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Changing Needs in Appalachia
Changing Needs in Appalachia Drive CAP’s Programming
BY KIM KOBERSMITH AND TINA V. BRYSON
In many ways, Kathy Parsons of Rockcastle County, Kentucky is a typical parent to 3-year-old Dillon and 10-year-old Maddie. She helps them with homework, makes sure they are safe and warm with a roof over their heads, and prepares nutritious meals for them to eat. Kathy is also one of the rising number of grandparents across the United States that are parenting their grandchildren.
This national trend is having a profound impact in Christian Appalachian Project’s (CAP) service area. Kentucky has the fifth highest state-wide percentage of grandparents raising grandchildren.
“All our human service programs have seen a notable increase in the number of non-traditional families that we serve,” said Mike Loiacono, the director of human services in Rockcastle, Jackson, and McCreary Counties. During his time as manager at CAP’s Child and Family Development Center in McCreary County, Loiacono said that up to 70 percent of the preschoolers each year lived in non-traditional families, most frequently with grandparents.
While there are many reasons why children are not living with their parents, like military deployment and incarceration, for some, it is a ripple effect of the opioid epidemic. That is the case for Parsons’s grandchildren. Parsons brought them home after birth and is the only mom they have known.
“I honestly don’t know what who will soon have to address the needs of a pre-teen going through puberty and a preschooler, both whom have special needs. She and her husband had their own farm and raised show horses, but after his death, it became more challenging for her to maintain her farm and keep up repairs on her home. Having to start over while raising two young children made her tenuous situation untenable. “It’s not just financially stressful, but emotionally stressful too. But these children didn’t ask to be in this situation.”
Although this rising population of grandparents is putting forth a heroic effort of love, they also continue to have unique struggles. CAP staff on the ground are meeting the needs of the surging population of non-traditional families in the region in several different areas.
Parsons’s introduction to CAP was through the Family Advocacy Emergency Assistance Program, which helps families in a monetary crisis. The roof of her 1970s home was leaking badly, and she did not have the funds to fix it. CAP put on a new roof and helped her obtain a new air conditioner. There is still more work that needs to be done. CAP staff have assessed her need for new windows, a door that fits snugly, and basement work to eliminate black mold, and are developing plans to address these needs. Parsons fears that the black mold will eventually make them sick and she also needs an assessible ramp because problems with her knees and back make using steps difficult.
Through another initiative, the Family Advocacy Program provided a school readiness backpack full of supplies for fifth-grader Maddie. “The school supplies really made a difference. It helped me financially of course, but it was more than that,” Parsons said. “Maddie just sat down and looked through it all. You could see the excitement in her eyes. She knows that sometimes it’s a struggle to even get what we need, not to mention what we want. This gave her both.”
There are other CAP programs that grandparents like Parsons can utilize. Through the Parents Are Teachers Program, dedicated staff work with children from birth to age 3 visit homes to address learning delays and teach caregivers skills to work with the child. CAP’s Child and Family Development Centers provide a nurturing, stimulating preschool environment for kids ages 3 and 4. CAP’s preschool students get a boost for starting school; CAP’s outcome data shows that 58 percent of our preschool graduates are kindergarten-ready, versus 41 percent of the general population in McCreary and Rockcastle Counties.
Children can be deeply affected by the absence of their parents, and CAP’s Family Life Counseling Service provides mental health and relationship support for the entire family, children, and caregivers. In their parenting classes, grandparents receive validation and support as they learn research-based skills and ideas for child-rearing.
CAP’s summer camps can also be a blessing, providing a week of recreation and positive activities for the children and a respite week for caregivers; Parsons hopes Maddie can go this summer. Through the afterschool component, tutors help kids with their homework and aid grandparents by offering the attention and positive input of other caring adults. “I have health issues myself,” Parsons said. “Parenting takes a lot of energy I have to muster up somewhere.”
Appalachians come from strong, well-connected family units and the children are often given to the grandparents without a legal mandate, as was the case with Maddie when Parsons first brought her home. Already living on a fixed income, without the financial support of the foster care program, and in one of the poorest counties in the nation, these families face a precarious financial situation. Nationally, almost 20 percent of grandparents serving as parents live in poverty, according to the American Association of Retired Persons.
“Maddie is getting ready to go to middle school. There are all kinds of expenses like school pictures, yearbooks, and even the Book Fair,” Parsons noted. “You hate not to get them something and sometimes I just don’t have the money to give and she is embarrassed. I have to explain that I can only give her a certain amount if anything,” said Parsons. Those extras become impossibilities when unexpected expenses like car repairs come into play. Parsons, whose car recently broke down, explained, “I have to be able to get them to out-ofstate doctor visits, as well as regular visits to specialists and therapists. Mentally, it’s a lot on me.”
CAP is enfolding these grandfamilies into our community of care and have identified the need for specific programming for older caregivers. “We are actively looking, trying to identify the needs these grandparents have that are not being met by anyone else in the community,” Loiacono said. While Parsons has some support from women in her family, she has experienced how the greater community can rally around her through CAP and welcomes programming aimed at supporting grandparents.
For grandparents like Parsons and other seniors in the community, the many services of CAP are helping to transform a difficult life situation into one of promise. Christian Appalachian Project is on the ground, learning from and adapting to meet the emerging needs of the people we serve in the Appalachian region. “CAP really is here to help all they can,” Parsons stated. “I honestly don’t know what I would do without these services. I am thankful that God has put people in the world that help people like me in difficult situations. It’s a Godsend.”
--KATHY PARSONS
