Have you checked out the
new Blogstream site,
Question Stream.com?
Many Blogstream members are there
already! Quotes from members: "It's like blog lite!" -- "I like the instant
gratification!" -- "Stop spectating, get in the game!"
If you have not joined in, you are really missing out!
|
I look forward to hearing from you, Granny Annie
<< I. Definition of Kinship Care
Increasingly, children are being raised by persons other than their biological or adoptive parents. The term “kinship caregiver” means any relative or close family friend who is caring for children not his or her own. Kinship caregiving can be temporary or permanent, formal or informal. Kinship caregiving is formal if the relative is a licensed foster care provider, and the children are placed with the relative either by a court order or by a voluntary agreement between the county child protection agency and the parent. It is informal if the arrangements have been made by the family, and either the parent or the caregiver has legal custody.
Kinship caregivers are the silent safety net – the unsung heroes of children unable to live with their parents. Not only do they provide for the day-to-day nurturing and care for the children, they are resources to the biological parents, the foster care system, and the community as a whole. These families have many strengths and challenges. As will be discussed later, there are ways that the Court can build on these strengths to overcome the challenges and enhance the well-being of children in these caregiving arrangements in the following ways:
▲Ensure that the role of the kinship caregiver is uniformly recognized and the child’s stability is protected by regular training of Judges, guardian’s ad litem, and court services personnel;
▲Ensure that the kinship caregiver’s voice is heard in court; and Support implementation of a program specifically designed to assist informal kinship caregivers.
II. Kinship Caregivers Often Become the Psychological Parent to the Children.
Children in kinship care have experienced difficult family situations in their early lives which render them particularly vulnerable. Problems such as drug and alcohol abuse, child abuse and/or neglect, abandonment, poverty, mental health problems, incarceration, or death of a parent usually characterize a child’s transition to a kinship household. As a result, many of these children have emotional and/or physical health problems. They may suffer from depression, attention deficit disorder, fetal alcohol syndrome, learning disabilities, inappropriate socialization skills or hyperactivity. Kinship caregivers step in, in the midst of these troubling circumstances, to protect the children and to afford them the safe, stable, and nurturing home the parent cannot provide and to acknowledge their worth and value as a family member. In the typical kinship situation, neither parent is able to demonstrate any consistent participation in the child-rearing necessary for the child’s physical, mental, or emotional development.
The longer children live with kinship caregivers, the stronger the bond between them becomes. The children see the kinship caregivers as their psychological parents, precisely because their daily emotional and practical needs are met by the caregivers. To the young child, who is not cognizant of blood relationships during the early years, a person who lovingly assumes primary responsibility for meeting the child's physical and emotional needs is the child’s parent. Martha F. Leonard, M.D. & Sally Provence, M.D., The Development of Parent-Child Relationships and the Psychological Parent, 53 Conn. B.J. 320, 326-27 (1979). A young child's emotional attachments are not the direct result of the physical realities of conception and birth; the child responds to nurturing care - the fulfilling of needs for nourishment, warmth, physical care, protection, comfort, and affection. Continuity of this affectionate care "is considered by many to be a necessary precondition for healthy personality development and character formation." Leonard & Provence, Id. at 321. >>