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Objectives:
This exploratory study examined the context and consequences of custodial grandparenting, along with attitudes and preferences regarding future planning among 22 African-American custodial grandmothers.
Method:
A mixed-method research design was employed. Based on our integration of two theories regarding future planning and health b...
Context in source publication
Similar publications
Dementia family caregivers display significant rates of psychological and physical symptoms. African Americans (AAs) are disproportionately affected by dementia. African American caregivers display unique patterns of symptomology and responses to interventions designed to promote caregiver well-being. This study analyzed qualitative focus group dat...
Citations
... For example, the intervention recruitment information was distributed to different resources including child welfare agencies and organizations, however, all three participants were recruited from a community church. As previous literature suggests, religion or spirituality serves as a protective factors in Black kin caregivers' lives (Crowther et al., 2015;Mouzon, 2017;Stephens, 2020;Woods, 2020). For Black individuals, religious networks plays an important role in providing positive role models and peer groups, which can provide social and emotional support, as well as other resources (Smith, 2003). ...
Black children join kinship care disproportionately and black kin caregivers often face financial, housing, mental health, and parenting challenges when caring for relative children. Few interventions have been developed specifically for kin caregivers, let alone Black kin caregivers. This study evaluated the initial acceptability of an evidence based parenting intervention and worked to culturally adapt it for Black kin caregivers. The intervention was delivered in a family camp format. Feedback from participant interviews were analyzed for this study. Participants felt that overall the intervention was culturally appropriate. However, they also proposed changes to the curriculum, as well as to the process and format of the intervention. This study experienced challenges in terms of participant recruitment and sample size, which was exacerbated by COVID-19-related safety concerns. Future steps regarding recruitment, content, and format are discussed. Implications for child welfare practice, policy, and research are also provided.
... Many children living with custodial grandparents have experienced trauma contributing to complex behavioral issues (Doley et al., 2015). The painful pathways to custodial grandparenting mean that some grandparents are navigating complex relationships with their children (Baker et al., 2008;Crowther et al., 2015;Hayslip et al., 2017;Hayslip & Kaminski, 2005). Therefore, many custodial grandparents are caring for a traumatized child while experiencing their own loss all without access to support, potentially increasing the stress of caregiving. ...
Purpose: This systematic review aims to examine the effectiveness of interventions that seek to improve outcomes of grandchildren raised by grandparents. Method: A systematic review following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines was undertaken. We searched in ERIC, Family Studies Abstracts, PubMed, PsycINFO, Social Work Abstracts, Sociological Abstracts, Web of Science, and Google Scholar. Results indicated that grandchildren who participated in these interventions had improvement in their socio-emotional, mental, and behavioral outcomes but had mixed educational outcomes, regardless of research designs and evaluation methods. Two out of eight studies were of high quality, while the rest needed improved rigor in designs and analyses. Conclusions: The review summarized evidence for interventions to improve grandchildren’s outcomes and pointed out directions for future research and practice.
... Sprang et al. (2015) found that about 72% of children in the care of a grandparent caregiver have previously experienced at least one form of trauma while formerly in the care of their parent(s). The subsequent emotional and behavioral outcomes lead to increases in the stress levels of grandparent caregivers, resulting in a spiral of negative emotions and feelings of being overwhelmed for both youth and grandparents (Crowther et al., 2015;Sprang et al., 2015). ...
... Caregiving responsibilities include increased financial and emotional burden, both of which contribute to additional stress and disengagement (Hillman & Anderson, 2019;Lee et al., 2015;Mendoza et al, 2020). Grandparent caregivers' concerns for the future of their grandchildren and coping with the loss of "what could have been" the alternate path for their lives can make it difficult to enjoy the present moment (Crowther et al., 2015;Hillman & Anderson, 2019). ...
... They also believed that they were being given an opportunity to improve their parenting skills the "second time around" by learning from past mistakes when raising their own children (Lee et al., 2015). Characterizing the caregiving role as challenging, yet rewarding, acknowledges the complexity of the situation while giving grandparent caregivers the opportunity to impart knowledge and act generatively towards the grandchildren in their care (Crowther et al., 2015). ...
