Kinship Care Service Providers Coalition
What is Kinship Care? One in 12 American children is living in a household headed by a grandparent or other relative. In many of these homes, grandparents and other relatives are the primary caregivers, or kinship caregivers, for children whose parents cannot or will not care for them due to substance abuse, illness, child abuse and neglect, economic hardship, incarceration, divorce, domestic violence, or other serious problems.
The mission of the Kinship Care Service Providers Coalition is to connect organizations and professionals who offer assistance and support to kinship caregivers with opportunities to strengthen the kinship care families they serve.
Individually, as professionals, personally as citizens and collectively as organizational members of this network, members are joined together to:
- Educate the general public about the challenges and opportunities faced by kinship caregivers as well as services available and needed by kinship caregivers;
- Educate other related service providers, public and private, on the needs of kinship care families and how to respond to them appropriately;
- Advocate for the improvement of services and support for grandparents and other relatives who have taken on the responsibility of surrogate parenting;
- Respond to local situations and circumstances of kinship care families by focusing and directing the resources of the coalition to their benefit.
If you would like to join the Kinship Care Service Provider Coalition, are interested in a speaker for your organization or would like more information about Kinship Care, please contact call or email Stacey at 216. 421.1350 or srokoff@fairhillcenter.org
The Kinship Care Service Provider Coalition was initially funded and initiated by St Ann’s Foundation (now Sisters of Charity). It is currently funded by the Brookdale Foundation’s RAPP program and gifts from the Fairhill Annual Fund.