes you've got a lot of the issues that Mr. Jones went through, that Gregory went through, parent headed families have as well. But what really distinguishes kinship families is that they come to this often suddenly. They haven't planned or prepared to raise children at this stage, and they lack an automatic legal relationship to the children like parents have, so they don't have authority to enroll the child in school legally, they don't have authority to consent to health care, let alone pay for it. So they're just a lot of challenges and beautiful strengths for these families that parent headed families don't have. We'll

Dawn Davenport  22:19  
circle back to some of the legal relationship issues in a moment on what are some of the typical resources that you see that are available for kinship caregivers? And I ask because these are resources that we want kinship caregivers to think about asking for. If they know this might exist, they can ask for it, and also for child welfare professionals to know these are what other jurisdictions may be providing to support these families, and a supportive family, as Erica mentioned, is a more stable family, which is what we, ultimately, all of us, want for these kids. So what are some of the resources that exist in other jurisdictions that kinship caregivers should ask for?

Speaker 1  23:00  
Well, absolutely, Erica's right, and there are a number of resources. I will start with the the formal families, the ones that do pursue approval or licensure and are eligible to get foster care maintenance payments. About a year ago, a new rule was one amended rule was enacted by the US Department of Health and Human Services, allowing states to have separate foster care licensing or approval standards for kin. And if a state and several are already implementing this option, and several tribes are as well already, then they must pay the relative or kin the same amount as the non kin if

Dawn Davenport  23:42  
they get licensed as a foster parent, if they get licensed, yeah, it used to be that they could not do that. They could pay them separately a different amount, a lesser amount, and

Speaker 1  23:51  
they couldn't meet the licensing standards that were set for everyone where the timing is completely different. If you're a non relative getting licensed first and then getting a child second, whereas for a relative, you're getting the child first and then the license. So it doesn't make sense to have the same standards for both groups. So anyway, under this new option, states and tribes and territories can move to licensing relatives in a common sense way quickly and get them the foster care maintenance payments as soon as possible. So that exists around the country, the possibility for that, at least on the informal side, I agree with Erica. Look for your kinship navigator program. I don't know if I should say most, but I think I'll say most states have one, and they should be at varying degrees of involvement and staff and what they do, but they should be able to connect the caregiver to the available public benefits and services and supports in their jurisdiction, and the common supports that are out there are federal social security children. Women can qualify on their grandparents work record, in some cases, only grandparents, not other relatives, can can claim the child they raise as a dependent on their tax return, their federal tax return, and get certain tax credits. If they adopt, they get the adoption tax credit also. So the tax credits could be a big, important support for many of these families, and that's everywhere in federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, like we already talked about SNAP WIC school meals, like we talked about, Medicaid should be available to children being raised by kin, regardless of whether they're formal and formal, and formal, of course, if they're informal, it's going to it's going to take more paperwork, because within the child welfare system, the case worker will automatically give them if they're getting licensed and approved, the Medicaid for the child. But yes, start with the kitchen navigator program, I would say. And we have a list on our website of those programs,

Dawn Davenport  25:58  
right? Exactly? Can

Speaker 2  26:01  
I interject Absolutely, in my area, we have a support group. I want to pay back on what Erica was saying. Without that support group, we would not be where we are today. We didn't go the the licensing route, and by the way, I'm going to toot creating a family's horn here on your website, there's a great navigator I've finally gotten around to using it. I'm not all the way through it yet, but there's a great navigator that helps you decide whether you want to go licensing or certifications or whatever path. So I would encourage anybody to go to the website and use that navigator to help them make, make that decision, but without the support group that we have here in my area, oh, my goodness, like Erica was saying, there's just so much. There's just so much that you don't know. And we dealt with things as they came up, okay, you don't know what you don't know. You don't know the mountain with a hurdle behind the mountain with a hurdle until you hit it. So we're grateful for the support group that our local government has us involved in, and I'm still in it to this day, right?

