Relative Caregivers vs. Adoption

Relative Caregivers vs. Adoptive Parents

In recent years there has been an increase in the government’s partiality for kinship care. Many of us have taken on the responsibility of raising children that are not our own. Grandparents and other relatives have made decisions on what is the best route when taking on this responsibility and have stepped forward to take on an enormous responsibility.

In Florida, there has been an influx of long term relative care and placing children with relatives opposed to placing children into Foster care, reason being; it is less costly for the government to provide small cash grants and medical benefits to children being raised by relative caregivers than to take on the entire financial responsibility of keeping the child (ren) in Foster care. A national survey supports this conclusion, finding that children in kinship care deal with more hardships, receive fewer services, and come across with greater difficulty attaining the services they need than children in non-relative foster care (Ehrle and Geen, 2002).
Children living in the State of Florida and are being raised by grandparents or other relatives are eligible to receive “child-only” cash assistance which is called Temporary Cash Assistance (TCA) through the Department of Children and Families. In 1998, the Florida Relative Caregiver Program was established to provide financial assistance to kinship care families. Eligibility criteria for this program includes: children are in the fulltime care of a relative within a fifth degree of relationship to the child, the child has been adjudicated dependent by the state due to child abuse, neglect or abandonment, the relative possesses a dependency court order through juvenile court, and a home study is approved by the state (Florida Department of Children and Families, 2001). In both programs, the cash assistance is less than Foster Care payments.
Currently in the State of Florida, more than 345,000 children are being raised in Kinship and of this amount; more than 258,000 are being raised by grandparents, many of which are on fixed income. (Grandfacts.org)
With the influx of those that are assuming the responsibility of raising relative children, most are not being informed of their options and are sometimes being forced into adoption and do not feel comfortable working directly with the child welfare system when having to participate in the termination of parental rights of their own children or other relative to be eligible to adopt.

When the adoption route is taken, the relative caregiver ceases to be a relative caregiver and thus becomes a parent to the child (ren) they are raising, which causes the lost of benefits that relative caregivers receive.

Even though the adoption route is taken opposed to long term relative care and you’re not sure if adopting your relative’s child is the right thing to do, especially if the relative remains in the family circle, you go forward because of what’s best for the child (ren). They need to feel the love, stability and permanency that they possibly have not received from being moved from place to place (foster homes) or possibly their parent’s home.

These children come with baggage, so be prepared to have lots and lots of patience, ask as many questions from the case manager that you can possibly think of when they come into your home and by all means, be prepared to give lots and lots of love.

...Sybil Goings