More grandparents in U.S. raising grandchildren

Georgiana Collins took her usual seat in the squat gray lawn chair that sits unobtrusively beside the front door of the small white cape she calls home in South Hempstead. That was her perch on a recent sunny afternoon as she watched her only grandchild, 10-year-old Shannon Keane, ride a scooter in the "funnest place in the house" - the driveway.

"She's the best thing that ever happened to me," Collins said describing the past five years being Shannon's legal guardian. "She's a wonderful child. She's a good kid, compassionate, smart."

After raising two sons, Collins, 61, a retired postal worker, is among the increasing number of grandparents who are raising their children's children.

According to a recent report by the Pew Research Center, which analyzed census data, the number of grandparents in the United States raising their grandchildren increased 8 percent between 2000 and 2008. The report said there were 2.6 million grandparents "serving as primary caregivers" in 2008, up from 2.4 million in 2000.

Similarly, the report found that 2.9 million children were being cared for by grandparents in 2008, up from 2.5 million in 2000.

New York State and Long Island buck the national trend, however, showing slight declines since 2000, when the census recorded 143,014 grandparents in the state raising their grandchildren, compared with an estimated 128,076, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2006-2008 American Community Surveys.

Long Island saw a decline from 14,553 in 2000 to 12,204 in 2006-2008 data.

One advocate suggested the smaller sample size of the 2006-2008 surveys, may be less accurate than the 2000 Census.

"Nevertheless," said Gerard Wallace, executive director of the National Committee of Grandparents for Children's Rights, "it's still a large number" of grandparents caring for children in New York who he said need more support.

The Pew report found that most of the 8 percent increase - 5 percent - occurred from 2007 to 2008, coinciding with the first year of the recession.

"The data doesn't allow us to explicitly state that the economy is the cause of this increase" in grandparents raising grandchildren, said the report's co-author Gretchen Livingston.

"However, certainly something has occurred between 2007 and 2008 that has caused this relatively dramatic increase. We're suggesting that perhaps the recession is playing a role," she said. "But we can't be certain."

Child welfare advocates in New York don't disagree.

"It's reasonable to link the two," Wallace said. "We do have stories of relatives taking on caregiving because of parents needing to move, losing jobs, families doubling up."

Wallace, who is also director of the New York State Kinship Navigator, a state-funded program that provides information and referrals for relatives caring for children, said military deployments of parents have an impact as well.

"Traditionally," though, Wallace said, "kinship care is mostly a byproduct of other tragedies: drug abuse, neglect, mental illness, incarceration."

Jenifer Patsiner, director of the Long Island Kincare Connection, agreed. "Mental illness and substance abuse, particularly as a combination, are leading to more grandparents raising grandchildren," she said.

That's why her agency, part of a network of state-funded regional programs under the national grandparents committee, provides counseling and respite programs, and helps link grandparents with social services for grant aid. Kincare Connection operates out of an office at Stony Brook University.

Collins gained custody of Shannon after her father was imprisoned five years ago. She said the whereabouts of Shannon's mother are unknown.

"It was difficult at first because I didn't have the resources or friends that had small children . . . So, I had to start a whole new set of social life, basically, to give her the kinds of things that a little girl should have. She started Scouting . . . I reached out," said Collins, who attends grandparent support meetings at Long Island Kincare Connection.

Collins and Shannon have settled into a routine: Camp and music and arts enrichment in summer, and now school and karate lessons. Collins said Shannon has enriched her life. And Shannon, asked if she feels safe with her grandmother, replied smiling, "Oh yeah."