Strengthening Support for Grandfamilies During the COVID-19 Pandemic and Beyond (S. Hrg. 117-309)
Summary
Senate Hearing 117-309 (Serial No. 117-18) records the June 23, 2022 hearing of the Special Committee on Aging on grandfamilies, with Chairman Robert P. Casey, Jr. presiding. Witnesses are Donna Butts of Generations United, Kim Clifton of Helping and Lending Outreach Support (HALOS), and grandparent caregivers Gail Engel and Ruth Stevens, each accompanied by a grandson. Casey says more than 2.7 million children in America are being raised by grandparents or next of kin, and at least 140,000 children were orphaned by the pandemic. Casey reintroduces the Informing Grandfamilies Act, Senate Bill 4443, with Senator Young. Ranking Member Tim Scott says 21 percent of South Carolina placements are now to kin caregivers.
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[Senate Hearing 117-309]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 117-309
STRENGTHENING SUPPORT FOR
GRANDFAMILIES DURING THE
COVID-19 PANDEMIC AND BEYOND
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON AGING
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
WASHINGTON, DC
__________
JUNE 23, 2022
__________
Serial No. 117-18
Printed for the use of the Special Committee on Aging
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
48-016 PDF WASHINGTON : 2022
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SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON AGING
ROBERT P. CASEY, JR., Pennsylvania, Chairman
KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, New York TIM SCOTT, South Carolina
RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine
ELIZABETH WARREN, Massachusetts RICHARD BURR, North Carolina
JACKY ROSEN, Nevada MARCO RUBIO, Florida
MARK KELLY, Arizona MIKE BRAUN, Indiana
RAPHAEL WARNOCK, Georgia RICK SCOTT, Florida
MIKE LEE, Utah
----------
Stacy Sanders, Majority Staff Director
Neri Martinez, Minority Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Opening Statement of Senator Robert P. Casey, Jr., Chairman...... 1
Opening Statement of Senator Tim Scott, Ranking Member........... 3
PANEL OF WITNESSES
Donna Butts, Executive Director, Generations United, Washington,
D.C............................................................ 5
Kim Clifton, M.S.W., Executive Director, Helping and Lending
Outreach Support (HALOS), North Charleston, South Carolina..... 7
Gail Engel, (accompanied by grandson Bryson Engel) Grandparent
Caregiver, Founder and Executive Director, Grand Family
Coalition, Loveland, Colorado.................................. 9
Ruth Stevens, (accompanied by grandson Tamir Mills) Grandmother,
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania..................................... 10
CLOSING STATEMENTS
Closing Statement of Senator Robert P. Casey, Jr., Chairman...... 25
Closing Statement of Senator Tim Scott, Ranking Member........... 25
APPENDIX
Prepared Witness Statements
Donna Butts, Executive Director, Generations United, Washington,
D.C............................................................ 31
Kim Clifton, M.S.W., Executive Director, Helping and Lending
Outreach Support (HALOS), North Charleston, South Carolina..... 41
Gail Engel, (accompanied by grandson Bryson Engel) Grandparent
Caregiver, Founder and Executive Director, Grand Family
Coalition, Loveland, Colorado.................................. 45
Ruth Stevens, (accompanied by grandson Tamir Mills) Grandmother,
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania..................................... 47
Questions for the Record
Kim Clifton, M.S.W., Executive Director, Helping and Lending
Outreach Support (HALOS), North Charleston, South Carolina..... 51
Gail Engel, (accompanied by grandson Bryson Engel) Grandparent
Caregiver, Founder and Executive Director, Grand Family
Coalition, Loveland, Colorado.................................. 53
STRENGTHENING SUPPORT FOR
GRANDFAMILIES DURING THE
COVID-19 PANDEMIC AND BEYOND
----------
THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2022
U.S. Senate,
Special Committee on Aging,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:01 a.m., via
Webex, Room 562, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Robert P.
Casey, Jr., Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
Present: Senators Casey, Gillibrand, Blumenthal, Rosen,
Kelly, Warnock, Tim Scott, Braun, and Rick Scott.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR
ROBERT P. CASEY, JR., CHAIRMAN
The Chairman. This Aging Committee hearing will come to
order.
I want to thank everyone for being here today, especially
our witnesses, and to see our witnesses here in front of us
live is something we have not been able to do every week and
every month, so we are grateful to be in the same room together
with you today.
I want to start with a statistic that I think a lot of
Americans may be familiar with, either personally or from
having seen some of the data, but we know that more than 2.7
million children in America are being raised by grandparents or
next of kin. They are among our Nation's unsung heroes. They
are, in so many ways, a light in the darkness. They have made
sure that their grandchildren are both loved and supported even
in the most trying of circumstances, and of course, COVID-19
has been among the most difficult chapters in American history.
For so many American families, this pandemic has been among
the most darkest and trying of times. As we will hear today in
our hearing, grandparents who are raising their grandchildren
have become increasingly isolated throughout the pandemic.
Grandchildren lived in fear that they might contract the virus
and spread it to aging grandparents, and tragically, at least
140,000 children--140,000 children--were orphaned by the
pandemic and are now living with grandparents or next of kin as
a result. Sadly, this staggering number is almost surely an
undercount.
The American Rescue Plan invested $30 million to increase
mental health awareness among young people, including members
of grandfamilies. Those dollars also were used to train school
personnel to respond to these types of concerns.
Thankfully, grandfamilies are a topic of longstanding
bipartisan interest in this Committee, as well as action by
this Committee, and we will continue that tradition with
today's hearing and the policy we will talk about.
In 2018, Senator Collins, she was then the Chair of the
Committee. She and I worked to pass legislation to establish a
national advisory council to support grandfamilies and kin
caregivers. We will build on this legacy by introducing the
Supporting the Well-Being and Mental Health of Grandfamilies
Act to extend the advisory council for an additional four
years. This council has been successful because it incorporates
the voices of grandparents, grandfamilies in its membership and
its mission.
At today's hearing, the Committee will have an opportunity
to hear from two grandparents: Ms. Ruth Stevens from
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and also Ms. Gail Engel from the
State of Colorado.
Now like so many in this room and others listening, I have
got a grandson, and I have got a grandchild on the way in July,
so I know what I would do, and what I would do is anything to
support him if that were--if his parents could not, and I know
every grandparent has that same feeling of love and that same
feeling of commitment to their grandchildren.
Both Ruth Stevens and Gail Engel will share the blessings
and the challenges they have experienced in raising their
grandchildren, in this case, Tamir and Bryson, who are both
with us today.
Ms. Stevens fought to bring her grandson home after he was
placed in foster care without her knowledge. Families like hers
save taxpayers an estimated $4 billion each year in costs.
Approximately one in five grandfamilies live at or below the
Federal poverty line, and nearly half--half--of all grandmother
only households are living in poverty. That is unacceptable and
should be unacceptable to any member of the U.S. Congress.
I have fought a lot of battles to strengthen support for
these families. Today, I am reintroducing the Grandfamilies
Act, which will lower costs for grandfamilies by increasing
access to both Social Security and Temporary Assistance for
Needy Families support. Those benefits, I should say.
