This originally appeared as an op-ed in Kentucky Today and the Herald Leader on November 30, 2023. By Norma Hatfield As we approach a new year, let’s not forget kids in kinship care. Kinship care is when a child is living with relatives or close family friends other than their parents. These children may be victims of abuse and neglect and/or formally in the child welfare system, while many for a myriad of reasons are informally [...]
Recently, the Biden-Harris Administration proposed three new federal rules related to the child welfare system in an effort to expand supports for children and families who come into contact with the system as a result of child abuse and neglect. Those three new rules are explained below based on how we anticipate Kentucky’s system will be impacted. Supporting Relative Foster Care Providers As of September 5, 2023, there were over 1,000 children placed in relative [...]
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for Women’s, Infant, and Children (WIC) provides vital support for the food and nutrition security of pregnant women, new moms, babies, and young children by providing food assistance via an EBT card, nutrition education, and breastfeeding support. While this support is critical for new parents and young children, the WIC program is out of date and does not reach everyone who is eligible. Kinship caregivers and Kentucky’s Latinx population face [...]
Kinship Caregivers, State Leaders, and Advocates Attend Kinship Coalition Virtual Summit Governor Proclaims September as Kinship Care Awareness Month LOUISVILLE, KY – Dozens of kinship caregivers, child welfare stakeholders, policy makers, and advocates from across Kentucky virtually gathered today for the Kinship Coalition Virtual Summit. Two years after the federal Family First Act implementation, over a year out from a global pandemic, a lawsuit that rose to the level of the Supreme Court, and several [...]
Join Kentucky Youth Advocates and the Kinship Families Coalition of Kentucky for the Kinship Coalition Virtual Summit on Thursday, September 2nd. The summit will be a two part series to learn about the current landscape of kinship care at the state and national level, and then prioritize an action agenda with kinship and fictive kin caregivers across the commonwealth. Part 1: The Kinship Summit will be on Thursday, September 2, 2021 for kinship and fictive [...]
More than 59,000 children in Kentucky are being raised by grandparents and other relatives – known as kinship care. The majority of these kinship family arrangements are informal, and oftentimes relatives do not have legal custody or guardianship of the children. This can make it difficult when it comes time for kinship caregivers to enroll children in school or access educational services or health care for them. Often, relatives step in to help stabilize the situation [...]
Today’s passage of SB 176 by the Senate Judiciary Committee is a true affirmation of the importance Kentuckians place on family values. The bill helps family members who are stepping up to raise kin children when the children’s parents are unable to do so. SB 176 makes sure kinship caregivers can access health care and educational services for children in their care when legal guardianship is not feasible. We know that grandparents, aunts and uncles, and other relatives often [...]
Yesterday, Senator Harper Angel filed SB 176 to allow a relative caregiver to access key services for the children in their care when legal custody or guardianship is not feasible. We applaud her for her leadership on this important issue for kids and look forward to the bill moving forward through the Senate and House this session. Children across Kentucky are being denied access to education and health care solely because they are being raised [...]
Budgets always require tough choices, and on Tuesday, Governor Beshear built on his previous commitment to kids around health and high school graduation and became “the Children’s Governor” because of the choices he made, the priorities he established, and the values he exemplified. In what is arguably the most historic budget address for kids in the Commonwealth in decades, Governor Beshear laid out an agenda that is as smart as it is bold. He tackled [...]
Kids’ champions and kids themselves gathered on Monday morning and rocked the Rotunda. Folks who had been impacted by child care cuts and kinship care cuts and folks who had received a “hand up” for a better life because of those supports stood and eloquently shared their stories. There were more than a few moist eyes as those gathered heard stories about a grandmother worried about what would happen if the five grandchildren she was [...]
