Concerns With Kinship Care:
An Interview with Ray Odom

Aired June 23, 1999

David C. Barnett–Joining us on the phone is Ray Odom, who is coordinator of the Cuyahoga County Office on Aging. We've talked with Mr. Odom before about this very issue of kinship care, and Ray Odom, we welcome you back, sir, for an update.

Ray Odom–Thank you for having me.

DCB–I think we're hearing from Faye that there's a distrust, at least in her case, of the whole system because she's not getting a response to her specific issues. Have you found there to be an information gap in the people you work with?

RO–Well, yes, and that's consistent with not just grandparents but with older people in general who are trying to access services and don't know where to turn and don't exactly know what's available, so there is a gap, there was a gap. We did a study, conducted a study in '94, which that came out as one of the issues.

DCB–What are the needs that you see that are not being addressed in our area for grandparents?

RO–Well, I think in our area, Cuyahoga County is where we're responsible, one of the biggest needs is financial, the cost of services, the cost of taking care of the children's needs, and many times the grandparents will forego their own needs. Another issue or need is what you just mentioned, the lack of knowledge of what's available and how to access those services, the lack of awareness of what's out there, and trying to negotiate the system to try to access services for their children, and there's a multitude of needs, but I think another major need is the stresses that grandparents go through.

DCB–The emotional side.

RO–Yes, the stresses of trying to negotiate the system for services, the stress of having to deal with the children's frustration and difficulty in letting the children, they may be special needs children, because they don't understand why they can't live with their own parents, so they may act out in a number of ways. The children may also be going through some physical difficulty, many of the children may have mental and emotional problems as well as behavioral problems, they may be crack babies or drug babies. One of the biggest issues that we saw from the study is that many of the grandparents are in this situation because of drug and alcohol abuse on the part of the parents, so they've taken over the situation because of some problems related to that.

DCB–We talked yesterday with Representative Barbara Boyd about this legislation she's working on, and the gist of that is that she's trying to get foster care benefits for grandparents. Is that an important factor as far as you're concerned?

RO–Well, it would increase the number of, the amount of financial assistance. You know, as I said, financial assistance is one of the top barriers to services and one of the biggest issues that grandparents have, many times much of their savings that they may have had are quickly depleted once the children come into their care. They don't have the same amount of funding that foster parents can get, and what they do have, it's minimal. It is helpful, but it's very minimal for meeting many of the grandchildren's needs, so I think if that bill were to pass, it would be a tremendous help for grandparents. I understand that that bill will not-they would not have to go through the system where the county would have to take custody of the children, that's one of the biggest issues why grandparents don't want to go through that right now because the county would have to identify the child as being abused or neglected and it would have to remove the child, would actually have to take legal custody before placing the child with a grandparent, who would the become the foster parents, and many grandparents don't want that kind of intrusion, although they need the supportive services that the county would allow for any other foster parent, so it would be a help.

DCB–Now your purview is, of course, over the entire county. Are there different needs between the inner city and the suburbs?

RO–Well, yes, I think there is, I think there may be a different need between not only that but between this county, Cuyahoga County, and other counties who have less populations of grandparents, so we're hoping to connect with grandparents throughout the state to try to advocate on their behalf by talking to state representatives and state legislators to let them know what these issues are, and I've spoken with several myself and other groups, grandparent support groups, to encourage them to do the same, but there are some differences and there are some similarities between the urban and rural. A lot of the similarities is that this cuts across different levels, grandparents in the urban and rural may go through a lot of the same things as far as the emotional stress that they may undergo. There may be more of a need for financial assistance in the urban area because simply you're dealing with more individuals that have to access those benefits and resources, but in the rural area, the resources are not as easily-you can't get to those resources as easily and there may be fewer, so it gets complicated, but there's some similarities as well as some differences.

DCB–Ray Odom is coordinator of the Cuyahoga County Office on Aging. Thanks for joining us this morning.

RO–Thank you.