Services in Short Supply for Rural Kinship Caregivers: How Can Organizations Reach These Families?

By  Kathleen Baldwin, Intern at Kentucky Youth Advocates

When children cannot remain safely with their parents, oftentimes grandparents, other relatives, and close family friends step up to help raise them. In Kentucky and other rural states, many of the kinship caregivers are not physically near support services. This can lead to difficulties for the family. The Grandfamilies and Kinship Support Network acknowledged these difficulties and provided a tip sheet on ways to reach kinship families in rural areas. 

The tip sheet states that rural kinship caregivers often face:

• physical isolation
• limited social support networks
• financial hardships
• desire for privacy
• challenges with internet/connectivity
• overall poorer health

A difficulty that is specifically faced by kinship caregivers living in rural areas is accessibility to services. Specifically, family court, child care, health/mental health services, respite care, and various specialists. For kinship families to get to these out-of-the-way services, a long drive, accompanied by a working vehicle, is required. This may also involve missing work, arranging child care, and incurring additional expenses.

Suggestions

The Grandfamilies and Kinship Support Network provided ways to help reach kinship families in rural areas. Some of their suggestions include:

• Build trust by finding someone in the rural community who can connect you with local kinship families or advocates.
• Ask families what they need by utilizing virtual resources and providing education on how to use those resources.
• Offer multiple ways to connect by asking caregivers their preferred method of communication.
• Create print and online resources that can be accessed 24/7 by using your organization’s website to share resources and provide hard copies for those with limited internet access.
• Collaborate by working with other organizations to create potential partnerships.
• Find ways to make life easier for kinship caregivers by asking them to sign permission-to-contact forms. This allows service providers the authorization to contact caregivers instead of the caregivers having to find and contact them.

Click here to access additional suggestions provided on the tip sheet.