Listen to Network Director Ana Beltran on the Power Station podcast!
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Register for Our Upcoming Webinar! | |
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NEW DATE!
Conducting Culturally Responsive Evaluations
2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. ET
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Explore general considerations and lessons learned in building culturally responsive evaluation plans. A review of several initiatives will illustrate key considerations that can be applied in evaluating kinship programs. This will include conducting research in partnership with tribal communities under federal grant initiatives using an Indigenous Worldview, and evaluation initiatives designed to address racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity and equity. Our presenters are Network Subject Matter Expert Dr. Angelique Day, Associate Professor, University of Washington School of Social Work, and Dr. Sharonlyn Harrison, CEO of Public Research and Evaluation Services, Inc. | | |
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Since we launched our LinkedIn page in September 2023, we’ve shared dozens of resources, funding opportunities, and training events. We invite you to follow our page to keep up with our latest news between monthly issues of this newsletter. | |
What's New From the Network? | |
Monthly Resource
Kinship/Grandfamilies & the FAFSA: College Financial Aid
In response to a TA request from a kinship navigator, we worked quickly to develop and post this resource. It has detailed directions to help students raised by kin complete the FAFSA, the federal financial aid application that opens doors to money to pay for college. As with most things, the instructions for these students are different than for students being raised by parents. The great news is that, in most circumstances, only the student’s income and assets are considered in determining aid!
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EXEMPLARY PROGRAMS
Thank you to all the wonderful programs that applied, showed us your work in action during site visits, and reviewed our write-ups of your exemplary services. We are proud to be elevating your work! We are thrilled to conclude our announcements of our Exemplary Kinship Program designation recipients by sharing our write-ups of Bridge Meadows Intergenerational Housing Community in Oregon, The Kinship Program at Adoptive and Foster Families of Maine, Inc., and the Montana Kinship Navigator Program and Kinship Connections of Wyoming.
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Including Kinship/Grandfamilies in State and Area Plans on Aging
This guide, produced in collaboration with our partners at USAging, provides examples of language that agencies can use to include kinship/grandfamilies in state and area plans on aging.
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Development and Implementation of Tribal Foster Care and Relative/Kinship Care Standards: Second Edition
This guidebook, developed by our partners at the National Indian Child Welfare Association, particularly Subject Matter Expert Terry L. Cross, MSW, ACSW, LCSW and Mariah Meyerholz, MSW, discusses several important considerations and suggests a process through which tribes can develop locally appropriate standards. It is based on the premise that foster care standards, including care by relatives, are most useful when developed by the tribal community in which they will be used and when a broad segment of that community participates in the development and implementation process.
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…On LinkedIn
Over the past few months, the Network has shared information about a bunch of programs that we've designated as exemplary. They hail from communities across the country and role model stand-out criteria such as: addressing strengths and needs of the population served; incorporating diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) principles and strategies; promoting cross-system collaboration; improving quality continuously; and more. Please like, share, or comment on our LinkedIn post about them to help continue to spread the word and inspire other programs!
…With Kin Caregivers
If you work directly with kin caregivers, we encourage you to tell them about an opportunity to participate in a national survey. Participants will receive a $25 gift card for completing the survey.
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Individual Assistance Spotlight | |
The Network is responding free of charge to individual technical assistance (TA) requests from professionals who work in systems and organizations that serve kinship/grandfamilies. To request assistance on the array of issues impacting kinship/grandfamilies, please complete our request assistance form. | |
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Here is an example TA request and response.
Request
I’m working with a kin caregiver who is caring for a youth who is going off to college, but the caregiver is not sure how to complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). Can you provide guidance on how kin caregivers and youth in their care should complete this application?
Response
The FAFSA application can be challenging to navigate depending on the circumstances of the caregiver and youth and their legal relationship. The Network developed a resource, Kinship/Grandfamilies & the FAFSA: College Financial Aid, to help professionals walk caregivers and youth through this application.
To make an individual request, please complete this form and we will get in touch.
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New Kinship Nonprofit in a Previously Underserved Community
After receiving a TA request in 2023, the Network conducted eight months of individual assistance with the requesters, which eventually contributed to the development of a brand-new kinship nonprofit! The Network's help included a series of calls, emails, and virtual meetings, and also involved the engagement of multiple Network subject matter experts. The new nonprofit is focused on serving kinship families outside of foster care in a previously underserved area of Alaska. This culturally based kinship program will help build and nurture healthy, supported intergenerational relationships that keep children and youth safe, stable, and out of the foster care system. Congratulations, Haa Yaitx'u Saiani!
