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University-Community Partnership Helps Grandparents as Parents

Having surveyed low-income grandparents in Kansas City who are raising their grandchildren, a consortium of the University of Missouri at Kansas City (UMKC) and several community groups is now developing services to help these nontraditional families.

Millions of grandparents across the United States are starting over as parents, but not much is known about these families. Nationally, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of American children living in a household maintained by a grandparent rose from 2.2 million in 1970 to 3.9 million in 1997, or from 3.2 percent to 5.5 percent. A 1994 Census Bureau analysis found that black children are more likely to live with their grandparents than are white children: 13 percent of black children, almost 6 percent of Hispanic children, and almost 4 percent of non-Hispanic white children live with their grandparents. Census figures show that nationally, black children made up close to half—46 percent—of all children living with their grandparents.

Grandparents typically take over when parents are incapacitated by drug addiction, drug abuse, or illness. "The situation for the grandchildren is very volatile," says LaNor Maune, a project coordinator for the Community Outreach Partnership Center (COPC) at UMKC. The university applied for seed money from HUD's Office of University Partnerships and received a COPC grant of $399,195 in 1996, matched by $517,141 in university funds and a variety of in-kind services. The center is a partnership between the university and the Community Development Corporation of Kansas City, with the Kansas City school district and other community- and state-based organizations playing roles. In addition to the Grandparents as Parents program, COPC is carrying out a Geographic Information System mapping project for Kansas City neighborhoods, an outreach program to black men called Health Watch, a business incubator, a partnership to bring an extended day program to a local elementary school, and other economic development and technical assistance activities. The Grandparents as Parents program is supported by about $150,000 in HUD funds and $125,000 in UMKC matching funds.

The need for the grandparents program in Kansas City was identified by Dr. Philip Olson, director of urban affairs for UMKC. Olson, a sociologist, was working with the rural elderly through a W.K. Kellogg Foundation grant in the early 1990s when colleagues directed his attention to the number of grandparents in the city taking on the nontraditional role of rearing their grandchildren. But what were these families like? Why had they taken the children in? What were the families' needs? How could they be located, contacted, and helped? With so many unknowns, any program to help those grandparents would have to include an outreach and research component.

Olson first proceeded to survey the local situation in January 1998, making the project part of a class. An advisory group of grandparents helped to design the survey. Networking through Family Friends, a program that included support groups for grandparents organized by Children's Mercy Hospital, researchers interviewed 101 grandparents who currently had grandchildren living with them. Eighty-five responses were complete enough for analysis. All the families surveyed were black.

Survey findings. The project surveyed the grandparent who was the primary caregiver of the children. Some of these grandparents are comparatively young, with ages ranging from 40 to 79. Their ages averaged 59 years. About half (54 percent) were under age 60, but 14 percent were age 70 or older. The average age of the children involved was 10 years. Approximately 9 out of 10 of the primary caregivers were women. Almost 39 percent of those were married, with a grandfather or stepgrandfather present in the home. About one-fourth of the primary caregivers were widowed. Forty-four percent of grandparents surveyed were employed outside the home, 17 percent were not currently working, and 39 percent were fully retired. Nevertheless, only about one-fourth (26 percent) of these families had annual incomes of $20,000 or more. About one-third (34 percent) had incomes of between $10,000 and $20,000, and 40 percent earned less than $10,000 per year.

Developing the Grandparents as Parents program. University staff used the information from the survey to develop the Grandparents as Parents outreach program. The circumstances that led these grandparents to take over the parental role suggest that a legacy of complicated family issues may persist in the grandparents' homes. Parental drug addiction was the single most common reason (24 percent) and abandonment by a parent was the second most common factor (21 percent). Other major factors included abuse by a parent (14 percent) and parental illness (11 percent). Other reasons include parents working out of state, court-ordered removal of the child from the parental home, and parental disability. The basic issue of custody was not always clear. Although more than half (54 percent) of the grandparents in the survey had legal custody of their grandchildren, arrangements were informal for many others. About one-third said they did not know how to obtain custody.

The family dynamic in these homes may therefore be complicated by such factors as the stresses of juggling work and child rearing, uncertainty about the permanence of the living situation, the children's emotional separation from their parents, the grandparents' concern about the well-being of the absent parent, and financial pressures, especially for grandparents without legal custody. In addition, data show that at least 40 percent of the grandparents worry about their grandchildren being sexually active, using drugs, or joining gangs. About three-fourths said "yes" to the general statement, "This generation of grandchildren often shows disrespect for their elders." To share the burdens of coping with these and other family issues, the program sponsors a monthly support group for grandparents.

Staff conduct individual meetings with grandparents to help them identify resources and to provide referrals. The Grandparents as Parents program also provides legal information concerning how to become a child's guardian and apply for government financial assistance to support the child. The project also supplies referrals to free or low-cost medical facilities and other city services. A tutoring and mentoring component is being added to help grandparents oversee the children's learning—for example, 71 percent of the grandparents reported that it was difficult to provide the children with any help in learning computer skills.

Grandparents as Parents, in partnership with the local school district, also reaches out through a summer academy that helps children improve their reading and writing skills and learn about their heritage through art projects and field trips. "The program has just taken off and addressed a real need in the community," says Maune.

Maune emphasizes the importance of being flexible when developing the program, stating, "We were willing to learn and revise the program as we went along." Now starting its third year, the program continues to evolve. The university and its community partners are planning to create a database of the services provided to each grandparent to facilitate informed followup activities.

For more information, contact: LaNor Maune, Project Coordinator, Community Outreach Partnership Center, University of Missouri at Kansas City, 5100 Rockhill Road, Kansas City, MO 64110, (816) 235-1785; and Philip Olson, Director, Urban Affairs Program, (816) 235-2522.

Or see: Philip Olson and Yong Xu, Black Grandparents Parenting a Second Time: A Study of Households in Kansas City, 1999, available free from the address above.


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