I am also reintroducing the bipartisan Informing
Grandfamilies Act, that is, Senate Bill 4443, alongside Senator
Young, to ensure that TANF-eligible, Temporary Assistance for
Needy Families eligible, grandfamilies are aware of and can
access all of the benefits for which they qualify. I want to
thank Ranking Member Scott for his support on this bill, as
well as Senator Kelly, a member of our Committee, for both
supporting this bill.
Tim, thank you for that.
Senator Tim Scott. Certainly.
The Chairman. I look forward to today's hearing and our
witnesses and their stories and their experiences about what
more Congress can do to support our Nation's grandfamilies, and
with that, I will turn to our Ranking Member, Senator Scott.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR
TIM SCOTT, RANKING MEMBER
Senator Tim Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this
hearing and thank you to the witnesses for investing your time
and your energy and your expertise in such an important
subject.
Grandparents and other relatives raising children save the
child welfare system about $4 billion a year in costs related
to supports and services for children. Kids raised by kin do
better in life than those placed in foster care.
While I was not raised by my grandparents, I certainly had
a lot of experience with my grandparents as a youngster when my
parents divorced when I was about seven years old. We moved
into my grandparents' house. It was certainly one of the houses
that Chairman Casey just described as living at the poverty
line or slightly below the poverty line. The house was filled
with lots of love, discipline, and encouragement, but not a lot
of resources.
When we think about the importance that the grandparents
play in the lives of the kids that are in that household, it is
undeniable that the child is infinitely better off with the
kinfolk, so to speak, than they are in foster care. We wish we
had more of those opportunities in this country today, to see
those loving kids in foster care, hopefully loving homes, be in
homes where they are related to the ones who are taking care of
them.
I thank you all, especially the two grandparents who have
had that experience yourselves, for being a part of the panel
and having that discussion with us and the important role that
that plays in the lives of the grandchildren but also the
important role that the grandchildren play in your lives.
I know that one of the important lessons that I received--
most of the important lessons I received in life, some of it
came from my academic education, but most of it came from my
household. Most of it came from grandparents and my mother, and
I am so thankful to have had that opportunity to move in with
my grandfather because--and my grandmother, because he really
taught me the value of education and the necessity of
perseverance, the necessity of patience, the necessity of hard
work, discipline, and frankly, being on time, though I was
about 60 seconds late for this hearing. I am still learning the
lessons from my grandfather. He would also agree with that.
When we think about the households that are at that poverty
line in today's economy, where gas is 49 percent higher than it
was just several months ago, 100 percent higher than it was 18
months ago, you think to yourself, what are the challenges of
raising the second generation of kids too often on fixed
incomes? You think and you ask yourself, clothing is up over 10
percent, baby food, over 13 percent, the scarcity of baby
formula. This is, without question, a serious challenge for
those households who are already at the poverty line, trying to
meet the needs of their loved ones.
Grandparents raising grandchildren are absolutely a
necessity, and we should do everything in our power to provide
more light to the problems and more solutions as well.
Back in 2018, I joined our former Chairman, Senator
Collins, and our current Chairman, Senator Casey, in
introducing legislation to establish the Supporting
Grandparents Raising Grandchildren Advisory Council, which
submitted its recommendations to Congress last November. I
joined Chairman Casey, as he just said, and Senator Young in
taking part of the important implementation through the
Informing Grandfamilies Act.
South Carolina is a leader in elevating the role of
grandparents raising grandchildren. South Carolina's Department
of Social Services employs kinship navigators to help these
caregivers negotiates the complex web of benefits and supports
for which they may be eligible. DSS has also implemented
provisional licensing of kinship caregivers. Provisional
licensing makes kinship caregivers eligible for economic
supports otherwise only available to traditional foster
parents. As a result, 21 percent of placements today are to kin
caregivers, up from just five percent three years ago. That is
really good news.
To encourage all states to make these kinds of reforms, I
have also introduced the Child Care Development Block Grant
Reauthorization Act, which would make children in kinship care
and parents 65 years or older eligible regardless of income or
work requirements.
I look forward to learning as much as possible from the
witnesses today, and I thank you for sharing your stories and
your expertise as it relates to this very important topic.
Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you, Ranking Member Scott. As many of
the witnesses know, and those listening, we will have Senators
who will be in and out. Thursday is a busy morning in terms of
hearings and votes, and we will have votes at 11, so we will
have to do some juggling, but one of the Senators joining us
already is Senator Rick Scott. We are grateful he is with us.
Let me move to the next part of our program, which is to
introduce our witnesses. Our first witness is Ms. Donna Butts.
She is the Executive Director of Generations United.
Generations United is a thought and action leader on issues
relating to kinship care in the United States.
For our second witness, I will turn to Ranking Member
Scott.
Senator Tim Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Kim Clifton
helps South Carolinian grandparents raising grandchildren
navigate the resources and benefits available to them. She is
Executive Director of HALOS, which stands for Helping and
Lending Outreach Support. The HALOS Kinship Care Program
promotes safe and nurturing homes for children in kinship care
through these ways: by connecting caregivers to resources and
benefits, including legal services; helping caregivers navigate
complicated, bureaucratic systems; and offering annual family
respite monthly caregiving support groups and educational
opportunities.
Kim holds a master of social work degree from Boston
University. Her previous experience includes working with women
and children at risk in places as diverse as Washington State,
Boston, and Guatemala. She is a member of the Sisters of
Charity Foundation's statewide Kinship Advisory Council and the
South Carolina Department of Social Services Kinship Advisory
Panel.
Kim's leadership has established HALOS as a model for the
entire State of South Carolina and achieved great recognition.
During her tenure, HALOS won the Erin Hardwick Award for
nonprofit governance from Together SC, South Carolina's
statewide association of over 700 charitable, nonprofit, and
philanthropic organizations.
We look forward to her testimony, and we thank you for your
expertise and your investment of your energy, your time, and
your expertise to South Carolina's most vulnerable populations.
Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you, Ranking Member Scott.
Our third witness is Ms. Gail Engel, joined by her
grandson, Bryson. Ms. Engel is a grandparent caregiver who has
dedicated her life to supporting her own family and
grandfamilies in her community. She founded Grand Family
Coalition, an organization based in Ft. Collins, Colorado,
dedicated to providing support to grandfamilies in the
community.
Ms. Engel, we are grateful you are here with us.
Our fourth and final witness, as I mentioned earlier in my
opening, is Ms. Ruth Stevens. She is joined by her grandson,
Tamir. She is from Philadelphia, in my home State of
Pennsylvania, and she fought to bring her grandson out of
foster care and to bring him home with her. She has raised her
grandson since he was an infant and will share their story with
us today.
We will start with our first witness for an opening
statement. Ms. Butts, you may begin your statement.
STATEMENT OF DONNA BUTTS, EXECUTIVE
DIRECTOR, GENERATIONS UNITED, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Ms. Butts. Thank you. Chairman Casey, Ranking Member Scott,
and members of the Committee, thank you for your commitment to
families and the opportunity today to talk with you about
grandparents and other relatives raising children, also known
as grandfamilies or kinship families.
My name is Donna Butts, and I have the honor of serving as
the Executive Director of Generations United. Generations
United's mission is to improve the lives of children, youth,
and older adults through intergenerational collaboration,
public policies and programs for the enduring benefit of all.
For almost 25 years, Generations United has run the National
Center on Grandfamilies, which has been a leading voice for
issues affecting these families. Recently, along with national
partners, we are also running the first ever national technical
Assistance center on grandfamilies and kinship families, known
as the Grandfamilies and Kinship Support Network.