Dawn Davenport  27:13  
And that I happen to know that support group and they are utilizing one of our interactive support group curriculum for helping do some training, as well as supporting because they go hat in hand and Gregory, I was glad you mentioned. The website he's speaking of is NC kinship families.org, however, I sadly have to report it's only applicable to North Carolina families. There is good information for all families, but the truth is, it's the legal options that are available for families is very state specific. So a resource like that would need to be available in all states, and it is not so for North Carolina families, they have NC kinship families.org, but that's not universal. Obviously, when we do listening sessions, one of the things we we certainly ask about is the challenges, where how can we as an organization are, and how can other organizations similar to ours, who is have a mission to support kinship families? How can we best help you and universally across the board, within the top three of their needs is always better understanding of their of their legal options, because, as you say, you don't know what you don't know. Oftentimes you're just stepping in and you have nothing and you don't know you need anything to try to get the child enrolled in school. ANNA again as the executive director of the grand families and kinship support network, I know you have been instrumental in looking at what is available nationwide to help kinship caregivers better understand what are their options as far as legal custody, legal guardianship, their legal options for making decisions In relation to these children.

Speaker 1  29:01  
So it is an array, as you say, it's very state specific, because those are where those laws are created. But it ranges from, of course, aside from foster care involvement, because in that, in that situation where there's a licensed kin providing the care the state or the jurisdiction has legal custody, so they can facilitate access to school enrollment, all those kinds of things. So I'll just talk about the ones that aren't in child welfare and are in the custody. So it ranges from the parent may have signed over a power of attorney, giving the kin educational rights, health care rights, and then that can can take that document to the schools and to the healthcare providers. The problem with those documents is they're time limited. The parent has to sign it, and, you know, it has to be renewed, if possible, and

Unknown Speaker  29:51  
notarized. And often notarized, it's better

Dawn Davenport  29:54  
if it's not required by law, if getting it notarized helps again, every

Speaker 1  29:59  
state. It's a little bit unique, right? And then what it looks like. And then there's many jurisdictions, many states, that have educational and or healthcare consent laws. And these laws, the way I define them, is that the parent does not have to sign anything. The caregiver completes an affidavit saying, I'm caring for the child. They're my responsibility, signs it under penalty of perjury and then presents it to the school, or presents it to the doctor, the health care provider, and that protects them, and they indicate that they can't find the parent to sign off, and the parent wouldn't oppose this. So it protects parental rights, but it also gives the child access to these important services. Then there's some states that have some kind of temporary legal custody arrangement where you go to the court and you get a temporary legal custody and that will grant you access. Many caregivers pursue legal custody or guardianship, and it can be called some states have both options. Some state only have one. They often look very similar, but of course, we're much more as a society, familiar with the term guardian. That's where we you know, we usually see that on form, so, you know, pick your your choice carefully, and know what you're aligning with. But to get either one of those, it requires the courts. It requires, often, lawyers. It takes time, because notice has to be provided to the parents. So it takes a lot of money and time, and that's another thing that can really deplete, yeah, the assets and the income of a lot of the kin caregivers. And I see Gregory shaking his head, because it's it's so common. And then finally, the most permanent is adoption. And we have many kin caregivers who adopt the children in their care. And again, privately, that takes money. There is the adoption tax credit, and if they show expenses, they can get up to around, it's around 16,000 now, but that often will not 16,000 won't do

Dawn Davenport  31:53  
it, and you have to have a federal tax liability in order to, in order to utilize a tax credit. Very

Speaker 1  32:00  
good point. Don for a very few years under the Affordable Care Act, it was refundable, so you didn't have to owe to get the money back. But now you have to be of a certain socio economic level to take advantage of that. You're very Yeah, exactly. So yeah, just a real array from very temporary to very permanent. And what's really important too, is that when caregivers, because they are their own best experts in their family, you know, and what the family needs and what the family option they should take, but we as providers should make sure that they understand the legal ramifications of each of the options. For example, you know, we have a care we know of a caregiver who pursued guardianship. If she had adopted her niece, she would be able to get veterans benefits for the niece, but she can't. So there, there are ramifications with all of these, and that's why we as providers have to provide the families with well versed options, balanced options and full disclosure, and then let them make the decision.

Dawn Davenport  33:01  
Yeah, and one of the frustrating parts is that what we have found is that child welfare staff often don't know any more than the kinship caregivers. It's a frustration. Erica, were you going to speak to that I was

Speaker 3  33:16  
going to share that through my journey over the 20 some years, I have learned, probably in the last 10 years, to always start with the legal question, because over years and years, I've recognized a lot of the relatives or fictive kin that I've talked to don't know their legal relationship. And some they might say, Yes, I do know my legal relationship. I have this paper, but they don't understand what it means, because they just signed something and nobody explained it. And so I literally had a call this morning with somebody. The first question I had for her was, what's your legal relationship? Well, there isn't one. So she was asking for advice. Full transparency, I'm not an attorney, so I don't give legal advice, but I did direct her to an area that she could go to through creating a family to go to one of the legal clinics. And I said, start there, and then let's reconvene. And I do find that this is a real issue, because even some of these families have had guidance along the way from professionals. And I think as professionals, if we are social workers and not attorneys. We need to be very careful about giving that legal guidance. You know, I am a social worker. I can look things up, I can connect you to people, but they really need to have a conversation so they understand legally all of the ramifications. And what's unfortunate is a lot of times they can't get that for free. So there are some places they can get consultation for free, but it's really needed so that clear decisions, long term decisions can be made that's in the best interest of all parties,

