March 29, 2024
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Plight of grandfamilies scrutinized

AUGUSTA – There was no shortage of sad and tragic stories being told Wednesday by grandfamilies from around the state, many with either substance abuse or mental illness at their heart.

One woman told of gaining custody of her 4-year-old grandson only after his mother’s apartment was surrounded by police cruisers. He was delivered to her home suffering malnutrition, post-traumatic stress disorder, nightmares and the inability to play.

Another family began raising a teenage granddaughter only to have the girl threaten suicide, run away, and end up living on the streets of Portland.

But the sorrowful tales heard Wednesday at the Maine Summit for Grandfamilies held at the University of Maine at Augusta were balanced by lengthy discussions of solutions and strategies, plenty of advice, and a pledge by state officials that there is a commitment to kids and families, particularly when kin are raising kin.

Barbara Kates of Family Connections said the summit is held every two years. Wednesday morning’s gathering of more than 100 mental health professionals, relatives raising children, town welfare directors, and others focused on mental health and substance abuse issues and how caregivers can help the children they are raising.

“More than 11,000 children in Maine live with a relative, not their parents,” Kates said, quoting from the 2000 Census. “More than 5,000 are being raised by their grandparents.”

James Beougher, director of the Office of Child and Family Services of the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, said it is the state’s policy for staff workers to have a face-to-face meetings with relatives of children who have been removed from a parent or parents within 24 hours.

“This is based on a Pittsburgh model where they are placing 60 percent of removed children with relatives,” Beougher said. “In Maine, we have not yet reached 20 percent. Five years ago, we were at less than 5 percent.

“We are a state that, for whatever reason, hasn’t taken advantage of the strength and safety that extended families and kin can afford children.”

Beougher said that kin connections are the keys to a child’s success.

“Our policy is to immediately ask that child: ‘Is there someone that you feel safe with?’ and act on that. It is truly frightening for a child to go to foster care at a stranger’s home,” he said.

A panel of grandparents told of the damage done to the children they care for because mental health and substance abuse issues are a common thread among many of those families. In one case, a grandmother said that DHHS had visited her son’s home eight times before his three children were placed in their grandparents’ care.

To help caregivers and professionals deal with these damaged children, Dr. Joseph Crumbley, a family therapist in Philadelphia, was the summit’s keynote speaker.

“He is like the guru for relatives raising relatives,” Kates said, “and has written some key work on the subject.”

Crumbley went through a list of feelings that children have and how to deal with them, providing concrete, practical strategies for grandparents and other caregivers at the summit.

“Be an authority figure, a provider, a protector, an advocate, an adviser and friend, a nurturer and a parental figure,” Crumbley said.


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