Cal State Long Beach’s department of social work will focus on “Empowering Relative Care Givers and Their Families” at their sixth annual conference Saturday, May 12, from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the campus’ University Student Union.
State Assemblymember Karen Bass (47th District—Los Angeles) will deliver the keynote address. As chairwoman of the Select Committee on Foster Care, she has organized bipartisan participation that has resulted in a legislative package of 25 bills focusing on improving the state’s foster care system.
These measures reflect the voices of hundreds of children, parents, foster families, labor unions, government experts and foster family agencies who testified at more than 15 public hearings hosted by Bass throughout California. Bass also has helped secure $82 million in the 2006/2007 state budget for Foster Care Reform.
In addition to Bass’ keynote address, there will be workshops addressing benefit programs, discipline approaches for children with mental health concerns, the impact of drugs and addiction on families, and anger management and relaxation techniques for grandparent caregivers.
A workshop will also be given in Spanish addressing relationships between caregivers and abused children. Workshops provide for interaction between social work students and caregivers and professionals of child welfare and aging.
Co-sponsoring the conference is Grandparents As Parents (GAP), a group founded in 1987 as a grassroots reaction to the rising tide of abandoned children created by the drug epidemic.
Serving approximately 1,000 relative caregivers, 90 percent of them grandparents and the children they are raising, GAP has developed services in the Los Angeles area, providing support groups for relative caregivers in Long Beach, Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley. The group also offers advocacy and crisis counseling.
According to statistics by the U.S. Census Bureau, 4 percent of all children lived without either parent in the household (2.9 million children) in 2001. In these families, some lived with grandparents (1.4 million), others with aunts, uncles or siblings (900,000), bringing the total number of children in kinship care to 2.3 million children.
Many of these arrangements are made informally within the family in response to family needs. Parents may be unable to care for their own children because of mental or physical illness, substance abuse, incarceration, they were neglectful or abusive, or due to their work obligations or financial need.
Some children, who come to the attention of authorities because of abuse or neglect, are placed with relative caregivers–mostly grandparents, but also aunts and uncles and sometimes, older siblings.
Overall, 405,000 children lived in court-placed kinship families in the United States in 2002, and half of these were low-income families. Only 131,000 of these children were in custody of the state and followed by the child welfare system, while the rest were placed by the courts but not followed by the child welfare system.
“The issue of grandparent and relative caregiving is a family issue and it is relevant to social workers dealing with child welfare and older adults,” said Catherine Goodman, a conference organizer and professor of social work at CSULB. “The purpose of this conference is to help empower these caregivers who work so diligently on behalf of their families and make that task a little bit easier.”
The conference is free to family caregivers and CSULB students, and $50 for social work professionals. Additionally, professionals can earn up to four hours of continuing education credit by attending the conference, and Kinship and Foster Certificates are also available.
For more information or to pre-register for the event, contact Grandparents As Parents via email at ivyw@grandparentsasparents.com.
For additional information about GAP, visit their Web site at www.grandparentsasparents.com.