Families are the cornerstone of our neighborhoods, towns,
and cities. Regardless of political affiliation, families and
their well-being unites us. When parents are unable to raise
their children, grandparents and extended family step up and
wrap children in the cocoon, the protective cocoon, of family,
providing roots and connection to culture, keeping siblings
under one roof, and showering children with the one thing money
cannot buy, love. Currently, more than 2.7 million children
benefit from the contributions of grandparents, other
relatives, or close family friends, and they thrive in this
loving care.
Caregivers may step into this role for a host of reasons,
including most recently the COVID-19 pandemic. Whatever the
reason, the caregivers often sacrifice dreams of their own, a
carefree retirement, travel, dates with friends, and instead,
invest their hope for the future in the children they never
planned to raise. They cannot, and should not, have to do this
alone and without our support. We are grateful for the
important actions the Special Committee on Aging has taken to
support the families, and thank you for understanding there is
still more to be accomplished on their behalf.
The vast majority of children raised by relatives are cared
for by grandparents. These family heroes face tremendous
challenges stepping into the role of parent. Approximately one
in four have a disability, and 48 percent are 60 or older.
Grandfamilies face challenges accessing necessities like health
care, affordable housing, educational supports, and nutrition
assistance. They often neglect their own health and mental
health, prioritizing the children's needs.
Despite these challenges, they play a unique and vital role
in providing safe, stable, and permanent homes for children.
When they cannot be raised by their parents, children do best
with relatives. Compared to children in foster care with
nonrelatives, children with relatives have a more stable and
safe childhood, better behavioral and mental health outcomes,
and are more likely to report always feeling loved. However,
because the vast majority of children in grandfamilies are
outside of the foster care system, these families are less
likely to get access to services.
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on
grandfamilies and is contributing to their numbers, as Senator
Casey said, 140,000 new orphans in our country. Grandfamilies
that formed prior to the pandemic have found that their
challenges have been heightened and are facing struggles and
mental health issues, stress, isolation, and from what we are
seeing anecdotally, an increase in death by suicide.
Thanks to the leadership of this Committee, two bold new
Federal initiatives are beginning to make a difference in the
lives of grandfamilies: the Federal Advisory Council to Support
Grandparents Raising Grandchildren and the Grandfamilies
Support Network. On behalf of the families, our partners, and
others who care deeply about grandfamilies and kinship
families, Generations United thanks Congress for supporting
these initiatives.
While progress has been made, there is much to be done.
Generations United recommends the following: implement the
recommendations of the Federal Advisory Council to Support
Grandparents Raising Grandchildren, ensure legislation
continues to promote the engagement of grandfamily voices; urge
states to use the National Family Caregivers Support Program to
serve grandfamilies; support quality kinship navigator
programs; ensure adequate financial support for grandfamilies
to meet basic needs by increasing and improving access to
Temporary Assistance for Needy Family Child-Only Grants, family
foster care maintenance payments, and Social Security to better
meet the needs of grandfamilies; invest in and encourage
greater availability and access to quality trauma-informed
mental health providers that are familiar with grandfamilies;
create a child only SNAP benefit and ensure automatic access to
free and reduced school meals; facilitate the expansion of
specially designed grandfamilies housing.
Generations United is proud to endorse the Informing
Grandfamilies Act, the Grandfamilies Act, and supporting the
Well-Being and Mental Health of Grandfamilies Act. Together,
these will help address some of the issues and recommendations
outlined in my testimony.
Most grandparent caregivers say they never saw themselves
raising another generation of children. Yet, they step up, and
despite complicated systems, hurdles, and hardships, they
provide the loving homes in which children can thrive, but they
cannot, and should not, have to do this alone. Collectively,
they save our country more than $4 billion a year by keeping
children connected to their roots and out of foster care. They
are doing the very best they can, and they deserve our best. We
should not expect them to fit into systems and services
designed for other families but, instead, create connecting
pathways that respect their unique and complex circumstances.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify on behalf of
Generations United and the grandfamilies we believe in and
support.
The Chairman. Ms. Butts, thanks for your testimony and
bringing your experience to the hearing.
I want to acknowledge two members of our Committee who have
joined us, Senator Warnock and Senator Blumenthal.
Next, we will turn to Ms. Clifton for her opening
statement.
STATEMENT OF KIM CLIFTON, M.S.W.,
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, HELPING AND LENDING OUTREACH
SUPPORT (HALOS), NORTH CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA
Ms. Clifton. Chairman Casey, Ranking Member Scott, and
members of the Committee, thank you for holding this hearing on
the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on grandfamilies. On
behalf of HALOS and the grandfamilies in our program, I am
honored to provide this testimony.
HALOS's mission is to promote safe and nurturing homes for
children in kinship care. We provide navigation services,
support groups, and other programs to grandparents and other
kinship caregivers. Currently, there are an estimated 67,000
children living in kinship care in South Carolina, and for
every one child in kinship foster care, there are 164 children
who live with relatives outside of the foster care system.
First, I want to tell you about Erika. When her daughter
was not able to care for her own children safely, Erika, a 65-
year-old retiree welcomed her grandson and granddaughter into
her home. She said, I prayed to God to help me provide for my
grandchildren, and HALOS saved us. We had nowhere to go.
Erika, like most grandparents, stepped in before her
grandchildren were taken into custody. As a result, Erika is
not entitled to the benefits foster parents receive, such as
case management services, training, and financial stipends.
Erika and other kinship caregivers do what they do selflessly,
driven by the desire to keep their grandchildren in the family.
They seldom have time to think of the cost to themselves
emotionally, physically, and financially.
``I did not want my babies to go into foster care'' is what
we hear time and again when grandparents explain why they are
raising their grandchildren.
HALOS fills the gap by connecting caregivers to essential
resources for themselves and the children in their care. Access
to navigation programs like HALOS varies by locale. Title IV-B
kinship navigation funds are not adequate to meet the needs for
services. Moreover, the funds are appropriately annually,
making it difficult for states and service providers to develop
long-term strategies for serving grandfamilies.
Eight-year-old Justin experienced physical abuse, neglect,
and abandonment before living with his great-grandmother,
Martha. Like most kinship caregivers, Martha did not understand
the effects of trauma on children. She loved Justin, and she
was determined to keep him with her, but she did not know how
to help him deal with his anger and his violent outbursts. We
connected Martha with trauma-informed mental health and child
advocacy services for Justin, and we referred her to the
Trident Area Agency on Aging for respite care for herself.
Martha and Justin were lucky. Our local Area Agency on Aging
utilizes funds from the National Caregivers Support Program to
support grandfamilies; not all of them do.
During the pandemic, we saw a dramatic increase in requests
for financial assistance because caregivers were furloughed,
laid off, or forced to quit jobs due to lack of child care.
Hannah, a grandmother raising three grandchildren, worked as a
school janitor before COVID. When schools shut down, Hannah
lost her job. When Hannah reached out to HALOS for help paying
rent, she said, ``I have never had to ask anyone for help. I
raised my kids and now my grandkids, and I have worked all my
life.''
HALOS provided Hannah with rental assistance and food
resources. Hannah's family, like many during COVID, experienced
food insecurity for the first time. Hannah's assistance was
among the $450,000 in emergency financial aid we distributed
from public and private sources. Those funds helped mitigate
the effects of the pandemic for kinship families, but those
funds are now drying up.
