Why Data is the Key to Structural Support For Kinship Caregivers

Dr. Jill Bryant's fight for family rights- the inspiration behind her research

SPEAKER_01 0:45

In my son's case, they took him away from his mother and didn't tell us for nine months. Didn't tell any family member, which is illegal. Dr. Jill Bryan shares with us what inspired her to do the research that she's doing. Today we aren't just talking about the heart of kinship care. We're looking at the cold hard data of a system that often treats our children like chattel rather than human beings. Dr. Jill Bryan is here to reveal the systematic black box of CPS and why your personal subjective well-being is the most overlooked asset in the fight for federal funding. Welcome to Grandparents Raising Grandchildren, Nurturing Through Adversity. In this podcast, we will delve deep into the challenges and triumphs of grandparents raising grandchildren. As we navigate the complexities of legal, financial, and emotional support, I invite you to join us on a journey of exploring thoughts, feelings, and beliefs surrounding this growing segment of our society. Drawing from real stories and expert advice, we will explore the nuances of child rearing for children who have experienced trauma and offer valuable resources to guide you through the intricate journey of kinship care. We'll discuss how we can change the course of history by rewriting our grandchildren's future all within a supportive community that understands the unique joys and struggles. This podcast was made especially for you. Welcome to a community where your voice is heard, your experiences are valued, and your journey is honored. I sat across from Dr. Joe Bryant and felt a profound shift in my own understanding of this journey. We often talk about the logistics, the legal fees, the school meetings, the exhaustion, but we rarely talk about the out of sync experience of parenting a second time. This conversation is a call to arms. It's about moving from being a passive safety net to an active data-driven force. Jill has developed a 10-minute survey that gives us the timely real-world data we need to demand that the federal government stops ignoring 2.7 million of us. After you hear Jill's story, you'll understand why your voice is the final piece of the puzzle. Here is Dr. Jill Bryant. Hi, Jill. How are you today? Good. Great. Well, I'm happy to have you on the show. And I think that the work you're doing is wonderful, and I'm so glad we've connected. You've spent 30 years as a counselor, and you are currently a professor of counseling at Walden University in Minnesota. And you are a grandparent raising a grandson. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 4:23

What inspired you to do the research that you're doing now,

Curious about grandparenting experiences

SPEAKER_00 4:25

Jill? It wasn't planned. After adopting our grandson and raising him, I noticed times where I would kind of stop and notice myself and my experience, but not really understand it and not really know is this common, you know? And so I decided to look into the literature and see if I could find any answers there for is this the kind of thing that most people experience? For me, it was particularly the having a parenting experience that I knew I'd had before, but it was different. And there's that out-of-sink experience that we have parenting a second time, not being a primary parent. So that's what I was really curious about when I started. I ended up being curious about a lot of other things where it came to grandparent raising grandchildren research, but that was kind of how it started. And I found that there was research out there, but it wasn't really looking at some of what I consider to be the more interesting or curious or necessary things to examine. So um I decided to start a new research agenda because my past one has been child abuse reporting. So um I got started with that. I had got a grant from the university to do my first study, and I'm going from there. Have a long list of things I want to wanna take a look at.

SPEAKER_01 5:39

That's great. And the reason I have the podcast is for exactly the same reason. I just found that the statistics out there weren't completely accurate. And so you and I and others are working to advocate for basic across the board needs for kinship care. And we're here to discuss that today. Yes. So while many people focus on the difficulties raising grandchildren, I think what we've seen and agree is that our situations are most traumatic at the beginning of our experiences. There just isn't the support. We don't know about how to deal with CPS and judges and bioparents and traumatized children. Let's talk about that. What have you seen? What have you experienced, and and what are your opinions about that?

SPEAKER_00 6:27

I um probably was better prepared for the traumatized child part because I used to do a lot of play therapy and because of my background. And because I I had done research on child abuse reporting, I was fairly, or I thought I was fairly in tune with what goes on with CPS, that kind of stuff. But I found um a much more disappointing and and even in some cases illegal experience. If it weren't for a good attorney that was explaining things to us, you know, as we went along, I don't think I would have gotten that part right on my own ever. So we're fortunate that we found who we found who is willing to tell us the way things really were. What did you find out? And was it state-specific or

Negative experiences with CPS and adoption

SPEAKER_00 7:10

well, my research would suggest it's not state specific because the last study I did, which where I interviewed 10 um grandparents who had adopted, was that probably eight out of the ten had very negative experiences with CPS, threats to take the child back, threats to give the child to um some other family and let them adopt them. You know, they kind of have complete power once they're adjudicated in a ward of the state, and they r really abuse that power. In our case, they took our son away from his mother and didn't tell us for nine months, didn't tell any family member, which is illegal. And I heard stories from other people during our training for to be an adoptive parent of stories in other states close to ours where the same kind of abuses were taking place with the adoptive agencies for that state with the child, like saying, even though the there's family that wanted them, they might say, Well, we might let the Amish adopt them because they need more genetic diversity. Wow. I mean, seriously, the children are treated like chattel, not like children. And that was not something I was prepared to hear. Yeah. Or experience. Yeah. Interesting. And because most people don't know better, um, they can kind of get by with that.