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Upcoming Presentations by the Network | | |
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From today, Tuesday, May 21 through Thursday, May 23, Network Director Ana Beltran and Network Assistant Director Melissa Devlin will be staffing the Network exhibit at the 2024 National Lifespan Respite Conference in Albany, NY. ARCH National Respite Network and Resource Center – which is led by one of the Network’s newest subject matter experts, Jill Kagan – is co-hosting this event with the NY State Caregiving and Respite Coalition and the NY State Office for the Aging. If you're attending, we hope to meet you! | | |
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Ana has been invited to speak at an invitation-only conference on the care economy hosted by the Brookings Institution on Monday, June 10 and Tuesday, June 11. She will be part of a panel discussion, where she will share about the role of grandparents and kin in the care economy. | |
What's New Around the Network? | |
OAA Final Rule Back to Basics Webinar Series: Title III/VI Coordination
U.S. Administration for Community Living
Thursday, May 23, 2024, 3:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. ET
The aging network is required to coordinate its nutrition, caregiver, and other supportive programs offered through Title III and Title VI of the Older Americans Act (OAA), and this webinar will cover the basics of that coordination.
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Apply to Join the Older Americans Act Nutrition Services Learning Collaborative
National Center on Advancing Person-Centered Practices and Systems
Applications Due Friday, May 24, 2024
This learning collaborative will bring together teams composed of state units on aging, area agencies on aging, aging and disability resource centers, No Wrong Door programs, tribal organizations, nutrition program professionals, and their community partners to engage in peer-to-peer learning. Participants will share promising practices and explore innovative approaches to holistically support older adults accessing nutrition services and identify how to use existing funding sources in a sustainable way.
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Webinar: Overview of HHS’ Final Rule Implementing Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights
Tuesday, May 28, 2024 at 2 p.m. ET
On May 1, 2024, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released of a long-awaited, comprehensive final rule implementing Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. In this webinar, leaders from the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) will provide an overview of the rule’s critical provisions for the disability and aging networks. As briefly explained in a fact sheet from HHS, this rule includes detailed requirements to ensure nondiscrimination in the services provided by child welfare agencies.
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Webinar: Final Rule Expanding Public Agencies' Ability to Fund Legal Representation on Behalf of Families Involved in Child Welfare
U.S. Administration for Children, Youth & Families
Wednesday, June 5, 2024 at 4 p.m. ET
This new rule is meant to expand access to legal representation for children who are eligible for title IV-E foster care, their parents, kin caregivers, Indian custodians, and tribes by allowing child welfare agencies to use federal funds to provide legal representation. For example, under the new rule, a child welfare agency could provide a family at risk of entering the foster care system with legal representation to establish legal custody or guardianship and/or to obtain housing and public benefits to prevent the unnecessary removal of a child from the home. For Indian children placed in foster care, federal funds can pay for tribes’ attorneys or representatives to provide the court with critical information about the child’s tribe.
No registration is required; simply save and click this link to join the webinar.
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To learn more about this new rule, check out the summary prepared by one of the Network's subject matter experts, Heidi Redlich Epstein, at the American Bar Association Center on Children and the Law. | |
Register to Join the National Caregiver Champion Collaborative (CCC)
USAging
Aging Network providers and partners who are responsible for the administration of caregiver services and supports may register to join the CCC. Participants will gather regularly in an affinity group model to share successful strategies and best practices, discuss lessons learned, explore new partnerships, and get insight into the latest research and emerging evidence-based programs.
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Webinar Series on Navigating Partnerships: From Connection to Collaboration
Nutrition and Aging Resource Center
Four Wednesdays in June and July 2024
The U.S. Administration for Community Living funds the Nutrition and Aging Resource Center, which will be hosting this webinar series designed to help participants identify resources and strategies to grow and maintain successful partnerships. Click on the title of an event below to register for that session. All sessions will take place at 1:00 p.m. ET.
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Translating Kin-First Commitments Into Practice: Management Strategies for Child Welfare Leaders
Harvard Kennedy School Government Performance Lab
This publication offers six actionable management strategies – plus downloadable resources – that child welfare leaders can use to motivate staff, shift perception, refine processes, and reduce barriers to increase kin placements in their jurisdictions.
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Who Are American Indian and Alaska Native Grandparents?
U.S. Census Bureau
This poster and accompanying tables provide descriptive statistics of the population of American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) grandparents who live with their grandchildren (also called coresident grandparents), as well as those who are “responsible for their grandchildren.” The “responsible for” category is used to represent grandparents raising grandchildren. These statistics provide insight into the characteristics of AIAN grandparents living with and raising their grandchildren, the differences within this group based on tribal affiliation and geographic location, and trends. Data for this study come from the 2018 – 2022 5-year American Community Survey (ACS).
