Growing Family Trend: Grandparents Raising Children

Katherine Del Monte — Sun, 24 Apr 2016 18:41:19 +0000

Children who are being raised not by their own biological parents, but by grandparents who have taken them in for a wide array of heartbreaking and troubling reasons, come from households as disparate and unique as the neighborhoods and ethnic groups in which they live. It’s a trend that some experts believe will only continue to rise in light of the recent increases of incarceration, drug addiction, and an economy that has shown an uneven recovery throughout the country. The most recent numbers gathered just last year show that 2.7 million seniors are raising their grandchildren as if they were their own, with 20% of these families living below the poverty line. These figures represent a 7% increase since 2009, and the trend isn’t only about tragic circumstance.

Recent surveys and reports hold that many grandparents step in to take over raising the children of their own grown children when the mother and father are unable to fill the role. While many of them step in to help in a co-parenting role, even when the parents are still in the picture, the majority of these arrangements fall within the former category of absentee caregivers. When child welfare agencies are forced to intervene into a domestic situation where a child or children are at risk, the first place they look for a substitute is within the family. Grandparents are usually the most suitable option to fit the bill, and it often provides a more positive, successful outcome for that child than a foster care arrangement.

For Latinos and other Hispanic immigrants, the concerns over incarceration, addiction, and economy are also exacerbated by another component that threatens the well-being of the family infrastructure – deportation. Immigration status has lead to a rise in the number of grandparents over the age of 55 who are left caring for their grandchildren due to their biological parents being sent out of the country. But these situations present the added potential obstacle of raising grandchildren without any tangible legal rights. Many grandparents are also undocumented, and they don’t attempt any sort of legal recourse toward custody because they are afraid it will put them in the cross-hairs of the federal government. So these relationships can be tenuous at best, putting at-risk children in more peril of being separated from their families in times of domestic crisis.

Family is the most important thing in our lives, especially to children who are too young to comprehend anything other than being with the people they love and with whom they’ve forged a bond. A stable home is the foundation for success in school. For children living with grandparents, they are already facing an uphill climb, not because their grandparents don’t love them, but because so many of these households have endured hardship to place the grandparents in these roles.

The Latino Family Literacy Project is not only a great program for parents but also for grandparents who are custodial parents.

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Family Engagement and the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)

Katherine Del Monte — Tue, 12 Apr 2016 00:15:22 +0000

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) is a reauthorization of the educational standards set forth through the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) in 1965. The ESSA puts into place provisions aimed at helping low-income and underprivileged children succeed in school. Chief among this legislative groundwork is a sharp focus on the role of parent and family engagement in the learning process. The positive influences of parents and families, in conjunction with the community as a whole, have proven beneficial in keeping students in class and driving them to achieve. Dropout rates are the lowest they’ve ever been, and the many tenets of the ESEA and the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) have contributed greatly to this outcome. The ESSA seeks to continue that progress through funding of core requirements that promote parent and family engagement under Title I and Title IV of the Act.

Under Title I of the ESSA, federal funding is allocated to school districts around the country based on enrollment rates of children living below the poverty line and participating in free or reduced meal programs. As part of the statute, 1% of this funding is mandated towards promoting parent and family engagement through training school staff in engagement methods, developing programs aimed at the home, distributing best practices data on engagement activities with a particular aim toward disadvantaged families, and providing subgrants to schools that collaborate with organizations or businesses with a proven track record in positive family engagement in the community. In addition, by law, parents and/or guardians of low-income children are required to be given an opportunity to provide input as to how Title I funds are spent.

Title IV is another funding component of the ESSA dedicated to parent and family engagement by which federal grants are allocated to organizations throughout the state that are dedicated to establishing family engagement centers. These centers are designed for the purposes of developing engagement policies as well as assisting parents and family members to understand and participate in these policies geared toward eliminating existing barriers to successful, positive family engagement with students and promote achievement in student learning. These mandates are some of the most supportive and reassuring steps taken toward keeping the importance of parent and family engagement at the forefront of education.

The post Family Engagement and the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) appeared first on The Latino Family Literacy Project.

family engagement for Title I schools Archives | The Latino Family Literacy Project

Growing Family Trend: Grandparents Raising Children

Family Engagement and the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)