SPEAKER_01 10:04

Right. One of the things I experienced was that we were told that if we didn't get the kids by the next day, if we that they would go into adoption and unless we took them that day. And what we found out later was that because we did that, we didn't have any financial support. I was told later that that probably is because they're overloaded and they want to get the kids out as soon as possible. And when I tried to recontact them, I found that there was nobody there to talk to me. Sorry, that case is closed. We can't talk to you anymore. My the I I can imagine the stories, if that happened to me that and you're speaking about the same thing, then it's probably happening to a lot of people.

SPEAKER_00 10:48

So And it's hard enough anyway, because they're usually when you get a child, there's all the trauma that created the situation that the child needed to be placed in another home. And when it comes to subjective well-being of older adults, what they call a critical event is often correlated with lower subjective well-being. So people are are managing that while they're transitioning to taking care of a child at the same time.

SPEAKER_01 11:14

And they're grieving over whatever's happening to their kids, which is why they have them. I think a lot of people overlook that particular issue. And honestly, I hadn't thought about it until I asked my husband months after we had the kids. I said, What do you think is the most difficult thing that you're having to overcome? Is it financial? Is it social? Is it the loss of retirement? He said, the loss of my child. And and I hadn't even occurred to me because it wasn't, they weren't my biological grandchildren. So using these modern realities that we're discovering and documenting, what do you think we can do to for kinship families to reshape policy and build stronger support networks?

SPEAKER_00 12:08

I what do you mean during, after, before? Is this like all of the above?

SPEAKER_01 12:14

All of the above. If we're building a holistic system as a counselor, what's your overview of what what we could be doing to support kinship families? I mean, there's some obvious ones, but I'd love to hear from a counselor's perspective.

SPEAKER_00 12:31

Well, the grandparents are going to need some some trauma therapy after things settle down.

Researching counselor training for trauma

SPEAKER_00 12:37

Um and and not only that, but I think a lot of people, my person, don't have a lot of background in how to help and what the problems are and what the issues are, which is part of the reason I'm doing the research, is to help counselors and counselor educators teach counselors and training what does this family need. So they're not like learning at the same time they're meeting somebody, just like we would for any other problem. There's really nothing out there for for counselors right now to to know how to help us really during during the trauma, except for what they would have already learned about a child has been abused or their substance abuse in the background, that kind of stuff. But there's nothing specific. That would be something I would like to be able to, by the time I'm close to being done with some of my research, be able to come up with a a model of when you're working with these families, these are their needs, these are the things to do, not to do, the, you know, give them some guidance so they're not just winging it. So kinship care specific counseling.

SPEAKER_01 13:33

Why don't you tell us some of the statistics that you've found so we can corroborate on that? I you know, like I hear 2.7 million, three million grandparents raising grandchildren. What what are some of the statistics?

SPEAKER_00 13:47

That's what I've found is the number isn't really firm anywhere, even with the government. And when it came to specifically those who've adopted, I never found any number anywhere. So no one's keeping track of that. And and is that because a lot of people don't report the fact that I mean, at the very least, the census, you know, could grab that information. Because that's the government information usually comes from the census, the data that I've seen.

SPEAKER_01 14:16

Yeah. And then as far as a system to be put in place acknowledging that kinship care is a significant portion of our population worldwide. Yes. At the very least, nationwide. If we acknowledge that, that's a growing number of our population, and the reasons why, then we can set up systems that support that.

SPEAKER_00 14:37

I mean, the reasons why are pretty set in the literature. So that those are pretty well identified. So if we know these are the reasons typically where kinship care or or grandparents raising grandchildren occurs. And that part we know already. So addressing each of those issues would be structurally something to do on the preventative side. Like child abuse, which would be in my son's case what happened, substance abuse, parents who are incarcerated, parents who are homeless, parents who are too mentally ill and just abandon their child, andor death, suicide.

SPEAKER_01 15:11

Yeah. Well, before before we move into some of the deeper systematic questions and the questions that I'm asking everyone right now for the book research that I'm doing, I want I want to mention the fact that you've put together a survey and you've shared it with me. There's some very basic questions. The survey is called the Subjective Well-being of Grandparents Raising Grandchildren Survey. Yes. And we will provide the link to the listeners. Where can listeners find your updates on the work that you're doing?

