The Response of Custodial Care Networks to the Needs of Custodial Grandparents and their Adult Children: A Framework Based on Four Caregiving Situations

Abstract

ABSTRACT The quality of the relationship between custodial grandparents or kin caregivers and the biological parent may have an affect on the ability of kin care or, “grandfamilies,” to obtain help from social and educational services, including child welfare, and to provide a safe living arrangement for the child. The custodial care network consists of the biological parent, custodial grandparent(s), friends, other relatives, educational institutions, and social service organizations. The authors of this paper present a theoretical framework for assessing and addressing the ability of the custodial care network to help children in custodial care homes. Using questions that have been posed by custodial grandparents in a statewide, “relatives as parents program,” in West Virginia, as evidence of need for information and assistance, the framework addresses four custodial care situations and makes suggestions for family preparation as well as resource development by social service and educational personnel. The underlying assumption is that the stronger the relationship between the biological parent/adult child and the custodial grandparent, the more likely it is that other members of the custodial care network can assist the family in raising the child without the child entering the formal child welfare system.