Hello! Friends of Grandfamilies
Below you will find some recent updates and resources from the field. If you know anyone who may be interested in receiving these alerts, please forward this to them and/or encourage them to sign up here.
|
|
May is Mental Health Awareness Month
Mental Health Awareness Month recognizes the importance of mental health for—and its impact on—the well-being of children, families, and communities. Generations United acknowledges the relevance of elevating awareness concerning the mental health and wellness of grandfamily caregivers and youth. We are excited to announce that the 2023 State of the Grandfamilies report will focus on this topic.
The report aims to raise awareness about these families, address gaps in data collection and reporting, highlight success stories, and lift up best practices. It also features key policy, practice, and research recommendations. Previous reports have focused on topics including food and nutrition, the opioid crisis, housing, equity, immigration, and trauma. The report will be released in the fall. Stay tuned for more information in the future. Read last year's report here.
|
|
Global Conference Updates - Snag a Spot in our Conference Program Book!
Want to put your organization on the map at Generations United's 2023 Global Intergenerational Conference? Snag a spot in our conference program book! Submit your ad by June 1, 2023. Learn more.
Make a difference today! Your donation can help provide scholarships for deserving individuals to attend our conference and access valuable learning opportunities. Support our conference scholarships and donate today.
Register for Generations United's Global Intergenerational Conference, taking place July 26-28, 2023 in Washington, DC! Register today!
Are you already registered for our conference? Join us for one of our Pre-Conference Activities on Wednesday, July 26th! Check out our Plaza West Grandfamilies Apartments site visit here.
Check out the snapshot of our conference here.
|
|
UPDATED Fact Sheet: Children Thrive in Grandfamilies
Generations United has updated our Children Thrive in Grandfamilies Fact Sheet, a resource that provides key facts about how children do in the care of relatives and a list of research articles to support the facts. This updated resource was made possible with support from the Brookdale Foundation Group. Click here to access the resource.
|
|
Webinar: Identifying and Engaging Untapped Partners to Support Kinship Families
Date & Time
June 13th, 2:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. ET
Moderator
Dr. Anita Rogers
Panelists
-
Beth A. Lindley, Director, Kinship Care Resource Center: A Michigan State University School of Social Work Community Program
-
Andrew Russo, M.A., Co-Founder & Director, National Family Support Network
-
David Sherman, CEO, Big Brothers, Big Sisters, Mountain Region
|
|
|
|
Sixto Cancel, Founder & CEO of Think of Us, delivers a TED Talk on how kinship care can transform the foster care system at TED 2023.
In the US, youth in foster care are nearly twice as likely as war veterans to suffer from PTSD. Placed in foster care at just 11 months old, 2023 Audacious Project grantee Sixto Cancel experienced the faults of the system firsthand. Now, he's the founder of Think of Us, an organization working to reform child welfare by centering kinship care, or placing a child with an extended family member or a familiar adult.
Click here to watch his TED Talk.
|
|
Grandfamily Caregiver
Mental Health Tip Sheets
Generations United with support from our partner Humana, developed tip sheets on self-care and youth mental health for grandfamily caregivers. These tip sheets are filled with helpful information and resources for grandfamilies. Click here to view tip sheets.
|
|
Scam Awareness Materials for Groups and Organizations
Social Security phone scams are the #1 fraud reported to the Federal Trade Commission and SSA. We are committed to raising awareness about these scams and preventing scammers from harming the public.
On the Social Security website, you will find an up-to-date list of resources and materials that you can use to help combat Social Security scams in your community. Please share these materials widely through external and internal websites, social media, blogs, and newsletters.
Click here to read the resources.
|
|
ACL Announces New Funding
to Improve Support for
Family Caregivers
Each project will receive up to $1.1 million annually for four years to develop, test, and disseminate new approaches to supporting family caregivers. Using the caregiver strategy as a roadmap, and with technical assistance from ACL, each project will focus on one of the five priority areas of the strategy.
Complete details and application instructions are posted on Grants.gov. Applications are due Monday, June 26, 2023. Click here for more information.
Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for Prevention Services Evaluation Partnerships: Building Evidence for Mental Health, Substance Use, In-home Parent Skill-based, and Kinship Navigator Programs and Services
These three-year grants aim to support summative (I.e., impact) randomized control trial or quasi-experimental evaluations of a mental health, substance abuse prevention and/or treatment, in-home parent skill-based, or kinship navigator program or service. The grants will support collaborations among evaluators and partnering Title IV-E agencies, community entities, and/or other researchers to conduct well-designed and rigorous summative evaluations of programs and services intended to provide enhanced support to children and families, including pregnant and parenting youth in foster care, as well as prevent child abuse and neglect and foster care placements—deadline to apply: July 11, 2023. Click here to read more.
|
|
The National Center on Grandfamilies Team, Jaia, Jamarl, Robyn, GRAND Voices Member AnnaMarie White, and Young Adult Representative Keonte Jones was in Baltimore earlier this month for the Annie E. Casey Foundation Community-Based Kinship Design In-Person Meeting, including partners Justice For Families and ChildFocus.
The group is working together to learn what community supports are available and/or needed to best support kinship families with the goal of lessening the public systems(Juvenile Justice System & Child Welfare System) involvement.
|
|
Thanks for reading this newsletter. If you have anything you would like included in future newsletters, please send them to Jamarl D. Clark at jclark@gu.org. We’d love to hear your thoughts on this newsletter. Feel free to reply with any feedback or comments.
Best,
The Grandfamilies Team
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