Grandparent caregivers experience a complex web of rewards and challenges as the primary source of support for their grandchildren. Consistent with the trend towards a more positive framing of grandparent caregiving, this paper explores the grandparent caregiver experience through a strengths-based approach and makes the case for Seligman's Wellbeing Theory, or PERMA model, being used to support research, programming, and policy. A scoping review of 16 current empirical articles relevant to grandparent caregiver wellbeing revealed the experience of grandparent caregivers aligns well with the five components of Seligman’s PERMA model: positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment. Using this framework with grandparent caregivers, both in theory and in practice, can provide relevant stakeholders with a more comprehensive picture of the needs of this population, enabling them to more effectively support wellbeing for grandparent caregivers and positive developmental outcomes for the growing number of children in their care.
... On the other hand, the fact that kinship foster care family assessments are carried out expeditiously, especially when the child is already in their care following a temporary order, might lead caseworkers to overlook mental health issues in this case. However, considering the tough challenges that kinship foster parents cope with, as well as the high levels of psychological distress they have reported, mental health issues would appear to constitute a major factor to assess, and for all foster caretaker applicants (Bunch et al., 2007;Crowther et al., 2015;Harnett et al., 2014;Poitras et al., 2017). Furthermore, the caseworkers appear to have confounded some of the dimensions. ...
Children in foster care are more likely to exhibit emotional, behavioral, social, and developmental problems. Accordingly, foster families should provide them with a safe family environment that promotes their development. Therefore, to ensure that foster families adequately meet children's needs, it is crucial for youth protection services to properly assess prospective foster family applicants. However, the specific assessment methods are understudied. This study aims to capture the experiences of caseworkers and the challenges they face in assessing and selecting potential foster caregivers, as well as their needs for support to perform the assessments. Focus groups were held in child protection services agencies in the province of Québec (Canada). Three group interviews with a total of 15 caseworkers were transcribed and subjected to content analysis using NVivo 11. The caseworkers identified nine most important dimensions for assessing prospective foster families, notably motivation and engagement. Differences in the assessment process between caseworkers were observed, particularly for the type of foster family assessed. The caseworkers reported certain common needs for assessment training, primarily in interview techniques and the handling of multicultural issues. They also complained of lack of time allocated for clinical support during assessments. The results call for collaborative efforts between researchers and practitioners to provide appropriate training and tools to support the assessment process.
... Many children living with custodial grandparents have experienced trauma contributing to complex behavioral issues (Doley et al., 2015). The painful pathways to custodial grandparenting mean that some grandparents are navigating complex relationships with their children (Baker et al., 2008;Crowther et al., 2015;Hayslip et al., 2017;Hayslip & Kaminski, 2005). Therefore, many custodial grandparents are caring for a traumatized child while experiencing their own loss all without access to support, potentially increasing the stress of caregiving. ...
The prevalence of custodial grandparenting in the United States and other Western countries has increased in the past decade. Custodial grandparents face challenges including navigating painful personal relationships and caring for children with trauma histories. These challenges may be exacerbated for cus-todial grandmothers, particularly African American custodial grandmothers, due to existing racial stereotypes and gendered expectations about parenting. Family therapy is uniquely suited to providing support to custodial grandparents and their families. This scoping review examined the current literature on interventions with custodial grandparents to assess sensitivity to issues related to race and gender. Twelve studies are reviewed, and prominent themes are identified and discussed. Implications for research and clinical practice are discussed.
... Although scholarship extending to the death of a grandparent caregiver is scant, some research has examined the topic, revealing that communicating about and planning for death contributes to stress among these grandchildren (Dolbin-MacNab & Keiley, 2009) and grandparents (Kim, 2015). Other studies have more explicitly addressed planning practices and communication surrounding grandparent caregiver death (Crowther et al., 2015;Peterson, 2018), revealing that most grandparent caregivers had considered custodial arrangements for their grandchildren but often worried about finding alternative caregivers. Subsequently, most had not engaged in legalized advanced-care planning, (i.e., identifying custodial surrogates for grandchildren), although some reported informal communication regarding this subject, typically with family members. ...