The return to work has not solved the poverty faced by most
grandfamilies. They need financial assistance to survive. HALOS
has served over 900 families since 2019, and 80 percent of
these families fall below 200 percent of the Federal poverty
level.
Programs meant to assist people with critical needs of
health care, financial assistance, and food are lifelines for
our families, but they can be challenging to navigate. As
COVID-related Medicaid and enhanced SNAP benefits end, access
to food and health care for many of our families are at risk.
Additionally, affordable child care is not accessible by most
kinship families, particularly those outside of the foster care
system. Inclusion of kinship families in those receiving child
care assistance would assure that caregivers can continue
working or have much-needed respite time, knowing that the
children in their care are safe.
Grandparents step in because they love their grandchildren,
but they need support. Navigation programs need to be
consistently available throughout every State. Grandparents
often neglect their own care to ensure that the children have
what they need--that their grandchildren have what they need.
They need respite and access to health and mental health
services. Policies, services, and systems that touch kinship
families should ensure that they remove barriers to access for
kinship caregivers so that all children, including the nearly
three million in kinship care across the Nation, can flourish.
The Chairman. Thanks very much for your testimony, Ms.
Clifton.
We will now turn to Ms. Engel for her opening statement.
STATEMENT OF GAIL ENGEL, GRANDPARENT
CAREGIVER, FOUNDER AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,
GRAND FAMILY COALITION, LOVELAND, COLORADO
Ms. Engel. Chairman Casey, Ranking Member Scott, and
members of the Senate Special Committee on Aging, thank you for
allowing me to share my story and my perspective. It is an
honor to be here.
My name is Gail Engel. My husband and I raised our grandson
since he was a year old. We later adopted him, now 15, and are
co-parenting our 14-year-old granddaughter.
Our daughter experienced trauma as a child by a father who
suffered from his own mental health issues. I did not place
trauma on my child. We experienced it together. Yet, the guilt,
shame, stigma kept me from seeking help.
Our daughter suffered from physical and mental health
problems that she was not able to overcome, just a single
mother of two children, one of whom had challenging behaviors
and has lived in poverty, her ability to adequately care for
the children and fear of child welfare involvement. We stepped
in.
Raising a child a second time around has many challenges:
physical, social, emotional, and financial. At the age of 52, I
was already caring for my aging mother. We felt alone and lost
contact with friends. The physical demands, such as being able
to teach a child how to ride a bike, with two knee
replacements, was impossible. Many times we asked ourselves,
can we do this?
The cost of raising a child not only has not allowed us to
retire; the funds put aside for retirement may not sustain us
through the age of 82, a mere 15 years away. With a diagnosis
of autism, IDD, cognitive function disorder, after adopting
him, we were able to collect Social Security Supplemental
Income to help us financially.
Children with trauma and developmental delays are often
unable to access the part of the brain needed to learn and
often with a fight-or-flight response to the disciplinary
actions. Schools are most often ill prepared with specialized
training to support these youth. My grandson has suffered
unnecessarily due to the continuous punitive punishment and
being labeled as a behavior child. Having to pay out of pocket
to get a medical diagnosis, we were finally able to advocate
for an IEP, Individualized Education Plan. Even at that, the
inadequate trained staff, services, and supports--his emotional
well-being and education has suffered traumatically.
Having to educate myself to seek out resources that were
mostly nonexistent, I discovered in my own small community that
there were over 3,000 grandparents raising grandchildren. I
found myself struggling just as they were and now serve over
140 families. Building upon my own experience, I built a
community of grandparents and other kin raising kin by creating
a place where grandfamilies and services connect. Grand Family
Coalition was created out of my own need to survive.
It should not be ignored that aging has its own challenges,
and grandparents are taking on an additional role. Often taking
on grandchildren with little warning and often returning to the
workforce to maintain stability for the long haul of raising
children to adulthood, often winding up in significant legal
expenses to retain legal responsibility of the children, they
often isolate and avoid judgment, guilt, and shame, and
experience a secondary trauma. They must navigate a complex
system and find resources that are often lacking and
inadequate. Grandfamilies are stepping up while the world is
unaware of their complexities or even their existence.
Grand Family Coalition relies on grants, donations, and
volunteer staff to support our mission. We also know the need
for our support is in every community. Other small nonprofits,
such as Grand Family Coalition, have the experience and
knowledge to support grandfamilies. However, due to limited
funding, they struggle to take root. We need funding to expand
our work and reach and compensate for their efforts.
My ask would be to encourage collaboration among the many
systems that are responsible for assisting children and
families so that more dollars can be put in the hands of small
nonprofits so that they can do the beneficial work for grand
and kinship families. Thank you.
The Chairman. Ms. Engel, thanks for your testimony.
We will now turn to our fourth and final witness, Ms.
Stevens.
STATEMENT OF RUTH STEVENS,
GRANDMOTHER, PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA
Ms. Stevens. Good morning, Chairman Casey----
The Chairman. Ms. Stevens, maybe we will just check to make
sure your mike is on. Is it on?
Ms. Stevens. My name is Ruth Stevens. I am 75 years old. I
was born in north Philadelphia, and I grew up in the same
community I live in now. I have two biological children, a
daughter and a son. My grandson, Tamir, is here with me today.
I have always loved taking care of children, and I hate to
see them unhappy. I raised more than 10 children who were not
my own. It is very dangerous on the streets of north
Philadelphia, and every child that I have taken care of
graduated school, stayed off drugs while they lived with me. I
taught the children how to ride a bicycle, read, take care of
themselves. I went with them on trips. No matter what I had to
do, I made sure I was with them to their activities and that
they knew they had someone who cared.
When my grandson, Tamir, was born, I found out that he was
placed in foster care with a white family in Northumberland,
PA, who I keep in touch with today, and they wanted to adopt
him. Tamir is my grandson, and he needed to be with me. I took
the train, which was about three and a half hours from
Philadelphia, to see the family a few times, trying to get him
through legal support.
A community member told me about the Senior Law Center and
shared that they may be able to help me. It took about a month,
and I was eventually able to bring Tamir home with me. He was
about eight weeks ago. I had to do what I had to do to get my
grandchild out of foster care. It was not easy. Tamir was on a
breathing machine, an oxygen machine, an asthma machine, and he
needed a lot of support.
I was 50 years old when I got him, and it was not easy. I
did not drive. I brought him to all his medical appointments on
the bus or train. I got help from different programs in the
community. I was on public assistance. I received a small check
to take care of him. We struggled for a while. He was able to
get on--until he was able to get on disability insurance.
A community member told me about Temple University Family
Friends program, where I connected with other grandparents.
Family Friends is a program based at Temple University that
provides support to grandfamilies and kinship families in
Philadelphia who have taken on the role of primary caregiver
for related children with special needs. The program serves 160
families and children annually.
With the Temple program, I received a lot of support. We
met once a month before COVID as a support group to help
address issues of stress and isolation of grandparents and
kinship members. We went on trips. They connected us to
resources in the city. I always had somewhere to take Tamir.
During COVID, we were not able to get together or have the
activities. It was difficult. We do have a trip coming up at an
amusement park, and Tamir and I will go on that trip. Tamir's
mentor from the Temple program took him to play basketball, and
they went to games together. His mentor often calls and checks
on me and Tamir to make sure we are okay. The Family Friends
program is my support system. I have been in the program since
Tamir was eight years old.
