With funding from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, ACL has awarded a new 5-year cooperative agreement to Generations United (GU). In partnership with five national organizations and an array of subject matter experts, GU will lead the creation of the first National Technical Assistance Center on Grandfamilies and Kinship Families.
Total funding for the 5-year project period is $9,950,000. The five partners include USAging; the National Caucus and Center on Black Aging; the National Indian Child Welfare Association; ZERO TO THREE; and Child Trends.
The goal of the project is to measurably increase the capacity and effectiveness of states, territories, tribes/tribal organizations, nonprofits and other community-based organizations to serve and support families in which grandparents and other relatives are raising children of family members. Specifically, the NTAC will provide:
- Universal/general technical assistance, such as regional meetings, a new website, toolkits and other materials, a peer learning collaborative listserv, webinars, videos, and podcasts;
- Targeted/specialized technical assistance provided by subject matter experts in response to requests from agencies, organizations and individual caregivers; and
- Intensive/sustained technical assistance to develop and document replicable models of collaboratively working across jurisdictions to break down silos and holistically support grandfamilies and kinship families.
The development of the NTAC directly aligns with the mission of the ACL’s Advisory Council to Support Grandparents Raising Grandchildren (SGRG council). The SGRG council’s mission “is to identify, promote, coordinate, and disseminate information, resources, and best practices to help grandparents and older relative caregivers of children meet the health, educational, nutritional, and other needs of the children in their care, while maintaining their own physical, mental, and emotional well-being.”
Many of the activities of the technical assistance center will address recommendations developed by the SGRG council for improving support to grandfamilies and kinship families. These recommendations will be included in the SGRG council’s initial report to Congress, which will be delivered in November. Together with the recommendations of the RAISE Family Caregiving Council, these recommendations will form the foundation for the National Family Caregiving Strategy that will be developed beginning later this year.