A version of this conversation aired during Morning Edition on WVIA Radio.
According to AARP, 80,000 grandparents throughout Pennsylvania are the primary caregivers for their grandchildren. But grandparents raising grandchildren can face legal and financial hurdles that immediate parents do not.
WVIA’s Lydia McFarlane met some grandparents raising their grandchildren in Wyoming County, where they are trying to get more access to programs and financial support for their families and others like them.
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SARAH: So grandparents all over the state are raising their grandchildren for a myriad of reasons, but you found that the support for these families kind of varies widely from county to county, even in neighboring counties like Wyoming and Luzerne. What are the families in Wyoming County pushing for that could make their lives easier?
LYDIA: So like you said, when it comes to financial support for grandparents going through the legal battles of raising their grandchildren — like trying to adopt their grandchildren or just get custody of their grandchildren for the children's safety — there is support in Luzerne and Lackawanna counties, and those are through varying programs. Like in Luzerne County, it's through an advocacy fund. In Lackawanna County, grandparents who are not able to pay those legal fees are granted a special status through the county court system in order to get those fees waived. But in Wyoming County, nothing like that really exists, so the grandparents are going through those same struggles of wanting to get custody of their grandchildren if they are the primary caregiver, but it is a very expensive process ... and they just don't have the financial support coming from the county to kind of take that burden off their shoulders. And for a lot of the grandparents, it's a necessity to get the custody of the kids to make sure that they're safe with them, but it's something that is a huge financial burden on these Wyoming County grandparents.
SARAH: How did these disparities and assistance come up? This process seems like it should be easy, they're just adopting their own grandchild, but there's all these differences in legal status, right?
LYDIA: Yeah, there really isn't a statewide fund to support these grandparents. There are bills statewide that support grandparents in terms of some sort of custody designations, but when it comes to this legal support, it's just not there in Wyoming County, and it varies county by county. You know, you have representatives like Eddie Day Pashinski, who is trying to get statewide financial support for the grandparents, but it just doesn't exist yet. And the grandparents that I talked to, as well as Wyoming County District Attorney Joe Peters, think that it's kind of just this distinction between rural and more urban counties where, you know, people just don't think that the issue is impacting folks really commonly ... out in rural counties like Wyoming. So the top reason for grandparents raising their grandchildren is drug abuse. A lot of people might not think that drug abuse is as prevalent out in rural counties as it is, like, "Oh, that's just a big city problem," you know, and it's something that's also affecting families in rural counties, and it just doesn't get the legal support because it's kind of overlooked.
SARAH: What are some of the ways that the Grandparents raising Grandchildren group in Wyoming County are trying to fill the gaps and reach out to grandparents in this situation?
LYDIA: So that organization is run by two amazing ladies, Linda Coolbaugh and Nancy Aiello. They intend to meet with the group of grandparents at least once a month, but again, the grandparents have really busy schedules with the children that they're raising. But they really try to just provide a space of community support where they can come and just voice all of their concerns, they could get advice from each other and work through issues together so they feel less alone. But also in that space, they're able to bring up different things that are happening in the community to assist these grandparents. So they aim to provide all of these resources to the grandparents and act sort of as community liaisons, where, you know, the grandparents are running around with their grandkids, taking them to school, taking them to appointments, and, in some cases, in and out of the court system, trying to get custody of the kids. So they might not have time to be looking on Facebook or watching the news and know, hey, there's a toy drive going on this weekend, or there's a food drive, there's a coat drive. So they try to really act as that community liaison and connect the grandparents with the resources that they might not have heard about.
SARAH: So they're working on the county level, trying to get policy change there and also create an environment for these grandparents raising grandchildren to connect. It sounds like the end goal or really, the best result for these grandparents would probably be statewide change, right?
LYDIA: Yeah, absolutely. I think that, you know, realizing that grandparents in different counties have access to different resources was really mind-blowing to me. I think that they've been working to kind of raise awareness for the situation that the grandparents in this rural county are going through, which I'm sure is probably the same throughout the state and other rural counties where grandparents feel they don't have the resources that their counterparts in the bigger cities the bigger counties do have. So their goal really would be to get that statewide support, where it's kind of baseline across the state for all grandparents, and not just, you know, resources that you could get specifically through the county.
SARAH: And it sounds like that's something Eddie Day (Pashinski) is working on.
LYDIA: He is. He has already passed two bills in the past supporting grandparents, and the bill that he is working on passing, hopefully soon, would bring funding for legal fees and actually, any other financial expenses, so not just the legal fees, although legal fees are a big burden on the grandparents. Essentially, this bill would disperse $1.5 million statewide to different nonprofits, and then the grandparents could apply directly to the nonprofits for that funding and appeal for their case, and the nonprofits would be responsible for granting that funding. So that could look like if the grandparents want to take the kids to Knoebels for the weekend ... they could file an appeal and apply for funding for the gas money they're going to spend, or for the tickets and the food and all of that, or, you know, if they have to drive kids down to Danville to doctor's appointments, they can get reimbursed, potentially, for that gas money. So he hopes that it will pass in the next session.
SARAH: I'm sure the Wyoming County group will be watching that closely. Lydia, thank you so much.
LYDIA: Thank you, Sarah. Happy to discuss.