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Notable Funding Opportunities | |
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REMINDER! The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has released a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for Section 202 Supportive Housing for the Elderly. The NOFO provides up to $35 million in funding to develop units for intergenerational families that include a child and the child's grandparent or other relative who is a head of the household and aged 62 or older. Applications are due by 11:59 p.m. ET on June 20, 2024. Check out our Frequently Asked Questions resource to learn more.
The Centene Foundation’s spring application cycle is now open and accepting requests for support. Applications are due by Friday, May 31, 2024.
In honor of Mental Health Awareness Month, the U.S. Department of Education is extending the deadlines for the School-Based Mental Health Services (SBMH) grant program competition and the Mental Health Service Professional (MHSP) demonstration grant program competition. Applications for both programs are now due by Friday, May 31, 2024.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service has released the 2024 request for applications for the SNAP Process and Technology Improvement Grants Program (PTIG). Applications are due by Tuesday, June 18, 2024.
The U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) has released a solicitation for the OJJDP FY24 Mentoring for Children of Incarcerated Parents grant program. The Grants.gov deadline is Monday, June 10, 2024 at 11:59 p.m. ET. The Application JustGrants deadline is Monday, June 24, 2024 at 8:59 p.m. ET.
The OJJDP is also accepting applications to the OJJDP FY24 Strategies to Support Children Exposed to Violence grant. The Grants.gov deadline is Monday, June 24, 2024 at 11:59 p.m. ET. The Application JustGrants deadline is Monday, July 8, 2024 at 8:59 p.m. ET.
Walmart Spark Good Local Grants provide $250 to $5,000 to eligible organizations operating locally. The application deadline for the current grant cycle is Monday, July 15, 2024.
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The U.S. Administration for Children and Families (ACF) has approved Nebraska’s plan to implement the new federal rule allowing for kin-specific foster care licensing and requiring equal financial support for licensed kinship foster caregivers and licensed non-kinship foster caregivers. This announcement follows the approvals granted to Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community and Michigan.
JAMA Psychiatry has published a new study that was conducted as a collaborative effort led by researchers at the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The study emphasizes the need to include children and families in community efforts to address the overdose crisis and its impact.
HHS Finalizes a Rule for Unaccompanied Children in Its Care and a Rule to Increase DACA Recipients’ Access to Health Coverage
The Unaccompanied Children Program Foundational Rule is designed to enhance the legal framework governing the Office of Refugee Resettlement’s Unaccompanied Children program. The rule includes an order of preference for the release of unaccompanied children.
The rule for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients seeks to ensure that they will no longer be excluded from eligibility to enroll in a Qualified Health Plan (QHP) through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) Health Insurance Marketplace, or from coverage through a Basic Health Program (BHP). DACA recipients and others who are eligible for a BHP can apply for and receive coverage as early as November 1, 2024 and Marketplace coverage plans can begin as early as December 1, 2024.
Social Security to Expand SSI Program
Supplemental Security Income (SSI) provides monthly payments to eligible adults and children with a disability or blindness, and to adults aged 65 and older, who have limited income and resources. SSI benefits can help pay for basic needs like rent, food, clothing, and medicine. Two new final rules seek to expand access to this lifeline. Under one final rule, SSI recipients nationwide will be able to receive a certain level of rental assistance, such as discounted rental rates, without that assistance affecting their eligibility for SSI or their SSI payment amount. Under the other final rule, SSI will expand the definition of a “public assistance household” to reduce reporting burdens and allow more people to qualify for SSI and, in some cases, receive a higher SSI payment.
The Food and Nutrition Service is now piloting two online-only retailers in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Thrive and DashMart. The addition of Thrive and DashMart marks the first inclusion of online-only retailers among SNAP authorized retailers.
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Please follow the Grandfamilies & Kinship Support Network on LinkedIn here! |
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All of our previous newsletters are linked on our website, so you can access them anytime. |
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Generations United is committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion. For more information, read our full statement. | |
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The Grandfamilies & Kinship Support Network is the first-ever national technical assistance center for those who serve grandfamilies and kinship families. It was created to help guide lasting, systemic reforms. The Network is a new way to collaborate, to work across jurisdictional and systemic boundaries, to eliminate silos, and to help one another and be helped in return. Thank you for being part of it.
We'd love to hear from you! Please send any feedback on this newsletter to mweiss@gu.org.
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The Network is supported by the Administration for Community Living (ACL), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of a financial assistance award totaling $9,950,000 with 95 percentage funded by ACL/HHS and $523,684 and 5 percentage funded by non-government sources. The contents are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement, by ACL/HHS, or the U.S. Government.
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