How to Engage Kinship Caregivers

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Are you a professional working with kinship caregivers? You need to listen to this interview with Dr. Tyreasa Washington, is a nationally and internationally recognized scholar specializing in kinship care families (e.g., grandparents raising grandchildren). She is a Distinguished Senior Scholar for Child Welfare at Child Trends, the leading research organization in the United States focused solely on improving the lives of children, youth, and families.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Advantages of keeping children with extended family when their parents are not able to raise them.
• How do kids who are raised temporarily or permanently by relatives fare compared to kids placed with unknown foster parents?
• One of the biggest questions we receive from professionals is how to engage kinship caregivers. They tell us that they set up programs to support kinship caregivers, but few show up. This seems universal. Why does this happen?
• We also hear about institutional trauma-(law enforcement struggles/foster care system struggles- leads to lack of trust--not feeling safe in their community, not trusting DSS.) How does this impact kinship caregivers? How does it impact those of us trying to serve them?
• What types of support are the most helpful?
• What are some cultural differences you've observed in Black relatives raising children within the family, and how do these differences impact how professionals interact with kin raising children?
• What have you found in your research on the impact of caregiving on the health of kinship caregivers?
• Need for training for kinship caregivers.
• How can professionals support self-care with folks who are so busy just getting by?

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Please leave us a rating or review. This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.

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