Support for kinship care is an investment that can benefit families and children

If we want families to stay together even when birth parents are unable to raise their children, we must support families like mine.

Andreah Moyer-Stevens
Iowa view contributor

As a kid, my favorite thing to do with my grandfather was ride horses. In the winter, he’d stop every day as we rode at the same point. He’d get off his horse and take off my boot to feel my feet. If they were warm, we’d keep riding. If they were cold, we’d go home. I knew he loved me because of that simple act and so many other things. We spent time on his farm in Martensdale. We went on vacations and he told me stories. I was close to both my grandparents, but especially my grandfather. But that was before my parents’ drug addictions became so serious that they lost custody of my siblings and me and we were placed in foster care.

In the 1980s when all this happened, children in foster care weren’t just removed from the care of their parents; ties were also often severed with the entire birth family. I didn’t see my grandparents again until 1995, when I aged out of the foster care system without being adopted. In the meantime, I lived in so many different foster homes that I lost count.

So, when my brother Joey, who is 22 years younger than me, needed a home when he was an infant, I jumped at the chance to be his guardian. I wanted to provide Joey with a stable, loving home that I didn’t have.

My family’s experiences — both going to foster care as a child and becoming Joey’s guardian at the age of 22 — are why I am so passionate about expanding access to “kinship care.” Kinship care is when relatives step up to raise children whose parents can't care for them. Right now, according to a new report from Generations United, more than 2.7 million children live in these “grandfamilies” — families like mine and Joey’s.

These families save taxpayers an estimated $4 billion a year by keeping kids out of foster care who would otherwise become wards of the state. But many grandfamilies or kinship families don’t get any support. Caregivers can face huge obstacles enrolling the children in school and consenting to health care. They may not know about support groups, respite, specialized affordable housing programs, and other services available in their community.  They aren’t given the option to become licensed foster parents for the children so they can receive monthly financial support that unrelated foster parents get to help meet the children’s needs. These are just some of the challenges that can be overcome with quality kinship navigator programs that help families learn about and connect to services and supports.

Research has consistently shown that children raised by loving kin with the support they need have much better long-term outcomes than children raised by unrelated foster parents.

If greater kinship assistance had been available when I went in to foster care, it is possible that my grandparents, who lived on a fixed income, could have raised me and my brothers. And I certainly needed that kind of help when I was raising Joey. There were months we barely made ends meet between rent and food and other expenses. And now, as families like mine face the impact of COVID-19, help is needed more than ever.

If we want families to stay together even when birth parents are unable to raise their children, we must support families like mine. I hope our federal legislators will take that into account and invest in kinship navigator programs and other support for grandfamilies during and after the pandemic.

Andreah Moyer-Stevens

Andreah Moyer-Stevens is an ophthalmic technician living in Des Moines who cares deeply about children and families in Iowa. In addition to Joey, she has adopted two more children from the foster care system. She is an avid reader, traveler and Hawkeye fan for life.