Kinship Care Coalition to host symposium

SOUTHFIELD — The Michigan Kinship Care Coalition will host its third annual Kinship Care Symposium virtually 9:30 a.m.-2 p.m. Sept. 20.

The coalition is a statewide group started by the Michigan State University School of Social Work and is comprised of Oakland Livingston Human Service Agency, The Guidance Center, Fostering Forward Michigan, Michigan’s Children and the National Association of Social Workers Michigan Chapter. The coalition aims to provide resources and support for grandparents raising grandchildren or relatives who are raising the children of their relative.

Lisa Grodsky, Grandparents Raising Grandchildren program operations manager of the Oakland Livingston Human Service Agency, explained that kinship care refers to children who are sent to live with their next of kin, and while most people are familiar with foster care, kinship care is “greater and broader” than foster care.

“Well, the foster care system has made some improvements in the last five years, where their priority is to find kin as placements for children who end up in the child welfare system, which is amazing, and I know that they are educating those family members that they are considered kinship care, but out of the 8,000 children in Michigan who are in foster care, about half are with relatives,” she said. “For every one of those children with a relative in foster care, there are 13 other children in kinship care with a relative outside of foster care; 13 — that’s a lot of children.”

The symposium will feature presentations that focus on kinship care in Michigan.

The first presentation, “Growth By Extension: The Impact and Influence of GRAND Relative-ships Across Generations,” will feature Danyelle Orr-McNeil 10-11 a.m. sharing her professional experience working as a parent support partner and Parent and Youth Advisory Board coordinator from Assured Family Services. She will share her experience working with families in similar situations, as well as her personal experience of having been raised by her grandparents. She will discuss the barriers that exist when being raised by a grandparent, such as the generational divide. Orr-McNeil will provide encouragement to caregivers.

Attendees will choose between two breakout sessions, each covering a different aspect of kinship care. “Enhancing Positive Thinking and Resiliency in Kinship Caregivers,” by Andrea Smith, a professor at the College of Education and Human Development at Western Michigan University, will focus on the emotional well-being of caregivers. “Paths to Legal Authority for Kinship,” presented by Erin Peets, an attorney at the Elder Law and Advocacy Center, will provide legal guidance. Grodsky added that she believes this segment will be especially beneficial. “There are an awful lot of informal caregivers who have kids in their house. They don’t have a legal leg to stand on, and those are the ones that are really going to be interested in that legal authority for kinship caregivers. Because, I kid you not, sometimes these grandparents have a written note, folded up in their purse from one of the birth parents that says, ‘She has my permission to bring my child to school or take them to the doctor,’ but it’s not even notarized. But these grandparents wholeheartedly think that that piece of paper written by the birth parent is worth its weight in gold.”

A break will take place at noon, and then attendees will choose between “Keeping the Peace: De-Escalation Strategies for Grandfamilies Confronting Physical Aggression,” presented by Laura Fuller, the School Success Initiative supervisor at the Guidance Center, which will cover conflict resolution, or “A Closer Look at Pre/Teens and Digital Technology,” presented by Allison Smith, a School Success Initiative clinician at the Guidance Center, which will discuss the impact of digital technology on preteens.

Grosky added that there is a great need for support for kinship care and grandparents raising grandchildren.

“The Ageways nonprofit senior organization is our funder for older adults that are kinship caregivers, and OLHSA funds the younger adults who are kinship caregivers. So we’re able to not turn anyone away. Unfortunately, there are so many potential people that could use this service that we choose to not create a waitlist and just enroll everyone who would like to take part in the support group and receive the referrals for the time being, because Ageways had done an ad hoc study of grandparents raising grandchildren in our service area, well their service area, which are six counties, but our three counties — they determined that in Macomb County, there’s about 5,400; in Oakland County, there are almost 5,900; and in Livingston, there are almost 1,000, so in our service area of about 2,600 square miles, there are about 11,000 parenting relatives, and we are funded for only about 200.”

The coalition has monthly hybrid meetings hosted virtually and at different locations for kinship caregivers to connect and be aware of the resources that are available to them.  Lathrup Village resident Regina Cobb began raising her grandson after her son’s passing. “I’m learning to be a parent all over again. So it’s rewarding and a blessing, and it’s also challenging at the same time. Grandparents Raising Grandchildren has made that a lot simpler for me and given me a lot of positive advice to look forward to, because it is overwhelming at times.”

She added that she commends the parents who put in the hard work to raise their children well.

Southfield resident Lesa Tripp is a grandmother who has been raising her grandchild since he was a year and a half old. She found the coalition two years ago after a Google search and decided to check it out.

“It’s a wonderful group to unite different communities of people that otherwise wouldn’t get together … like when we do different activities, for instance, like the Detroit Institute of Arts. It was very, very beautiful. We had a pottery class, and the people were there from Wyandotte, Southfield, all the communities, Pontiac. We all got together, the big group of us, the grandparents and the children made pottery masks. Those masks were displayed at the DIA for about six weeks last year for everybody to see that came for Christmas.”

Tripp said that she appreciates the coalition because it engages the kids and grandparents. “There are pros and cons, as it is with everything in life, but raising grandchildren is something special.”

To register for the third annual Kinship Care Symposium, visit bit.ly/KinshipCare2024.

For more information on the Michigan Kinship Care Coalition, visit www.facebook.com/MichiganKCC or contact Lisa Grodsky at (248) 372-1915.