There are nearly 100,000 Kentucky kids living in kinship care. While beneficial for children, kinship care can pose considerable financial, legal, and emotional challenges for caregivers. Research has shown that kinship caregivers go to great lengths to meet the needs of the relative children, however, their efforts often come at the expense of their own personal care. Social support contributes to caregivers’ ability to provide a nurturing environment for the children in their care and ultimately leads to better outcomes for children.

Taking care of yourself is a gift to the children in your care.

Norma Hatfield of the Kinship Families Coalition of Kentucky shares why she connected with a local kinship caregiver support group when she began caring for her granddaughters – and why other caregivers should, too. Whether you need advice on navigating the complicated system, to be connected with a food pantry or clothes closet, to vent frustrations, or just need a shoulder to cry on – support groups can serve as that network to lean on.

There are several support groups for relatives raising children throughout Kentucky. These support groups go by many different names, and meet at different places, but they all share the same goal: to support kinship families.

• Search the Kinship Families Coalition of Kentucky Resource Directory by county.
• Do you help facilitate a support group? Tell us about it.
• Have you ever considered starting a support group for relatives raising kin in your area? Check out this manual for best practices for building and maintaining a support group for kinship caregivers.