Tamir is doing okay, I guess. He just graduated from high
school. He has asthma but has not had an asthma attack in a
while. Tamir still faces challenges with hearing, and he has
hearing aids. His hearing aids cost about $2,000. He just got a
small job at Walmart, which is good, but I am working with
Community Legal Services to make sure that he can keep his
disability benefits.
He still has challenges even though as a teenager he thinks
he is okay. He does not get sick as often anymore, which is a
good thing. Sometimes he acts like he cares about me, but
sometimes he acts like I am his worst enemy. It can be
isolating. I am able to go to therapy once a week, meet other
older ladies. We talk and laugh together. That is my fun.
During the pandemic, my iPad was the only way I
communicated. There was nothing else I could do. I went from
iPad to laptop to cleaning my house and kept myself busy. Now I
am starting to go outside and do other activities.
Taking care of kids makes me feel loved. I feel somebody
loves me. It gives me a sense of purpose. Even though it is
very hard, I enjoy it. It is very dangerous for kids out there
on the streets. I do my best. I do the best that I can to keep
Tamir safe, and I am proud of myself for raising him.
The Chairman. Ms. Stevens, thanks for your testimony, and I
think what you have testified to today is emblematic of the
sacrifices so many families have undertaken for their
grandchildren but also for all of us, and we are grateful you
are willing to share that story with us.
I wanted to start my questions with you. If you do not
mind, I will either call you Ms. Stevens or Ruth, but I hope
either is appropriate.
I am grateful for the story, and I also am grateful you are
willing to share the reality of it, the challenges that you
faced. I cannot even imagine when I was 50, a long time ago,
but when I was 50, just beginning to raise a child who I guess
you said was eight weeks old or even being part of that as a
team with my wife. I cannot imagine the challenge that alone
presented to you.
We are grateful that you talked about the Temple University
Intergenerational Center's programming to support you and to
support other families. You also noted the pandemic brought all
programs online, as we all experienced, and that you have not
had the opportunity to connect with other grandparents who are
caregivers in a personal way over the course of the pandemic.
Could you share with us why it is important for you to be
connected to other grandfamilies, other grandparent caregivers,
and programs that support grandfamilies as you age and as Tamir
progresses?
Ms. Stevens. Well, it is helpful because, first place, I do
not know what to do any more than what I am doing, and I feel
that with help he could get something that he is not getting.
He does not have a male role model or anything, and there is
not too much that I can actually tell him, so it would be
helpful to have resources where he could connect even so more
than me, so that would help.
The Chairman. Well, I was noting in your testimony when you
talked about raising him gave you a sense of purpose.
Ms. Stevens. Yes.
The Chairman. It is remarkable when you consider what you
and so many others as part of this panel have either
experienced personally or know a lot about. The idea that one
person can provide love and care and support to one child, or
more than one as the case may be, that alone is a substantial
contribution to American life, but when you combine that with
the benefit to the rest of us, because you out of an act of
love and responsibility, really duty, took on this
responsibility, you saved a lot of us from having to expend
other dollars that we would have to spend, so it is pretty rare
in life when you can help one person but also help a lot of
other people by extension, so we are grateful you are willing
to share that.
I wanted to turn next to Donna Butts and ask about the
impact of the pandemic. We keep referring to that, obviously,
the devastation that that caused and so many, so many people
lost in the pandemic. We also know that caregivers and their
loved ones are, as I mentioned to Ruth Stevens, isolated,
dealing with trauma without adequate support or services. I
think Congress has a responsibility to respond to this part of
the larger tragedy of the pandemic, to make sure that no family
goes without the mental health care they need in addition to
other supports. That includes, obviously, grandfamilies, both
those who were struggling before the pandemic and those
grandfamilies that formed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
I would ask you, Ms. Butts, how can Congress better support
the mental health of grandfamilies, both the caregivers as well
as the children?
Ms. Butts. Thank you, Senator Casey, and as I think you
learned from Ms. Stevens and Ms. Engel, one of the things that
is really important to grandparents raising grandchildren is to
know that they are not alone, so those support groups, access
to mental health services provided by people who are informed
by trauma and know what the special needs are of the family are
really, really important, so supporting services that are
community-based and informed by the caregivers themselves to
make sure they are relevant; making sure that we are using
Federal resources that are available, like the National Family
Caregivers Support Program, to provide support groups, respite,
counseling, things that are there and that can be used; it is
also making sure that mental health services are accessible to
families using Medicaid and CHIP.
I think one thing that we are very excited and supportive
of is the Supporting Well-Being and Mental Health of
Grandfamilies Act, which includes extending the Federal
Advisory Council Supporting Grandparents Raising Grandchildren
and realizes that one of the things that has changed since that
panel was first established is COVID and the impact of COVID-
19, so we need to be able to dig deeper into the impact because
we are only skimming the surface at this point, and we need
that council to be able to look and make recommendations and be
informed by the impact of COVID-19.
Thank you.
The Chairman. Thanks very much.
Ranking Member Scott.
Senator Tim Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you
all for your testimony this morning, and certainly, Ms.
Stevens, thank you to your commitment to Tamir, who I believe
is behind you.
I will say as the kid who moved into my grandparents' house
at seven that I did not always appreciate the sacrifice of my
grandparents. The truth is that it takes time and age before
you can look back with 20/20 vision and say, my, gosh, how
blessed was I, so sometimes you love them; sometimes you do not
love them, talking about your grandparents, but the truth of
the matter is you always love them; you do not always express
it well.
I am sure that Tamir and I have that in common, and I am
sure that he loves you beyond recognition and appreciates your
sacrifice and, frankly, the fact that you have 10 other kids
that were not your kids that you were able to help, not only
help along the way, but you helped them graduate from school as
well, which is a testament to your sacrificial love and support
of your community, and we need more examples like that. If each
one would reach just one, not 10 but just one, our country
would be certainly better off, so thank you for your sacrifice.
You did touch on the topic of resources and the importance
of finding support groups and support systems, and I would love
to talk for one second with Ms. Clifton about the importance of
legislation that may provide more resources, certainly the
CCDBG grants that come through the reauthorization act, that
for the first time makes kinship care families and children
with parents over 65 eligible for support regardless of work or
income requirements.
Kim, I would love to just have you talk with us about the
child care experiences in South Carolina from a grandparent's
perspective and explain how this bill could provide more
resources.
Ms. Clifton. I think it is really important. One of the
biggest challenges that kinship caregivers and grandfamilies
face is finding child care. Often, it is associated with the
need to work, and caregivers are forced to quit jobs because
they have to--they do not have child care. They do not have
affordable, accessible child care.
Of course, that was really exacerbated by the pandemic
because even when caregivers can access child care right now
there are so few places open that have room, but because
vouchers, child care vouchers, have not been accessible by most
kinship families and they have a time limit of 52 weeks, it has
been really hard.
We have certainly worked with grandparents who have quit
jobs because it makes more sense to be home with the kids
because they do not have child care and they need to know that
the children in their care are safe, and it puts enormous
financial pressure on these families when they cannot work and
do not have the alternative to keep a job because they do not
have child care, so I think the enhancement adding kinship
families and the grandfamilies over 65 would be an enormous
benefit to families.
