Grandparents and Other Relatives Raising Children: Their Inclusion in the National Family Caregiver Support Program

Introduction

According to the U.S. Census 2000, about six million children across the country are living in households headed by grandparents or other relatives¹. About 2.5 million grandparents living with their grandchildren have the primary responsibility for meeting the basic needs of these children². Factors such as parental substance abuse, incarceration, HIV/AIDS, death,
poverty, and military deployments are causing growing numbers of grandparents and other relatives to step forward to keep families together.

The National Family Caregiver Support Program (NFCSP) became law in 2000, through the reauthorization of the Older Americans Act3. The NFCSP was reauthorized and amended on September 30, 2006. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration on Aging (AoA) administers the program and provide funds to the states. They in turn fund Area Agencies on Aging (AAAs) — to provide five categories of supportive services to grandparents and other relatives aged 55 and older who are relative caregivers of children, and family caregivers of individuals aged 60 and older.

In spring 1999, when the NFCSP was originally introduced in Congress, it did not include grandparents and other older relative caregivers of children. Instead, it was designed solely to provide services to family caregivers of individuals aged 60 and older. Generations United (GU) was supportive of the NFCSP and thought it was important to help caregivers. However, GU also
thought it was important to acknowledge older individuals not only as the receivers of care, but also as the givers of care, which they so often are. As a result, GU worked to include grandparents and other relatives in the NFCSP by testifying before the relevant Senate Aging Committee, and submitting legislative language to include the caregivers of children in the law. In 2006
GU advocated for lowering the age to 55, which subsequently increased the percentage of eligible grandparents headed families from 29% to 47%.

This fact sheet is intended to provide an overview of the provisions of the NFCSP and an idea of what some AAAs around the country are doing to help these families. It is hoped that the information in this fact sheet, in addition to the related user-friendly guide⁴, will encourage other AAAs to replicate successful models and help support these families.

Provisions of the NFCSP

Congress appropriated $155.7 million to be spent for the NFCSP in 2007, more than a $30 million increase from the NFCSP’s first year in 2001. According to the law, the AoA releases the money to states based on each state’s percentage of the population aged 70 and older. The money that is distributed to states is allocated to the AAAs based on intrastate funding formulas. The AAAs provide support services to the caregivers or contract for service provision. Up to ten percent of the funding
appropriated for the NFCSP can be used to provide support services to grandparents or older relatives over age 55 who are raising relatives’ children or providing care to individuals with severe disabilities, including children⁵. Except for this limitation, funds under the NFCSP are not earmarked. States and AAAs may use the funds to provide any and all of the five categories of support services authorized by the NFCSP to relative caregivers.