NTAC for Kinship and Grandfamilies helps states, Tribes/Tribal organizations, and community-based organizations serve and support kinship and grandfamilies who are raising children when parents cannot - Generations United – with a steering committee of the nation’s leading experts on kinship and grandfamilies, including caregivers – will leverage five years of experience building and running the National Technical Assistance Center to expand its impact. “Grandfamilies” and “kinship families” refer to families in which grandparents, other adult family members, or close family friends are raising children whose parents are unable to do so. While many of the caregivers in these families do not see themselves in the terms “caregiver,” “kinship,” or “grandfamily,” they are doing the important job of raising 2.5 million children in the U.S. whose parents cannot do so due to substance use, incarceration, military deployment, severe disability, or death. Our work will focus on achieving the goal of measurably increasing the capacity and effectiveness of states, territories, Tribes/Tribal organizations, and community-based organizations to serve and support kinship families. Our objectives are to achieve: 1) measurable, sustained increases in the scaling of evidence-based, evidence-informed, and exemplary (EB/EI/E) programs and practices; 2) measurable, sustained increases in the replication of evidence-informed state, Tribal, and county models of cross-system collaboration; and 3) measurable improvements in the ability of kinship families to access supports and services. The overall approach is centered on scaling EB/EI/E programs, practices, and models by connecting professionals with proven solutions and expert guidance; packaging webinars, office hours, learning cohorts, and written tools by topic to help agencies with replication; and delivering in-depth assistance to bring cross-system collaboration models to more states, Tribes, and counties. The outcomes of this approach will be increases in the capability of states, territories, Tribes/Tribal agencies, and community-based organizations to serve and support kinship families; increases in actual coordination among service systems to improve supports for kinship families; and increases in kinship families’ ability access to needed supports and services, thereby increasing their quality of life. The project’s widely disseminated products will include recorded webinars, monthly e-newsletters, and practical plug-and-play tools, such as training templates, awareness-raising materials, and forms for caregiver intake and other activities. All of these will be hosted in the expansive Resource Library on www.GKSNetwork.org. The anticipated project duration is September 30, 2026-September 29, 2029.
