Grand plan: Relatives get help from state in raising children

Monday, Jan. 28, 2002 | 9:43 a.m.

When 15-year-old Christopher and his 5-year-old sister Jennifer showed up on their grandparents' doorstep two years ago, concerns about where the money would come from to raise them were foremost on the Boulder City couple's minds.

"There they were, two abandoned children with just the clothes on their backs and sleeping bags, and I thought, 'Oh my God, what are we going to do?' " said 64-year-old Jane Horner, whose 77-year-old husband, Will, took a part-time job at a hardware store to help make ends meet.

The children are among more than 8 million Americans -- 30,850 in Nevada -- being raised by their grandparents.

Many of those families struggle on fixed incomes to meet the children's needs during the years the seniors expected to enjoy the fruits of retirement.

Now that has changed in Nevada. The new Kinship Care Program is providing hundreds of dollars in monthly assistance to legal guardians 62 and older -- uncles, aunts, grandparents, etc. -- who are raising their minor relatives.

Jane Horner lobbied the 2001 Nevada Legislature for the state's first-ever guardianship subsidy that created the program.

"Grandparents raising children has increased 109 percent in Nevada since 1990 -- this is a serious child welfare issue of the 21st century, one that a lot of people don't understand or want to understand or talk about," Horner said.

The 2000 Census statistics show that nationwide grandparents raising children is the third most prevalent method of parenting, accounting for 6.2 percent of the nation's families.

Aging relatives of 264 Nevada children are expected to start receiving the funds this fiscal year, which ends June 30, said Lynette Grundy of the Nevada State Welfare Division, who is overseeing the Kinship Care Program. An additional 420 children should be assisted by the end of June 2003, she said.

The program, funded by $1 million in surplus federal funds, pays legal guardians $535 per month for each child 12 and younger and $616 per month for each child 13 and older. That is 90 percent of what foster parents receive.

In Horner's case, she went from receiving $383 a month in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families welfare money to $1,283 a month to raise the kids.

"The big advantage of this program is that it is based on the children's countable income, not on household size or the legal guardian's resources," Grundy said. Payments are diminished by child support payments, Social Security benefits and other income the children might receive.

"The program recognizes the child's needs."

Adults participating in the Kinship Care Program, in addition to being at least 62, must have cared for a child for at least six months and verify the child is related by blood, adoption or marriage. They also must have court-approved legal guardianship and undergo criminal background checks.

Carol Stillian, a manager at the Clark County Department of Family and Youth Services who is part of a team that is converting state child welfare services such as foster care and adoptions to the county, says the Kinship Care Program furthers the system's longstanding goals.

"Our continuing focus is to keep the family together," said Stillian, who is laying the groundwork for the change that will bring more than 140 state child welfare workers under the county jurisdiction. "When the parents are not available, blood kin like grandparents is preferred.

"Too many children in the system run away from homes (of non-relatives) because they don't have the bond they would have with their own families."

The new county program hopes to reduce the need for outside foster care by seeking senior relatives who previously did not have the funds to take on the responsibility of raising kin, Stillian said.

Horner took over raising her grandchildren after her son and his wife separated on Valentine's Day 2000 and eventually divorced. They had substance abuse problems that led to their arrests and to the children being placed in protective care, Horner said.

Frustrated after stumbling through the welfare system for the first time in her life, Horner set out to change things.

"I went to a legislative committee hearing and listened to eight hours of testimony on where money in the child welfare system was going," Horner said. "Then I got up to speak, I asked, 'How many of you in this room have had to go to Child Haven and pick up your grandchildren?' and there was dead silence. I told them I wanted a piece of the pie they were cutting up."

The legislation hit a snag, when, to save money, the bill was amended to limit the subsidy to relatives 62 and older. With that proviso, the measure passed unanimously in both houses.

"We had to get something passed," Horner said. "Now we can go back next time and try to get the age of eligibility lowered and try to get 100 percent of foster care."

Assembly Majority Leader Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, who was on that committee and backed the bill, said the program has a fair chance to be broadened in future sessions.

"We wanted to see how the program works," she said. "It just made a lot of sense to keep kids with their families. And we were paying strangers to care for the children, why not the grandparents?"

Family Court Judge Gerald Hardcastle, who handles all guardianship cases for minors in Clark County, said he is glad the precedent was set.

"We've never had subsidies for legal guardians in this state before," Hardcastle said. "Now we should focus on eventually subsidizing any guardianship for children who were victims of abuse and neglect in this state.

"There are teachers, family friends and others who become legal guardians. Why shouldn't they also be subsidized? What it comes down to is deciding whether care of our children needs greater priority in Nevada."

Hardcastle, who said about 10 percent of the cases he handles involve grandparents 62 or older, said his experience has been that regardless of the financial situation, "grandparents stand behind the children -- it's not about the money."

Horner said that under her and her husband's care, her grandchildren have had a normal, stable upbringing -- and that occurred before the Kinship Care Program became a reality. She credits that to Will, her husband of 18 years, who has been supportive even though the grandkids are not biologically his.

"We had a three-year honeymoon, got to live in Hawaii and have been otherwise fortunate over the years," Horner said. "I believe that prepared us for the important job the man upstairs gave us two years ago."com