Dawn Davenport  34:51  
amen, and just full disclosure, creating a family does offer free monthly kinship legal clinics. However, it. Is only for North Carolina families. You can if you happen to be a North Carolina family, you can access it at NC kinship families.org We would love to be able to do that everywhere, but that's not happening, at least now. Let me pause here to remind you that creating a family has a very large online support group for those involved with Foster, adoption and kinship care. It is on Facebook. It is a closed group. It is a very supportive place to get answers to your questions. So check it out and join us at facebook.com/groups/creating, a family. And now back to the show, we see a significant variance between jurisdictions, between states and even within states. I should add of social workers and child welfare professionals and how fully they embrace the idea of, we call it kin first, or placing children with relatives, or at least exploring that fully before a decision is made to place the child with someone outside of the family, a foster parent that is not related. Anna, why do you think some social workers are hesitant to place kids with relatives?

Speaker 1  36:16  
Well, within the child welfare system, it has historically been a lot of work. You know, you have a Barbie bedroom over here, right home is fully licensed. Do you know it's safe? It's in suburbia. Everything's good. So I'm just going to go over there and place the child with that family, because that's easy. It's a lot more work to find Ken, to do all that can finding, to then have the can agree, because, again, the timing is backwards, right? These families aren't licensed first, so or they don't want to get licensed, or they don't want to get licensed, right? So it is a lot of work for the caseworker to find kin and to prepare them, and we acknowledge that, and we hope that with the new kin specific approval standards, if more jurisdictions take that option. We don't hope we're seeing that it is definitely saving administrative time and burden, and getting children placed with safe can faster and better. It's also, you know, sometimes we have heard for I've heard for 25 plus years, apple doesn't fall far from the tree, especially the smaller communities, I would say, where everybody knows everybody. And you know, Judge Bob knows, you know, Betty Sue. And Betty Sue's struggle with alcohol. And so why am I gonna place this child Betty Sue? So we see all of that too. And I think it's just, you know, acknowledging that people change, and that all those decades, that decades of research that show that children thrive and do better in the care of people who know them, who love them, who know their families, who know their siblings, their culture, the kitchen, smells the same, all of those things are so important to the children. So it's it's fighting against those biases that we all have.

Dawn Davenport  38:02  
Erica from an ethics standpoint, and as a social worker, I'm asking you, from an ethics standpoint, why do you think, or do you think that social workers have an ethical obligation to consider placing children with Kin, taking a kin first attitude before they look elsewhere.

Speaker 3  38:21  
Yeah. So I'll start with saying this, and this is what I say to a lot of people, families are messy. All families are messy, regardless of you're in the system, you're not in the system, but family is family, and we all want to be with our family. And in fact, whenever I talk to social workers, some of which will say, What do you mean kinship first? What do you mean kinship culture, which always does? You know, stun me. I go back and I start asking them their why? Why? Why do you do this work? Why did you come into this who has helped you in your past? And I'm gonna tell you whenever I'm in a room of social workers, a lot of us have had impact from our families and our relatives, and some of us have been raised at points in our life from our relatives, and so I start with that why to start to massage back and say, Isn't this what we're supposed to be doing? So that's your why. That's why we came into this work. Our code of ethics would say we do need to be uplifting and supporting families and supporting human relationships and connectivity in an ethical way, and that that code should be leading our work and reminding us how to stay ethical when working with these families. So I would say that that is, like my biggest thing for for staff, is getting and understanding the why. It's not that they don't want to place with relatives. It's, in fact, I do hear the bias, and sometimes I have to back out of the bias. So I help people to back out of it. Whenever I back out of the bias and say, let's get back to our roots and why we came into social work, it then becomes a really easy sell. We owe it to families. We're here to serve families. We're. Here to uplift dignity and worth of of people, and they get that within their family. So if I am placing young people and separating them and putting them all over the country and they never got to know their their family unit, I really am not upholding the values that I've committed to, hopefully that makes sense, but I had to back it out a little bit, because that's where I start, because I do often hear that the challenge, it is harder. Like Anna mentioned, there is bias, and I hear from people that like I want to do this and all that exists, and then I get stuck in doing this work, and I have my why there, but I get stuck because there's conflict and it's messy. And then all of a sudden I stopped thinking about why I need to do this, and what holds me to a standard to do this type of work. And so I would just say, adding to to Anna, the conflicts that people are managing in families, because, like, families are messy, they don't always have those same conflicts in foster homes, in non relatives, and it's easier to make a decision to go towards non conflict, and whenever they do have conflict, it's easy to then just move to another home. But does that make it right? Right? So with granddad and granddad, we're having some conflict, which we should we should be pushing back on each other, because none of us are perfect, and we should all be holding each other accountable in this. Whenever I go to try to say, well, now I'm going to move child from granddad. Granddad might have a little bit more to say than the foster family, right? And again, all that's messy, but that's the work that we do, and we just have to feel comfortable with inside the mess of what is around us and families and raising children, and remind ourselves that we all are having these experiences. It's not certain populations that have this experience. We're all having these experiences,