SPEAKER_00 15:44

I don't have a website specifically for this yet. Any research that we do, Walden puts it on ScholarWorks so participants can go there to find it after the fact. And the last time I did research, I put it on my office website. So I've got the link there. And when someone participates, I let them know they can they can also search there after the fact to even find out or get a link to the article once it's published, that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 16:11

Great. And you've given me that link, or we'll provide it in the show notes. I want to reiterate

Encouraging survey participation

SPEAKER_01 16:18

to all listeners that are that taking this 10-minute survey is going to help all of those that are advocating for kinship caregivers very timely real-world data, which is not out there. We definitely need to have that information in order to fight for the funding and structural support that all of our families deserve and need. I will be supporting this survey. I encourage everyone listening to share it with others so that we can continue to get the data that we need to share with other influencers like myself to get the support from our local legislature to put these into effect on a government level, not just a state level, on a government level. They are the same nationwide. We need to do everything we can to support the work that Jill and others are doing to help our families. The systematic question I have for you, Jill, is kinship care obviously doesn't happen in a vacuum. And yet we as grandparents are constantly forced to act as a safety net without any structural support. What do you see as the fundamental systematic failure in our current legal infrastructure? Um, that leaves all of us so vulnerable. Why has it not been acknowledged, do you think?

SPEAKER_00 17:45

I'm thinking way back to the beginning. And for me, the child abuse, um not being addressed, or the liberal way in which CPS sometimes allows children to get into really bad situations before they're removed. And the fact that they wait until they're in a really bad situation, and then the grandparents raising the grandchildren have these really traumatized children that they struggled to parent because they have additional problems that the grandparents have no idea how to help them with. And it all stems back to really in my son's case, you know, he he was removed once before and we never knew. And we took him once and then they made us give him back. So it was three times that he got to go back and be abused some more. And so by not admitting this-and so there's there's something not working there, you know, and then that causes the need for the grandparents raising the grandchildren

Problems with child welfare system

SPEAKER_00 18:43

and the other problems that we know exist when grandparents raise grandchildren. So to me, and yes, I that was my research agenda, so I'm probably biased, but it's not the federal child abuse legislation that was created. That's was pretty genius legislation, but it's it's the way it's being implemented by the states that's the problem, in my opinion. And so that's one of the structural things that's that's not right. And then I already mentioned the decision making by CPS, which kind of goes into what to do with the child, but also when when they are removed and when the parent loses their when their parent parent rights are terminated and they go into adoption. Again, there's no one overseeing CPS to decide who they pick. It's all kind of done in a black box. I think we need like community boards or someone to be looking over these people that are making these decisions because they really don't have any motivation to make the right one unless it comes from their own value system.

SPEAKER_01 19:39

That's a very good point. Yeah, very good point. Yes, it does.

SPEAKER_00 19:42

It does just the balance of players because the county attorney, in our case, it was county attorney, GAL, juvenile judge, and then CPS, and all those people were involved, had a lot of power, and the family has very little power. I think when you're thinking about a child's life, the family should have more should the balance should be off because a family member, if my husband wasn't an executive and I wasn't a counseling professor, we wouldn't have our son. We would we wouldn't we had the money and I had the we had the knowledge, and even then it wasn't it was months and months and months and months of hell fighting for him.

SPEAKER_01 20:20

It shouldn't it shouldn't be decided by how much money you have and it shouldn't be decided by how much education you have. That should be No. Yeah, I agree. Great point.

SPEAKER_00 20:29

I mean, I remember our attorney saying it was the perfect storm that that they probably do this to other people, but they hit the wrong buzz saw this side time, and we were you know, we had the judge ruled from the bench we had to appeal to get the right thing to happen and and have the original decision overturned by an appellate court in the state. Yeah, it shouldn't be that difficult. How hard it was. And most people don't have the ability to go through all of that.

SPEAKER_01 20:55

Agreed. Yeah. In your personal experience and with your counseling background, what do you think is the most unspoken or shame-based part of this journey? What's the taboo truth about grandparents raising grandchildren that people are afraid to admit out loud?

SPEAKER_00 21:13

I think I have two. And the first one I've experienced, but a number of the people I interviewed also brought this up on their own, which is the shame of people assuming that you were a bad parent because your adult child lost their child.

SPEAKER_01 21:26

I hear that a lot. I thought those thoughts. We just don't accept that imperfection both in ourselves and in others.