Senator Tim Scott. Excellent. Thank you very much.
I know Ms. Engel also is living the reality and the truth
of each one reaches one, so often we talk about the sacrifices
of the grandparents when they are taking the grandkids, and
that is certainly one perspective and a real perspective.
I would also suggest that it is an investment, not just a
sacrifice, but an investment of the most important currency we
have, the currency of love, and sometimes as I read scripture,
it says love is not just the emotion; it is the commandment. It
is a commitment to do something, and certainly I think you have
demonstrated that commitment to do something good on behalf of
those you love.
I hope that when we walk away from this hearing today we do
not think of it just from a sacrificial perspective, but
sacrifice and investment leads to a healthier human being who
happens to be related to you, and that is all good news, so I
really do appreciate and respect your affinity for doing the
right thing and for investing your life, your time, and your
energy and your resources into your grandson's life, and to
that end, I am going to turn right back because I do like South
Carolina. I have an affinity for my home State and the
expertise that HALOS brings to the table as it relates to
resourcing. In the legislation introduced by Chairman Casey,
myself, and Senator Young, the Informing Grandfamilies Act, it
would require states to communicate with grandparents who
receive or are applying for TANF, provide more information
about additional supports.
Sometimes we live in vacuums, and when we are busy taking
care of our loved ones, we do not necessarily have the margin
in our schedules to figure out how this complex web of
resources actually works on our behalf, so to the extent that
you could help us understand how South Carolina, through things
like the Informing Grandfamilies Act, could provide more
support to raising your grandchildren.
Ms. Clifton. I think that would be an enormous benefit.
Right now, often grandparents do not even know they can access
TANF, and that can be very cumbersome trying to apply. We deal
with many families that get rejected, and then we help them
navigate the system and advocate because they are eligible
regardless of income through child-only grants, but if they
were given more knowledge about community resources, any
resources, any benefits they may be eligible for, it would be
great because what we know is kinship caregivers and
grandfamilies, grandparents raising grandchildren, are less
likely to know about resources even when they exist. They are
less likely to have knowledge of them or be able to access
them, so utilizing TANF is a way to provide resources for
families because many of them do access them, access TANF. It
would be a huge benefit.
Senator Tim Scott. Excellent.
Ms. Clifton. Yes.
Senator Tim Scott. Thank you, ma'am. I know I am basically
out of time, so I will not ask another question, but I will
prepare you for another question. I oftentimes think to myself
that there is a system of social services for our seniors or
for our grandparents and then we have a separate system of
social services for our grandchildren, who are the younger
folks, and the chasm between the two might be problematic, so
if we could figure out how to have a one-stop approach, that
might be helpful as well. I will give you a chance to talk
about that in just a minute.
Ms. Clifton. Okay.
Senator Tim Scott. Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you, Ranking Member Scott.
We will next turn to Senator Gillibrand who is appearing
virtually.
Senator Gillibrand. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. During
today's hearing, we have heard and learned about many programs
and services aimed at helping families that are not set up to
accommodate grandfamilies or kinship families. These resources
involve access to programs such as SNAP, Social Security, and
others that can be life-changing for many grandparents across
the country who have to navigate the challenges of child care.
Additionally, the complex nature of legal guardianship laws can
lead to difficulties for grandparents looking to access these
programs and to provide for their grandkids.
Ms. Stevens, thank you so much for sharing your journey of
becoming the primary caregiver for your grandson, Tamir, and
for bringing him here today.
Ms. Stevens. Thank you.
Senator Gillibrand. While navigating this journey, what are
some of the biggest challenges you have had to overcome and
what resources did you wish you had access to, to ease taking
care of the role of caregiver for your grandson?
Ms. Stevens. Well, some of the challenges that I had to
overcome was getting to these places and finding the help that
I needed. Can you repeat that again because I am having a hard
time?
Senator Gillibrand. Just if there are any other challenges
that really speak to this hearing about things you wish were
different.
Ms. Stevens. Okay. Well, I wish that I could have had more
resources. I wish that I could have had a mentor or somebody to
help him, you know, because I could not do but so much and
still cannot do but so much.
Senator Gillibrand. Yes. Yes, that makes sense, very much
so.
Ms. Butts, through your work with Generations United, you
have seen how the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the
challenges that grandfamilies endure. In what ways can these
proposals, proposed changes, provide the support that is needed
by grandfamilies, especially emerging from the pandemic?
Ms. Butts. Thank you, Senator. The Grandfamilies Act will
do a host of things to make the supports more available and
stronger for the families. That includes financial supports,
like access to TANF and Social Security, addressing legal
barriers by promoting guardianship laws to help grandfamilies
have the legal authority to make decisions and secure supports,
promote collaboration by facilitating cross-sector
partnerships, and investing in peer supports.
I want to emphasize the promoting collaboration because, as
Senator Scott said, sometimes we have systems that do not speak
to each other and the new Grandfamilies and Kinship Families
Support Network, the National Technical Assistance Center, is
designed to facilitate those kinds of conversations, and we are
seeing some beginnings of some blossoming relationships, some
communication that we have not seen before, so the
Grandfamilies Act is going to really help the families as well
as some of the things that this Committee has supported in the
past.
Thank you.
Senator Gillibrand. Based on what we just heard from Ruth,
she said that she wanted more mentorship for her son, more
technical assistance so she knows which programs have resources
for her. Will those challenges be addressed?
Ms. Butts. Yes, in terms of promoting collaboration and
also in making sure that we are investing in peer supports
because what we have learned--we are very fortunate to get to
work with a number of grandparents around the country--is that
being able to support each other, to talk with other people
that are also walking the walk as you are makes a real
difference, to have that voice. It helps inform policy, it
helps inform practice, and it makes our community stronger, so
that peer support is very important.
Senator Gillibrand. Thank you.
Ms. Engel, given your experience as a grandparent caregiver
and as the founder of the Grand Family Coalition, to what
degree do you believe the community-based organizations have
been able to provide families with complex structures the tools
and services they need to overcome the challenges that they are
met with?
Ms. Engel. Coming into being a grandparent raising a
grandchild is rarely expected or planned. It does not come with
a guidebook because, like many families, the needs are all
different and situations are very different.
What is really different is that we are unique in the fact
that we have an advanced knowledge of relationships to the
parent and usually the children. The needs are never going to
be the same, but because we are unique, being inclusive when
referring to an aging population, it is considered that they
may have children which are not traditional things. When
referring to a grandfamily or kinship, we may also refer to a
sibling raising sibling or an aunt or an uncle.
Most importantly, the situation often leaves us without
many services, and it depends, and many other factors. When
raising someone else's children, services should go to the
children as they are the ones who are having the abandonment,
and yes, we are--yes, we would have been navigating a peer to
walk with me through what the ``what if'' and ``what depends,''
I could have managed so much better.
Senator Gillibrand. Well, thank you, ma'am, and thank you,
Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Senator Gillibrand, thanks very much.
We will turn next to Senator Kelly.
Senator Kelly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Engel and Ms. Stevens, I want to start off by thanking
both of you for being here today and sharing your experiences.
I became a grandfather just last year, and I think it is very
special that your grandchildren are able to be here with both
of you today.