Dawn Davenport  42:00  
something that Anna said, have been thinking about, and that is that foster families are often middle class, which is a similar socio economic level as a lot of the social workers. So there's a comfort there. There's a comfort of they feel like me. Their homes look more or less like my home. And so there's a judgment that gets easy to fit in and say that's a better place because it's more like me. And that's something that that child welfare professionals have to fight if they're truly looking for the best interest of children.

Speaker 2  42:34  
There's that cultural identity that gets lost sometimes when just because something looks better doesn't mean it is better. You know, as you were describing Don with the neighborhoods and the socio economic conditions that a foster family being a target destination for for the children may be, I would just

Speaker 3  42:57  
say one last thing I always share with people whenever there's this conversation back and forth of, do we keep the young person with family? Do we remove? And there's a lot of those conversations. And so I always tell people, you know, I would rather have my my eggs in the grandparents basket and help guide them in mold and shape and support that basket, rather than in somebody else's basket. And I'm not against foster families at all, because I've supported foster families my entire career, but I'd rather start there and put my eggs and put my work there than going off to somebody who has no connection, no tie, no cultural similarity, to that young person. And I'd rather start there. And whenever I say that to people, they're like, that kind of makes sense. And I'm like, right? So give the grandfather, give the grandmother, the aunt, the uncle, the the teacher, give them a chance, give them the same effort and support that you would give the foster parent, give it to them, and then see how they thrive, because they have some inherent strengths that that the other may not have, and let's build on those strengths and and go. And if it doesn't work, it may not work, it may again, families are messy, but let's start there, and there

Speaker 2  44:10  
you go. Erica, thank you for saying that adjustments. What we're dealing with is situational adjustments. Okay, life throws things at you, and we all deal with life as those things are thrown at us. We make the adjustments. Some of those choices that we make because of those adjustments are better than others, but they're the adjustments that we make, and that's what this is. You stick some children with this family, and things don't work out, you make the adjustments and move them on to the next situation that you think is good for them. So we're making adjustments,

Dawn Davenport  44:47  
and give Ken the grace to also make adjustments, learn change, as we would any foster family or any family that's coming in the. Last thing I wanted to talk about, and it ties directly in to our discussion on ethics, and that is placing children with Kin rather than the state taking custody. It goes by a couple of different names, hidden foster care or kinship diversion. Anna, can you at first explain what that is when we were when I'm talking about this. And then let's talk a little about the legal considerations. And then Erica, I'd love for you to weigh in on some of the ethical considerations. So Anna, what is the hidden foster care or kinship diversion? And this is a highly controversial which there was a sigh, there a deep sigh, and I hear you and appreciate it,

Speaker 1  45:39  
yeah, because it can mean a lot. It can mean slightly different things to a lot of different people, right? But generally, what I think of it is the child welfare agency knows that the child needs to be removed from the parents home, a kin steps up at some point, and the child welfare agency just leaves the child with the kin and completely leaves the situation so the child's never gone into the legal custody the child welfare agency. And you know what we find here is that sometimes it's the family's choice, and when it's well informed, and they've been told, you know, if you go this way and we take the child into custody and you can become licensed, and they totally don't want that, then that's that's their choice, right? But what we find is they're often what's the word, blackmailed into it, threatened into it, or simply

