Beech Tree News Network

Kentucky continues to lead the nation with the highest rate of children in the care of relatives who aren’t their parents, according to U.S. census data reported by Kentucky Youth Advocates.

From 2016 to 2018, the advocacy group reports that 9 percent of Kentucky children were being raised by a relative. That’s more than double the national rate of 4 percent, a news release from the group said.

Terry Brooks, executive director of Kentucky Youth Advocates, said children are usually moved into kinship care after a family crisis.

“We have to assume that kinship (care) is going to be a growing phenomenon,” Brooks said.

According to Kentucky Youth Advocates, the number of children raised by relatives has nearly doubled in recent years. Between 2013 and 2015, the number was 53,000 children. That number rose to 96,000 children between 2016 and 2018.

He cited the opioid epidemic and said Kentucky also has the second-highest rate in the nation of children with incarcerated parents.

Tamara Prather, a family caregiver coordinator with the Barren River Area Development District in Bowling Green, said drug use and parental incarceration are common factors for many of her clients.

“Most of the ones that I see are grandparents raising grandchildren,” she said, adding that the children often have emotional issues because of what they’ve experienced. “It’s a lot for the grandparent to have to take on.”

For Brooks, placing children with relative caregivers is a viable alternative to foster care, but only if grandparents, aunts and uncles have the resources they need.

Roughly 15,000 children have been placed in kinship care by the Kentucky Department for Community Based Services, according to Kentucky Youth Advocates.

But in 2013, the state’s program was closed to new caregivers because of lack of funding.

Kentucky’s General Assembly allocated funding for the program in the latest two-year state budget, but Brooks said that money hasn’t been distributed to relative caregivers despite being available since July 1.

The money is instead going toward paying relatives who provide temporary foster care after a federal court ruled last year that Kentucky must pay them in the same manner it pays licensed foster parents, the Courier Journal reported.

“Most of the grandparents I see, it’s definitely a financial burden,” Prather said, adding they often face disabilities and fixed incomes when raising their grandchildren.

Caregivers face some of the biggest costs when it comes to covering children’s basic needs, she said.

“Definitely one of the biggest concerns that we see is the clothing,” Prather said.

Kimberly Guffy, a grandparent in Logan County, is raising two grandchildren below the age of 5. She described the change as a “tremendous adjustment.” At 47 years old, Guffy said she no longer has the energy she had when she raised her children in her 20s.

“It’s hard,” she said “It takes a lot out of you.”

Guffy has filed a lawsuit against the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services over a dispute about state support she said she hasn’t received.

She said that, along with addressing the opioid crisis and a high rate of locked-up parents, the state needs to fully fund its kinship care program.

Doing so would save the state money on foster care payments, which are more expensive than payments under the kinship system, Guffy said. She also suggested the state could make use of federal matching funds.

Kentucky’s children can’t wait any longer for the state to take action, Guffy said.

“It’s got to happen now,” she said.

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Date: 10-18-2018

By Aaron Mudd
Bowling Green Daily News

Kentucky Press News Service