Bridging the Gap: Grandparents Raising Their Grandchildren

Location: Lansing and neighboring counties
MSU Campus Partners: Teresa C. Jones and Robert Little, School of Social Work; Cynthia Gibbons, College of Nursing.
Community Partners: Ronald Gillum, Black Child and Family Institute.

Child welfare advocates confirm that there are numerous grandparent maintained households in Michigan, but there is little or no descriptive information available about the lives and needs of grandparents who are raising their grandchildren.

A FACT Coalition collaborative research project is helping to fill this gap by examining the structure of grandparent households, their health and well-being and their need for support and services.

Teresa Jones, project leader and assistant professor in MSU's School of Social Work, is partnering with MSU's College of Nursing, and the Black Child and Family Institute (BCFI) in Lansing to identify the strengths and needs of grandparent caregivers from Ingham, Clinton, Eaton and Jackson Counties.

"Imagine being 60 years old and being responsible for elementary aged children," says Jones. "Many grandparents say that this was a time when they expected to just be together with each other and have their grandkids over on the weekends, but their lives have totally changed. It's an amazing thing, but they are doing it."

Through surveys and interviews, Jones is collecting information about the grandparents' physical and emotional health, their financial situation, and their legal needs. Beyond this, she wants to find out what the grandparents feel they have in their lives that is helping them raise their grandchildren, and what is missing in terms of support and services.

"We're asking the grandparents what they need, so we can figure out along with them how to put those resources into place," she says, "we want to know in what ways MSU and the School of Social Work can work with others in the community to enhance services for these families."

Jones is finding that most of the grandparents she has surveyed are in their fifties or sixties, usually couples, and are taking care of two or three grandchildren ranging in age from five to eleven years old. As she collects and analyzes the data, Jones notes that financial concerns, legal issues, health issues and respite care are the primary areas where grandparents need =support (see box).

Community Connections
Building relationships with grandparent and community groups like BCFI and the Relatives as Parents Support Group has been a significant outcome of this project.

Jones explains. "We are getting tremendous response from people working in community. This project has had the effect of linking people who have been working independently on behalf of grandparents but have not been connected to each other before."

In addition to the community connections, kinship care professionals from the Tricounty Office on Aging, Head Start, and the Family Independence Agency, as well as the grandparents themselves are waiting eagerly for the results of this project.

"At first it seems like a tiny project, but since it's never been done before, professionals and grandparents are thrilled that we are doing this work and really believe that we can make a difference."

Robert Little and Future Work
A sad note for Jones and the project was the death of Robert Little, project co-leader and kinship care policy advocate, in November 1999. Over his career, Little spearheaded many projects and influenced the direction of kinship care work in the state.

"Everybody in Michigan who is working on kinship issues, owes any success to Bob," says Jones, "I don't know if people realize how much he did and how far reaching his efforts were."

Little was instrumental in obtaining $250,000 from the State of Michigan for kinship care projects at the School of Social Work. Jones has been named the principal investigator for these initiatives. This funding along with other grants in process will help to sustain and extend the research from this project.

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