Dawn Davenport  46:30  
not given the information, or simply not given the information. Don't have a clue. They're told, okay, your grandkids are getting ready to be taken into custody. Do you want them? And they step up and say, of course, I want them. They have no clue at the time that they could say, well, actually, maybe you should take them into custody and then place them with me, because you could then provide me with support. You could provide me with giving me the options of becoming a license. No one's telling them that. So they're just being told my grandkids are going to be, you know, dumped in some home, and of course, they step up. Yeah,

Speaker 1  47:02  
and the part that I find personally troubling right now is that many child welfare agencies really do take it upon themselves to think this is what the families want, that we're doing them a favor by not bringing them in to child welfare custody, so they don't present the options in a balanced way, because they they assume this is what the families want, and it's it's very presumptuous. Here in DC, I was talking to a sister who is raising her sister's child so her niece and the child welfare agency knew that the parent had severe mental health issues and had a file like this on her. And if the child welfare agency had taken the child into custody, they could have provided that parent with supports, and perhaps the possibility of reunifying, which is huge, and they would have provided, they could have provided the caregiver with supports to raise the child, but instead they said, go to the court and get legal custody and see Yeah, essentially. And so, you know this caregivers in tears because she's gone down the courthouse, sued her sister for legal custody. Had to prove that the sisters unfit,

Dawn Davenport  48:16  
had to pay for suing. That's an expensive process. Yes, right?

Speaker 1  48:20  
And then and the sister won't talk to her because she sees her as the enemy. Now, she stole my child, and so it's just awful. So, you know, we can't assume that this is what the families want. We have to present everything in a fair way and let them choose.

Dawn Davenport  48:37  
Erica. You can have the last word here. What are some of the ethical considerations on doing this as a social worker.

Speaker 3  48:44  
So whenever I hear Anna talking, what comes to my mind is like, we're here to serve, right? So we're here to provide a service. Whenever we don't give people options and choices and talk about the services that could providing, we're not serving, and that's what we're held to do. And so often I talk to families that have no idea of what could have been in the person that was there didn't know what could have been. And so there is a messaging issue with that. There is we need to do better with with training and messaging for those frontline staff that are having those very difficult conversations. And so, you know, for social workers to uphold competency, they need to have that. They have to have ongoing training and to have these, you know, very difficult conversations. So that's one thing. The other thing that I think about is, are we really uplifting and valuing and having dignity with our families whenever we threaten and force them into decisions that they are not clear about. So how am I being respectful? How am I valuing their worth as another human being? And so that worries me as well, and so I think we just need to be very. Transparent. We need to tell people what it is. I know that we're not in the business of trying to take custody of people's children. We're not trying to do that, but if we know of ways to help and support a family and it is better for them to come into custody and be a licensed foster parent, we should definitely be telling them and giving them that choice, instead of them learning five years later, after they have gone up and down hills and valleys and knocked on doors and got doors slammed in their face, and guess what, they came back to their child having to come into care. You know, we're reactive in child welfare. We need to become less reactive and more preventative and and families. If we can talk to them respectfully and with dignity and give them choices, they will be open to having these kind of conversations about, well, what are my needs? What are my strengths? You know, maybe my child doesn't need to come into custody, but it'd be great if I had a service provider who could you recommend? Maybe my child doesn't need to come into custody, but I'd like to learn more about my options legally, there has to be service provided. I think that's the biggest thing that I keep coming back to. We just can't cut people off. We can't threaten them to get them in moving along. We have to we owe them some service. That's what we're obligated to do as social workers. So hopefully that makes sense to everybody. I feel very strongly about sitting in partnership with families when these decisions are happening, and giving them what they need to make good decisions and honoring who they are, where they come from, uplifting them in their family, in that time of need, I've sat in courtrooms. I've sat with families that have been threatened. It is not a great feeling, guys and as a social worker, I've been appalled at some of the situations that I've been in. Well, that

Dawn Davenport  51:51  
is a great place to stop. Thank you so much Erica Burgess Gregory Jones and Anna Beltran for being with us today to talk about partnering with relatives for kinship care and the importance of doing so. Thank you so much. Before you leave, let me remind you or tell you that creating a family has a prenatal substance exposure workshop for parents. This is an participatory interactive anywhere up to three to five sessions, depending on if you take all of them. For those who either know or suspect that their child has been exposed prenatally to alcohol or drugs, you can get more information at Bitly slash prenatal. Dash exposure, dash training, that's B, I T, dot, l, y slash prenatal dash exposure, dash training. You.