Happy National Kinship Care Month!
We’ve prepared a toolkit to help with outreach. It includes language and graphics that you can use and adapt to help raise awareness about kinship families and the supports available to them in your community and around the country.
| | Please read on to learn about our latest resources and news, as well as other resources and news from around the field. | |
Follow Us on LinkedIn!
Kinship news, resources, and events are available throughout the month, not just in our monthly newsletter. Follow our LinkedIn page to keep up with the latest kinship news between monthly issues of this newsletter.
| | What's New From the Network? | |
Database of Funders
Compiled by our partners at USAging and containing over 600 funders from around the country, this resource is intended to help programs address a common, crucial challenge.
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Seeing the Unseen: Working With Kinship/Grandfamilies Affected by Trauma
Created by our partners at ZERO TO THREE, this resource explores the role of trauma in grandfamilies’ experiences and describes how trauma-informed care can provide necessary support and help meet their needs. It also contains sections on the effects of traumatic experiences in childhood, signs of traumatic experiences in children at different ages/stages of development, signs of traumatic experiences in adults, and addressing biases.
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The Role of Private Child Welfare Agencies in Kin-Specific Licensing and Supports
Developed by Subject Matter Expert Marina Nitze, this resource details multiple ways that jurisdictions have strengthened and deepened their relationships with private child welfare agencies in light of kin-specific licensing, using newly freed-up resources to focus on higher-level supports.
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Strengthening Kinship Support by Title VI Native American Aging Programs
Written by our partners at USAging, using data collected from their 2023 nationally representative survey of Title VI programs and 2026 interviews with select Title VI programs, this report summarizes the types of services Title VI programs offer to relative caregivers and their families, with whom the programs partner, and their top challenges in supporting these families.
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Accessing Services and Increasing Advocacy for Relative/Kin Caregivers Raising Native Children With Disabilities
Produced by our partners at the National Indian Child Welfare Association (NICWA), this toolkit and accompanying tip sheet are meant to be supportive tools—grounded in respect, culture, advocacy, and relationship building—to help families, particularly relatives and kin who are raising Native children with disabilities.
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ICWA Attorney Practice Guide: Questions to Strengthen Kin, Tribal, and Community Connections
Written by our subject matter experts at the American Bar Association (ABA) Center on Children and the Law, this tip sheet presents questions for attorneys to ask their clients to promote thoughtful advocacy for preserving a child’s connections throughout the life of an Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) case. This piece complements the Judicial Checklist (also developed by our subject matter experts at the ABA), which we shared last month.
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Videos
We have published several new videos in the last month, all available through both our website and our YouTube page.
To find them on our YouTube page, click this link and then select the “Videos” tab. Our latest videos should appear first. Be sure to check out the Caring Across Generations series, produced by our partners at the National Indian Child Welfare Association (NICWA). While you’re there, take a look at all the other videos we’ve uploaded over the years, from short explanatory videos defining kinship/grandfamilies to webinar recordings.
| | Our resource library now contains over 160 practical tools and materials! To help you find exactly what you're looking for, the resource library includes both an open search field and an option to search by topic, and we remain available to answer your questions. | | |
For #KinshipCareMonth, please help us widely share our two-minute video about the families by reacting to this LinkedIn post. | | 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. | | |
We answer questions and respond to requests of all sizes. Some questions focus on a very specific topic and/or location, while others are much broader. Below, we share an example TA request and response. As is typical for this spotlight, the request below only required an email response. Many of our requests benefit from more intensive involvement from our TA team. We often host meetings with peers or other subject matter experts; review data and policies; and provide specific guidance to help enhance programs, implement policies, or otherwise improve services to kin.
Request:
I’m interested in developing a new kinship program as a part of my nonprofit, and I would like to learn about potential funding opportunities that might exist.
Response:
The Network recently developed a Database of Funders, which is a searchable collection of over 600 funders, all offering support to projects, programs, and more that could benefit kinship/grandfamilies.
We also have multiple resources and webinars that provide information about potential funding sources for kinship programs. These include:
To make an individual request, please complete this form and we will get in touch.
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What's New Around the Network? | |
Upcoming Webinars
- Virtual Conference – Together for Families, hosted by our subject matter experts at the National Family Support Network, taking place Tuesday, October 20 through Thursday, October 22
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Call for Presentations – Submit an application to present at the 45th Annual Protecting Our Children Conference, which will be hosted by our partners at the National Indian Child Welfare Association (NICWA) in Albuquerque, New Mexico, April 4–7, 2027. Applications are due by Friday, October 30.
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Notable Funding Opportunities
(listed in order of application deadline)
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The American Public Human Services Association and No Kid Hungry are accepting applications to the third cohort of Coordinating SNAP & Nutrition Services (CSNS). The application deadline is Wednesday, September 30.
The American Psychological Foundation’s Trauma Psychology Grant offers funding to support innovative work to alleviate trauma. The application deadline is Friday, October 9.
The Saint-Gobain North America Foundation Direct Grant focuses on four areas, including the construction of affordable/accessible housing. The application deadline for the fourth quarter of 2026 is Friday, October 9.
AmeriCorps is accepting applications to the FY 2027 AmeriCorps Seniors RSVP grant program. The application deadline is 5 p.m. ET on Tuesday, October 20.
The American Bar Endowment is accepting applications to its Opportunity Grant Program, which provides project-restricted funding for new and innovative projects and programs that benefit the public and the legal profession. The application deadline is Saturday, October 31.
The Public School Districts’ Opioid Recovery Trust is accepting notices of intent to apply and grant applications from public school districts around the country seeking to develop responses to enhance their ability to educate students harmed by the opioid epidemic. Proposals focusing on students with disabilities born with neonatal opioid withdrawal syndrome will receive priority consideration. The application deadline is Sunday, November 15.
AmeriCorps is accepting applications to its FY 2027 AmeriCorps State and National Grants. The application deadline is 5 p.m. ET on Wednesday, January 13, 2027.
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All of our previous newsletters are linked on our website, so you can access them anytime. |
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The Grandfamilies & Kinship Support Network is the only 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 gu@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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