I am glad we are having this hearing today. This is an
important topic. In my State of Arizona, there are about 62,000
grandparents who, like the two of you, are the primary
responsible caregivers for their grandchildren. More than half
of foster children in Arizona are placed with their
grandparents or other family members, which is higher than the
national average. This is encouraging because we know that kids
do best with their families, but we also know that most of
these caregivers are unlicensed and thus are not getting all
the support and services that a licensed foster parent might be
eligible for.
That is why today I am joining Chairman Casey, Senator
Young, and Ranking Member Scott to introduce the Informing
Grandfamilies Act, and this bill will ensure that states are
communicating to kinship caregivers and grandfamilies what
additional supports and relief programs that may be available
to them. You know, things like nutrition assistance or home
energy assistance, so for the two of you, Ms. Engel and Ms.
Stevens, thinking back to when you initially became a
grandparent caregiver, would having this information readily
available have been helpful to you?
Ms. Engel. I think some of it would have been useful to us
except for the barriers that I ran into is that I am not low
income, and so many of those resources did not fit my needs. I
did not have access to them because I was not involved with the
child welfare system. I did not get services through them
because I did not qualify for Medicaid. I made too much money
to get housing assistance or anything like that.
I did not--I could have used some mentor myself. My
grandson could have used a mentor. I could have managed to have
someone navigate the system for me, the legal system. None of
those things were available to me at all, none of the
resources, and so it was a challenge and something that was
very difficult for me to overcome.
Senator Kelly. It sounds like legal help and mentorship
would have been helpful.
Ms. Engel. Absolutely.
Senator Kelly. Right. Ms. Stevens?
Ms. Stevens. Well, I agree that both legal--I mean,
mentorship for myself and my grandson would have been helpful
to me because I was really struggling. I knew about all the
TANF or Social Security, but I did not know how to get it, and
I could not get help to get it, so I did not really get a lot
of help until he got about eight, when I joined Family Friends
and they started giving me information and telling me where to
go and what to do, so that is how I got the help, and right
now, any resource that I could get can still help me. It would
have helped me back then.
Senator Kelly. Sometimes navigating these Federal programs
are a challenge, you know, of itself.
Ms. Stevens. Yes.
Senator Kelly. Well, thank you, Ms. Stevens and Ms. Engel.
I want to switch to a different topic here with Ms.
Clifton. Rising costs, it is an issue that is impacting seniors
across the board. The cost for gas and groceries, they keep
rising. Rent is going up. In the Phoenix metropolitan area,
rent has increased 30 percent in 2021, and that is not
sustainable for families, let alone families led by
grandparents who may be on a fixed income.
That is why one of my top priorities is to bring down the
cost of prescription drugs. That would help the budget, you
know, because we know that so many grandparents would do
anything for their grandchildren and that includes skipping the
medicine they need to put food on the table, so we cannot let
that happen, so that is just another reason why ensuring that
folks can take advantage of their programs that do exist, like
yours, is so important.
Ms. Clifton, as someone who works directly with members of
your community, I am sure you hear so many stories about this.
Could you share some of those with us and some of your
successes, when you have been able to connect with folks,
connect folks with the services they need?
Ms. Clifton. Sure. In particular with the prescription
drugs, what we are seeing is grandparents continue to push
their own needs aside, mental health, physical health, when
their grandchildren are in need, so with rising prices,
prescription drugs that are not paid for by Medicare become a
real problem, so what we are seeing is grandparents will just
stop taking their own medicine to make sure that they can fill
prescriptions for the children in their care.
One of our family advocates and I were discussing this
yesterday, and she said it takes--speaking of cumbersome
bureaucracies, trying to access Medicaid for the kids is often
a real barrier, so before they are able to access Medicaid,
they are trying to pay for prescriptions for their
grandchildren and for themselves, and again, if they are going
to lose one of those, it is going to be for themselves even if
we know grandparents raising grandchildren tend to be in poorer
health. They are not going to access really vital drugs,
prescription medicines, I am sorry, for themselves to treat
chronic disease.
Senator Kelly. Well, thank you. You know, regardless of
where I travel across the State of Arizona, one thing I hear
over and over again is that the price of prescription
medication is too high. I mean, it goes up faster than
inflation, faster than the price of gasoline lately. It is just
too expensive, and it is up to Congress to do something about
it, so thank you.
The Chairman. Senator Kelly, thanks very much.
As I mentioned earlier, everyone is juggling hearings.
Senator Scott had at least two this morning and might have a
third I am not aware of, but Senator Braun joined us this
morning as part of the hearing.
I will now turn to Ranking Member Scott for a followup
question from before.
Senator Tim Scott. Certainly one of the things I would like
to point out that Ms. Stevens has, I think, said very well is
that when you are taking care of your grandchild who has
special needs the transportation conundrum is incredibly
important, and that is something that as we think through the
future of our acts that we want to pass perhaps we take a
serious look at the transportation conundrum that you have
talked so clearly about.
I want to give Ms. Clifton an opportunity to answer the
question that I was starting to ask as it relates to the silos
of consciousness, streams of consciousness. One is for our
seniors from a social service delivery system; one is for those
grandkids or for younger folks. There is a bridge that needs to
be built between the two, and perhaps you might illuminate how
we get there, perhaps.
Ms. Clifton. I completely agree with you and enjoyed
hearing what Ms. Butts said earlier about collaboration. I
think that in general there is a lack of collaboration between
systems, but you are absolutely right; the child welfare system
does not really speak to the systems that help the aging.
I would even say, again, we are very fortunate to have our
local Area Agency on Aging that does support grandparents
raising grandchildren, but even so, we do not always think
about when we are working with grandparents the other ways that
AAA could help them. We are focused on the family unit and them
raising their grandchildren.
I think that there are a lot of ways to build bridges
between these two that would really illuminate and help because
I think, in general, the child welfare system does not do a
good job of addressing the needs grandparents have that are
specific to an aging population and it would be a great benefit
to see more collaboration.
Senator Tim Scott. Thank you very much.
The Chairman. Ranking Member Scott, thanks very much.
I know we are awaiting another Senator for questioning, but
I wanted to pose a question to Ms. Engel on the subject of
grandchildren with disabilities. Obviously, there is so much
work we have got to do in the disability space generally, but
in the context of grandchildren and coming through the pandemic
and so much else.
You said in your opening that--and made reference to the
educational needs of your grandson, who has multiple
disabilities, and you said, ``Our school systems are most often
ill-prepared with specialized training in support of these
youth.'' You also talked about the challenges of securing
services for him from his school. As you assumed responsibility
for your grandson, what information would have been available
for you regarding school services?
Ms. Engel. I had the smarts to get my daughter to sign a
delegation of power, I was able to get my grandson enrolled
into school, to visit the doctors, to get vaccinations, so I
was good there.
It was after being told that my grandchild, through the
kindergarten teacher, that I needed to educate him in order for
her to teach him, I was a little overwhelmed, so after---excuse
me. I am sorry. Teaching him and being able to--having him
kicked out of school many times, over and over, I did not learn
about an education plan. It was then that I learned how I was
ill prepared, how ill prepared our schools are, for handling
children with trauma and mental disorders.
There is trauma-informed, and there is trauma-respective.
Our school systems do not have the latter. Grandparents are ill
prepared to even understand the trauma and how to parent them,
no more than the school system does. The school did not
understand it, know how to identify it, let alone how to deal
with it. There are very little programs for children with
mental disorders.
