National Resources

This section features Caregiver Resources for relative caregivers, including Through the Eyes of a Child, focusing specifically on younger children; Teaching Resources for service providers and educators and National Web Sites of potential interest to relative caregivers.

Caregiver Resources

Children's Defense Fund Resource Kits:

• Kinship Care Resource Kit for Community and Faith-Based Organizations (84 pages)
  Provides information on kinship care, including data on the prevalence of kinship families, challenges kinship families face, support groups, respite programs, questions regarding placement option and more.
• Kinship Care Resource Kit (52 pages)
  Provides information on topics such as cash assistance, child care and education programs, health care, and other issues important to relative caregivers.
• Relatives Raising Children: A Guide to Finding Help and Hope by Marianne Takas
  Based upon what long-term relative caregivers (and family services professionals who work with them) have learned about raising relative children. Designed to provide useful information, strategies, and ideas, and to help link you with others who can help. Author has worked on behalf of children as an attorney, a youth worker, a parent and a foster parent. A Brookdale Foundation Publication. 166 pages, Third Edition 2005, $6.00 per copy to cover shipping and production costs. Book order form at http://www.brookdalefoundation.org/BOOKORDERFORM.doc.
• Through the Eyes of a Child
  Nine fact sheets, designed by UW-Extension to help relative caregivers learn more about what to expect and where to turn for support. Tailored specifically for grandparents raising young children (birth to age 8).

Teaching Resources

• The Brookdale National Relatives as Parents Program (RAPP) Orientation Conference, Kansas City/MO, May/June 2003, Marketing and Outreach Brainstorming Session. Explains what marketing is, how to market and what information to include when marketing. (5 pages, 98 KB)
• The Brookdale National Relatives as Parents Program (RAPP) National Orientation and Traning Conference, Kansas City, MO, May/June 2003, Funding Brainstorming Session. Outlines oublic (federal, state, local) as well as private and voluntary sector sources of financial and in-kind support, gives ideas of items and services for which to seek funds, and lists potential local support organizations with which to collaborate. (4 pages, 90 KB)
• Best Practice Manual for Service Providers Assisting Kinship Caregivers in the State of Michigan, 2003. The manual contains resources and tools to be adapted and used anywhere to provide the most appropriate and extensive support services possible to kinship caregivers. (18 pages, 238 KB)
• Cooperative Extension's Educational Responses to Relative Caregivers' Needs and Concerns: Resource List - A listing of statewide grandparents raising grandchildren networks, research projects, newsletters, educational programs, fact sheets, resource guides. (14 pages)
• Effective Support Groups: How to Plan, Design, Facilitate, and Enjoy them, book by James E. Miller, Willowgreen Publishing: Indiana, 1998. Provides basic information about how to create groups, how they function, what would be expected of members, and of facilitators. To order call, (260-490-2222.
• Foundation Center provides important information for grant seekers including listing of grant makers state by state, private foundations, community foundations, public charities, and corporate giving programs.
• Grandparents Raising Grandchildren: Doubly Stressed, Triply Blessed
  “Multimedia program exploring issues and concerns by families consisting of grandparents raising grandchildren.” Hard copy $30. Free PDF file available at Penn State College of Agricultural sciences, http://pubs.cas.psu.edu/FreePubs/pdfs/agrs84.pdf (20 pages)
  
• Grandparents Raising Grandchildren Educational Program from AARP (1 page)
  For use by grandparent support groups, by agencies training staff, and anyone interested in exploring concerns of grandparents caregivers.
• Grandparents Raising Grandchildren: Legal and Policy Challenges (2 pages)
  A video-based program designed for grandparents and kin who are raising children and the professionals and paraprofessionals who work with them, and interested community members. The program, developed by Purdue University Extension and University of Wisconsin Extension, consists of videotape and CD ROM, which contains background information for the facilitator plus detailed lesson plans and handouts. Item number CFS-725 sells for $35, including shipping and handling charges. Indiana residents add $2.10 in sales tax. Ordering form at: http://www.ces.purdue.edu/cfs/programs/grandparents/resources/grandparents-form.pdf
• Second Time Around-Grandparents Raising Grandchildren, A Curriculum Guide for Group Leaders
  Department of Family and Consumer Sciences, College of Education, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI 49008, (269) 387-3704
• The Ties That Bind: Kinship Care and Parental Substance Abuse, Training for Kinship Caregivers
  Children of Alcoholics Foundation, 164 W. 74th Street, New York, NY 10023, (646) 505-2060

National Websites

• National web sites of potential interest to relative caregivers