Objective
This study focused on grandparent caregivers' communication about death with their grandchildren.
Background
Skipped‐generation grandfamilies have become more common in the United States. However, much research on death communication focuses on traditional parent–child(ren) nuclear families, making it necessary to understand how families with other structures, such as skipped‐generation grandfamilies, address this topic.
Method
This qualitative study applied communication privacy management as a guiding theory and used progressive focusing to collect 30 in‐depth interviews with grandparent caregivers. Interviews were analyzed using thematic analysis.
Results
Three themes and eight subthemes emerged. The first theme centered on grandparent caregivers' motivations for disclosing about death to grandchildren and comprised three subthemes: Exposure to Death and Lifecycle Concepts, Grandchild Curiosity, and Unique Grandparent Caregiver Concerns. The second theme reflected grandparent caregivers' motivations to conceal information about death, which included Age Inappropriateness, Trauma Aversion, and Lack of Utility. The third theme captured grandparent caregivers' perceptions of whether their grandchildren were concerned about caregiver death.
Conclusion
Like traditional parent–child(ren) nuclear families, grandfamilies identify death as an important but challenging topic to discuss. However, the unique characteristics of grandfamilies magnify challenges and complexities of discussing death.
Implications
The findings contribute to communication specialists', social workers', and psychologists' understanding of how grandfamilies manage privacy surrounding death.
... Prior studies indicated that grandparents and biological parents had no significant differences in their attitudes towards parenting (Kaminski, Hayslip, Wilson, & Casto, 2008). However, there are unique challenges for being grandparent kinship caregivers, including modifying their daily routines, their social life and their plans for the future (Crowther, Huang, & Allen, 2015). Thus, being primary caregivers in late adulthood makes grandparents experience more parental stress and psychological distress compared to young parents (Kelley et al., 2000). ...
Background
The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the vulnerability of many families, including grandparent kinship families, to deal with a health/economic crisis. The fear of COVID-19 plus stay-at-home orders have increased individuals’ psychological distress. Moreover, school closures and homeschooling further increased parenting stress among caregivers.
Objectives
This study examined the relationship between material hardship and parenting stress among grandparent kinship providers, and assessed grandparents’ mental health as a potential mediator to this relationship during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States.
Participants and setting
Grandparent kinship providers (N = 362) that took primary care of their grandchildren participated in a cross-sectional survey via Qualtrics Panels in June 2020 in the United States.
Methods
Descriptive and bivariate analyses, binary logistic regression, and mediation analyses were conducted using STATA 15.0.
Results
Suffering material hardship was significantly associated with higher odds of experiencing parenting stress among grandparent kinship providers, and grandparents’ mental health partially mediated this association.
Conclusions
Addressing material and mental health needs among grandparent kinship providers is critical to decreasing their parenting stress.
... workforce (Betancourt, Green, Carrillo, & Ananeh-Firempong, 2003). These and other factors motivate the low rates of African Americans (AAs) engaging in advance care planning and making preparations for future care, such as completing advance directives or discussing end-of-life treatment preferences with potential proxy decision makers (Crowther, Huang, & Allen, 2015;Huang et al., 2016;Melhado & Bushy, 2011). Positive outcomes are associated with engaging in these preventive health behaviors, however, including knowledge of and adherence to one's treatment wishes (Houben, Spruit, Groenen, Wouters M., & Janssen, 2014), lower stress and anxiety for family and loved ones (Detering, Hancock, Reade, & Silvester, 2010), and lower health care costs during the last week of life (Zhang et al., 2009). ...
Background and objectives:
This study describes the adaptation and validation of Sörensen et al. (2017)'s preparation for future care (PFC) scale with diverse samples including rural dwelling African Americans and certified nursing assistants (CNAs), and subsequent psychometric development.
Research design and methods:
Responses to the five-subscale PFC survey from 33 rural African American men across 12 months and cognitive interviews with a subset of 12 of these men are described. Psychometric refinement included descriptive qualitative analyses of consultations with experienced lay research advisors (N = 4 and N = 7) regarding potential changes to the PFC and a confirmatory factor analysis of the resultant scale (N = 138).