It took me nine years to find the programs for our grandson
that works, and it was in the deep, dark--it was a deep, dark
secret, and it was understaffed and unsupported. Our school
systems are not prepared to handle children with mental
disabilities.
The Chairman. Ms. Engel, thanks very much for your answer.
We will now turn to Senator Rosen.
Senator Rosen. Well, thank you, Chairman Casey. I
appreciate you, Ranking Member Scott as well, and I really want
to extend a special thanks to the witnesses for being here
today.
You know, in the United States, over a quarter of Latinos
and nearly a third of Asian Americans live in multigenerational
households. Such households are particularly common in Nevada,
where Latinos make up nearly 30 percent of our State's
population, and we have one of the fastest growing AAPI
populations in the country, so more than half of lower-income
adults and 45 percent of middle-income adults report that
caregiving is one of the reasons for living in a
multigenerational household, so as the cost of child care and
other kinds of caregiving continue to increase, the number of
multigenerational households will likely to continue to
increase as well.
Ms. Butts, what trends can you tell me that you are
observing among grandparents living in multigenerational
households in diverse states like Nevada, and how do you think
the pandemic impacted the grandparent caregivers living in
those households more specifically?
Ms. Butts. Multigenerational households are on the rise in
our country, and they are on the rise to stay for a number of
reasons, as you just pointed out, whether it be need to provide
care for children or for older adults, to pool resources, and
to strengthen our families. With grandparents living in
multigenerational households, oftentimes those are skip
generations households, and they do not have the combined
access to resources or the combined resources that other
households have.
The grandparents have been isolated because of COVID-19,
when we were told as older adults to stay away from children.
They could not stay away from children. They needed to provide
that care. There was the children that were afraid because they
did not want to infect their grandparents. There was all of a
sudden everybody needed to be able to go online, and they may
not have had access to internet or equipment, so the pandemic
has had a tremendous influence, which is why we also are
supporting extending the life of the advisory council and
taking a deeper dive into the impact of COVID and what can be
done to support families, grandfamilies, that have been
impacted especially hard by COVID. Thank you.
Senator Rosen. Thank you. I look forward to that report
because we want to see Congress can do to continue to provide
resources for these core caregiving duties, and you touched a
little bit upon mental health concerns, particularly for the
pandemic but for children living with their grandparents. We
know we are in the midst of a youth mental health crisis
worsened by the pandemic. Two-thirds of children and teens,
they have expressed feeling down, hopeless, depressed during
the pandemic, and more than 200,000 children have lost a parent
or primary caregiver to COVID-19 because, sadly, they passed
away, and so these children may be living with grandparents or
other family caregivers. They are just going to require
additional mental health resources, not just now but most
likely into the future.
Ms. Engel, could you speak to some of the challenges that
children who are part of grandfamilies may face in losing a
parent or primary caregiver, whether it is due to the pandemic
or something else, and how that trauma can affect the children
and their grandparent caregivers?
Ms. Engel. Well, I will tell you that I support over 100
and some grandparents in my organization. Every one of them
struggles. The pandemic was just an added situation.
When a child loses his parent, him or her loses a parent,
that is a connection that is made at birth, and once that
connection is lost it becomes a trauma because they do not know
where they belong. They do not know how, why they are in the
situation. They take blame for themselves. The COVID just added
onto that because they are isolated and they do not understand
the situation.
Most of the kids that I know that are being raised by
grandparents also come with trauma due to some kind of fetal
exposure. The trauma of losing a parent, it is impacting the
mental health of these kids dramatically, and then again, with
the schools systems not being able to understand that, not
being able to support them, these children are struggling.
It will also perpetuate onto the next generation, as it has
with my family. My daughter did not receive the support she
needed when she was in need of mental health. It perpetuated to
my grandson, and now it will continue on if we do not do
something about it.
Senator Rosen. Yes. Well, thank you for that.
I see my time is up, but I do want to say that particularly
an impact of the pandemic or the loss of a parent, grandparents
have lost a child, the child has lost a parent, so there is
family trauma going forward a grieving family has to deal with
while trying to take on all these new roles, and we need to
really address this with our mental health workers and their
capacity to work on these types of issues.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The Chairman. Senator Rosen, thanks very much.
I wanted to say to our witnesses we are having something we
usually do not have, which is an expedited wrap-up today
because of the votes. One vote was called about 10 minutes ago,
so Senator Scott and I, the Ranking Member, will submit
statements, closing statements for the record, but we want to
thank each of you for your testimony today, for your presence
here, and for your own personal experience and expertise you
bring to these issues, and the word that kept coming to mind
for me was sacrifice, the sacrifice of so many grandparents,
grandfamilies, to give love and support to their children and
help the rest of us along the way, so we are grateful for that
commitment and that sacrifice.
The record for this hearing will be open for seven days
until next Thursday, June 30th, for Senators who might have
additional questions or statements for the witnesses, but
again, thank you for your presence here today. Thank you for
your testimony.
The hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:14 a.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
=======================================================================
CLOSING STATEMENTS
=======================================================================
CLOSING STATEMENT OF SENATOR
ROBERT P. CASEY, JR., CHAIRMAN
In today's hearing, we heard powerful testimony from
grandparents who are fighting for their grandchildren's
futures.
We learned about the many barriers that they face. We
cannot let any grandfamily fall through the cracks. We must
ensure that every grandparent and kinship caregiver across the
country has the resources and support they need to care for
their children, regardless of their background.
That's why Democrats are committed to addressing the long-
term impact of systemic racism and health inequities on all
Americans, including grandfamilies.
Today's hearing highlighted the critical role that
grandparents play in supporting our Nation's children.
Ms. Stevens shared in her testimony that she is proud of
her role as a grandparent caregiver. Her heroic efforts to
support her grandson have not gone unnoticed.
It's time that Congress fights to support these families
the way they deserve.
I want to once again thank all the witnesses for
contributing their time and expertise today.
If any Senators have additional questions for the witnesses
or statements to be added, the hearing record will be kept open
for seven days, until next Thursday, June 30.
Thank you all for participating and this concludes today's
hearing.
CLOSING STATEMENT OF SENATOR
TIM SCOTT, RANKING MEMBER
Thank you, Chairman Casey, for today's hearing, and thank
you to each and every witness for providing your expertise and
stories.
Today's hearing has highlighted how important it is for us
to recognize and value grandparents raising grandchildren.
Since the Aging Committee identified the need for Congress to
establish an Advisory Council to support grandparents raising
grandchildren back in 2017, we have made great progress.
Kinship caregiving is increasingly recognized in federal
laws, including the Families First Prevention Service Act, and
the National Family Caregiver Program authorized through the
Older Americans Act.
States have responded, adopting a "kin first" approach to
placing kids whose parents cannot raise them. Congress can help
by passing the Informing Grandfamilies Act, which will ensure
grandparents raising grandchildren are fully informed about all
the resources available to them. Congress must ensure funds
appropriated for states' child-welfare agencies go to
grandparents raising grandchildren, too. The Child Care and
Development Block Grant Reauthorization Act, which I introduced
with Senator Burr takes an important step in that direction.
Thanks to the testimony of the witnesses at today's
hearing, we are even better informed and prepared to take
further steps to support grandparents raising grandchildren,
like how my grandparents helped raise me.
Thank you all for your testimony today.
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APPENDIX
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Prepared Witness Statements
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Questions for the Record
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[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
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