Around 26 percent of foster children placed with a relative

Yesterday we told about about the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s important new report on kinship care — how children can find stable, nurturing support from other relatives when their parents can’t care for them. That report showed that 26 percent of American foster children get placed with a relative. But some states clocked much lower rates, with Georgia at 14 percent, Alabama at 12 percent, and Tennessee at just 8 percent.

“We know children do better when they are with families, with those people who know them,” Pam Brown, director of Tennessee’s KIDS COUNT project, tells the Chattanooga Times Free Press. “The children who are with grandpa, grandma or an aunt or uncle know a different kind of support.”

Tennessee Department of Children’s Services disputes the Foundation’s numbers, but the fact remains that more can be done to support kinship families. Annie E. Casey’s report is full of recommendations that policymakers can work on now, like ensuring that kinship families get the benefits they’re eligible for (nearly all kinship care arrangements qualify for support from TANF, yet only 12 percent take advantage).

“Any amount of intervention increases the financial stability for these families caring for their kin,” Brown said.

What government and communities should do to support kinship families

We’re very excited for today’s release of a new report on kinship care from our partners at the Annie E. Casey Foundation. This policy report explains the increasing number of children living with extended family and close friends, and what policies can help support them. When parents are unable to care for their children, grandparents, other
relatives, and close family friends can provide care that is stable and nurturing.

Overall, 1 in 11 children lives in kinship care at some point before the age of 18, according to Annie E. Casey. But kin caregivers often have trouble getting all the benefits they’re entitled to, and many more don’t even know all the government supports available to them. “Less than 12 percent of kinship families receive any assistance from TANF, although nearly 100 percent of the children in such families are eligible, as well as many of the caregivers themselves,” writes the Foundation.

This report is full of important recommendations for how we can support kinship care. Policymakers, take heed!

Children’s book author donates more than 120,000 books to Newark third-graders

We were elated to learn this week from our member in New Jersey that a well-known children’s book author had donated books to every third-grader in the Newark Public School District. Mary Pope Osborne, author of the Magic Tree House series, was inspired by child advocates like KIDS COUNT and Advocates for Children of New Jersey, a Voices member organization.

“If a child is not reading proficiently by third grade, that child will struggle for years to catch up,” Cecilia Zalkind, executive director of Advocates for Children of New Jersey, is quoted in an article on Osborne’s generosity. “Third grade is when children must start reading to learn, rather than learning to read.”

Osborne decided to donate after learning from our New Jersey member that only 38 percent of Newark’s city’s third-graders attending traditional public schools had passed the state’s third-grade language arts test in 2010. In all, her donation is more than 120,000 books, including sets given to third grade teachers for the classroom.

Thank you, Mary Pope Osborne, and thank you, too, Advocates for Children of New Jersey. Learn more about how well American students are reading in a new report released this week from Voices.