Results:
Cognitive interviews with rural African American men revealed difficulty understanding Eurocentric questions. Emergent themes included emotional avoidance of planning, considerations of nursing homes and possible care providers, and coping strategies. In two consultation meetings, trained lay research advisors recommended language modifications to the original questions and response options. Factor analyzing the resultant scale revealed support for the original subscale constructs (acceptable fit: χ2 = 205.03, df = 124, p < .001; root mean square error of approximation = .069 [.052-.085]; comparative fit index = .93; Tucker-Lewis index = .91).
Discussion and implications:
PFC and engagement in advance care planning is uncommon among African Americans, possibly due to distrust of and lack of cultural competency among health care professionals. The resulting tool and response options may be used as an interview guide/survey with African Americans to gain understanding about their preparation for future health care needs.
... Limited frameworks exist that examine future care planning by grandparents raising grandchildren. Similar caregiving research used other frameworks such as the Transtheoretical Model of Change (Crowther et al., 2015), the Peer Support Model (Smith, Majeski, & McClenny, 1996), and the double ABCX model (McCubbin & Patterson, 1982). However, Mason's (1998) framework for engaging in permanency planning with HIV-affected mothers involved in the child welfare system is closely aligned with the experiences of grandparents raising grandchildren. ...
Mason’s framework for permanency planning was used to explore thoughts on future care planning among older grandparents raising adolescent grandchildren. In-depth, qualitative interviews were conducted with a diverse sample of 15 participants recruited from three states. The majority of grandparent caregivers were married grandmothers with some college education. Grandparent caregivers reported experiencing worry and fear. Major themes were (a) a preference for adult sons and daughters as future caregivers, (b) limited future care conversations with adolescent grandchildren, (c) sharing information due to personal health crises and special needs of grandchildren, (d) mixed willingness or commitment responses from potential caregivers, and (e) limited formal legal caregiving arrangements. Older grandparent caregivers can benefit from social workers assisting with complex thoughts and issues linked to future care planning. Implications are discussed for social work practice and research.
... Often grandparents provide custodial care to keep their grandchildren out of foster care (Baker et al., 2008;Hayslip & Kaminski, 2005). Thus, many custodial grandparents are not only raising grandchildren, but are also navigating complex relationships between parents and children (Baker et al., 2008;Crowther, Huang, & Allen, 2015;Hayslip et al., 2017;Hayslip & Kaminski, 2005). ...
... Some appreciate the second chance at parenting (Hayslip & Kaminski, 2005). But in contrast to many noncustodial grandparents, custodial grandparents, and grandmothers in particular, often feel they have to put their lives and plans on hold to raise their grandchildren (Crowther et al., 2015). Thus, custodial grandparenting may result in increased depression, feelings of being overwhelmed, entrapment, and stress (Hayslip et al., 2017). ...
... Notably, Tennessee built Fiddler's Annex, a subsidized housing project that provides a wide array of social programs and supports for custodial grandparents and their grandchildren; but budget cuts have precluded other such ventures (Casper et al., 2016). More streamlined access to welfare programs, foster training, affordable childcare, and respite services, might ease the economic, emotional, and social hardships faced by many custodial grandparents (Baker & Silverstein, 2008a;Crowther et al., 2015;Hayslip et al., 2017). ...
Grandparenting varies enormously in the United States and here we discuss that growing diversity. Relying on exchange and reciprocity, feminist, and political economic theoretical perspectives, we begin by exploring the increasing need for grandchild care and assistance in the United States and the dearth of federal and employer supports for working families. Assessing the impact of sociodemographic trends, notably the rise in single parenting and the increase in employment among grandparents, we assess the intensification of grandparenting. Then we turn to issues related to proximity, examining the pleasures and challenges of coresidential, custodial, long distance, and transnational grandparenting. Finally, we turn to the impact of grandparenting on the emotional, physical, and financial wellbeing of grandparents.