SPEAKER_00 21:34

Well, I remember our attorney telling us that the judge, this judge assumes that if you have a child that it is terminate is terminating their parental rights, she does assume that you were bad parents, and it's your fault that they're this way. And I said to my attorney, I said, has she ever cracked a book? Does she know anything about behavioral genetics? That's very 90s and 60s thinking. We've mapped the genome. We know that's not really how it works. I'm not saying it doesn't, but to just assume if the child has a problem, it must be the parent. It's just so much more complicated than that. You know. My my stepdaughter, she wasn't mine, but her mother died when she was very young. So I raised her her whole life. Yeah. Yeah. So even though she wasn't mine, I still felt very judged. So and I've heard other people say the same thing.

SPEAKER_01 22:28

And I think in general, the situation that we're in and why we're not being supported is because we are using ancient thinking, backward thinking, ancient beliefs.

SPEAKER_00 22:38

I think the other the other thing that came up from my research that I didn't really realize before, so I don't experience it as much as some people, but I do, which is the fact that you can have um disparate thoughts. You can feel resentful and feel like it's the best thing you've ever done. And you know, that that dialectic behavioral thinking that more than one thing can be true at the same time. And that's what I picked up on. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:04

Within the same day, within the same week, many times. I just just finished an interview with a woman who's got her doctorate in sociology, and she's now raising two grandchildren. And she said that the most obvious thing that stands out to her that she did not experience the first time around raising children is that she feels like a failure many times, at the same time feeling lots of joy at being able to help these two grandchildren now. And that's that's not something I experienced either first time around as a mother. You know, I had a very naive way of thinking because first time having children, boy, it's it's a very joyful experience, usually. You know, we do the best we can. We're just a lot more flexible with ourselves. But for some reason,

Challenges for kinship caregivers

SPEAKER_01 23:54

in these situations, of course, we're dealing with so much grief at such a late stage in life, and the trauma really does affect us. And these kids that have been through well, many of them have neonatal experiences with drug addiction. You know, that so they're they're dealing with some complicated behavioral issues, complicated psychological issues, and that's tough. To deal with when you're in your 50s and 60s. Yeah. Well, if you were COO of a country, Joel, and I gave you a magic wand, what is the one single policy regarding CPS custody laws or financial support for kinship caregivers that you would instantly implement?

SPEAKER_00 24:41

I had two. I'm one of those people that can't pick one, but one was the financial support because it doesn't make any sense to me to have a child in need, so much in need that they need to be parented by the grandparents and not have their needs met because they probably have more needs than anybody else their age. Yeah. So shouldn't be paid. I mean, all the way through college, you know. I mean, I had one person I interviewed say and I think they had three or four, and the first one was going to college, and she talked about how they can't co-sign for student loans at their age. Wow. Yeah. Did you ever think about that? Never thought about that. Wow. Yeah. So there's so that would be one, and the other one would be kind of what I've already said about overhauling CPS and the juvenile judges and all of these people to make things it's it's stuck in a way that's been done for a long time and it's just not working for hardly anybody, in my opinion, anymore. And I would I would really overhaul that.

SPEAKER_01 25:44

Great answers, Joel. Well, I I have no more questions for you. Do you have anything that you want to say to the audience before we go?

SPEAKER_00 25:52

No, I just really appreciate their help with with any research I do now or in the future. Sometimes when professors ask for people to fill out surveys, it feels very selfish and one-sided. It's like, I need to publish, so would you please help me? I'm semi-retired. I'm doing this because it's important to me and I plan to do something with the information to support change and so and speak to those people that need to understand. So I hope that when they see something come around that they will consider helping me out as a participant. Great.

SPEAKER_01 26:20

Well, thank you, Jill. It's been a pleasure. Thanks. Dr. Bryant spoke about disparate thoughts, the ability to feel resentment and profound joy in the exact same

Advocating for Grandparent Caregivers

SPEAKER_01 26:30

minute. How much of your current exhaustion is tied to the shame of those thoughts? We are constantly judged by a system that assumes we're bad parents because of our adult children's struggles. But today we reclaim the narrative. I'm asking you to do one thing this week. Visit GrandparentsRaising Grandchildren.org and take the 10-minute subjective well-being survey at the top of our homepage. Your participation isn't just for a research paper, it's the ammunition our advocates need to overall CPS and force judges to see our families as the priority, not an afterthought. Stop being the silent safety net. Be the data that changes the law. Join us next week for episode 129 as we welcome Latif or Lati, as she calls herself, Ghanam. Lati has spent over 15 years advising high-pressure executives in corporate boardrooms on communication and regulation. Today, she is a certified trauma-informed conscious parenting coach whose mission is exactly what it sounds like: a practical map for moving from reactive firefighting to intentional leadership in the home. If your household feels like a constant battleground, you won't want to miss this masterclass in regulation. The mission continues. We're 2.7 million strong, still nurturing and still here. We're breaking the black box, overturning the appellate courts of our own minds, and proving that while the system may be stuck, our resolve is not.