A new way to support grandparents raising children affected by the addiction epidemic

Screams of happiness and laughter fill the cafeteria at Locust Grove Baptist Church in New Market, Alabama, a small town outside of Huntsville in the northern part of the state.

While grandparents eat dinner, their grandchildren chase each other around the tables.

They are called “grandmothers”. Everyone knows each other here.

It’s the quarterly meeting of a group called Parents as Parents, a time when the kids can gather and catch up over spaghetti, Caesar salad and homemade chocolate mud pie.

But underneath all the cheerful camaraderie are difficult stories. These personal stories and traumas come out casually, as they can in conversations between people with shared experiences.

“My daughter is addicted to drugs,” explains Donna Standridge.

She is sitting at a table with her husband, Jeff. Between bites, he is watching over one of his grandchildren. He is desperate for her attention, hanging on to her arm, crying”Mawmaw! Mawmaw! Mawmaw!” while trying to eat and talk.

Standridge is 55, Jeff is 66. Rather than retire or travel, they are raising four grandchildren (ages 11, 7, 5 and 3) in nearby Jefferson County.

“Opioids is where it all started,” Standridge says of her daughter’s struggles. In a story that echoes so many others, Standridge says her daughter’s opioid use disorder began with prescription painkillers, before moving to heroin and eventually fentanyl.

Standridge says her daughter loves her children and has had periods of sobriety. At times, he has been in treatment and made progress. Other times, he has used again. The back and forth, Standridge says, is hard on the kids. That’s why she and her husband stepped in to take care of them.

“Because of the addiction and being in active addiction, relapses and all that when she was clean, it wasn’t a healthy environment for them.”

Drew Hawkins / Gulf States Newsroom

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Gulf States newsroom

Parental addiction is driving new ‘families’

There was another reason why these grandmothers had gathered at the church on August 22 besides support and community. The Standridges and about 15 other families were here to learn about a new pilot program just passed by the state legislature.

Alabama has received nearly $100 million from legal settlements with opioid manufacturers and distributors such as Cardinal Health and McKesson and pharmacies such as CVS and Walgreens.

In January, the Alabama Department of Mental Health appropriated $280,000 for grandparents like these, thrust into a new phase of parenting because of their children’s struggles with opioid use disorder.

The new pilot will be jointly managed by the Alabama Department of Mental Health (ADMH) and the Alabama Department of Senior Services (ADSS).

More than 2.5 million children in the US are raised by grandmothers (grandparents, aunts, uncles and other extended family members) when their parents are unable to care for them, according to the 2022 State of Grandmothers report from Generations United, a national advocacy group.

Parental substance use, particularly the rise of opioids, is a key factor behind this trend, with other family members stepping in to prevent children from entering foster care.

In Alabama, 48% of foster care entries cite parental substance use as the reason children enter the system.

However, grandmothers in this church often struggle without the formal support systems available to foster families.

Funds for the new pilot program come from opioid settlement funds the state has received so far. Advocates say the estimated $1,000-$2,000 per family isn’t enough to cover the costs of raising one child, let alone multiple children, but it’s a good first step.

Drew Hawkins / Gulf State Newsroom

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Gulf State newsroom

Other states may follow Alabama’s experiment

Payments are expected this fall, for grandmothers in three counties: Madison, Coffee and Escambia, in the northern, middle and southern parts of the state, respectively.

For church grandparents, any support would be helpful. Standridge reflects that people often focus on drug users when they think about the opioid epidemic. But it is their families, especially the children, who have to live with the impacts, and also those who need support.

“We’re the silent victims, if you will,” he says.

In Alabama, Alabama grandmothers do not have access to certain welfare programs, such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). This new program is supposed to help alleviate that.

Unfortunately, Standridge learned later that night, during the presentation, that his family would not qualify for pilot payments this year, because they do not live in any of the three pilot counties.

Still, Keith Lowhorne, the founder of Avis as Parents, is excited for the families who will receive it.

“This is like a dream come true. You have grandparents who are suffering,” says Lowhorne.

According to him, this is the first time that opioid settlement funds will go to grandparents or family caregivers over the age of 55 who are raising their grandchildren because of opioids.

“Alabama is not known for being first at anything,” says Lowhorne. “As far as we know, and from what everyone has told us, this is a first for the country. We’re very proud of that.”

According to Lowhorne, other states, such as Nevada, will soon follow suit to use the settlement money to help grandmothers. He has been contacted by organizations such as Foster Kinship, a statewide support program in Nevada.

Using opioid settlement funds in this way is essential to placing children with family members, rather than entering the foster care system, according to Ali Caliendo, founder and director of Foster Kinship of snowfall

“Each state should allocate a portion of its settlement money to families raising children who are victims,” ​​Caliendo says.

Raising grandchildren later in life, on limited income

These grandparents have stepped up, doing the work of raising children, despite their limited resources, Caliendo says. It is true that they are motivated by love, but love is not always enough to support young children.

“Love doesn’t buy groceries. Love has no beds. Love does not solve medical problems”, says Caliendo. “So grandparents really need additional financial support to make sure these kids can thrive.”

Lowhorne agrees that grandmothers can face difficult and unique challenges. Many of them live below the poverty line and survive on fixed incomes from pensions, Social Security or disability payments. And as grandparents get older, getting a job can be difficult, or simply not an option for many.

“Some of them live on $1,500 a month,” says Lowhorne. “And that’s not a lot of money these days when you’re trying to take care of a child, possibly a baby.

In addition, Lowhorne knows grandparents who care for premature babies with medical problems, or babies born opioid-dependent because of the mother’s substance use.

Older children also have challenges, Lowhorne adds, including histories of trauma, abuse or neglect.

Three Alabama counties will receive funds

Under the pilot, Madison County, where New Market is located, will receive just over $90,000 for the year.

Families will apply for the money and could receive a one-time payment of $1,000 to $2,000.

Lowhorne admits the payment doesn’t come close to helping with every need, but it still “makes a difference” to these grandmothers.

Grandparents can use the money to buy groceries, pay bills, get dental care, or enroll kids in sports programs to keep them active. Funds can also be used for school supplies or uniforms.

Lowhorne and his wife are raising a granddaughter, and he had just taken her shopping for a school uniform that day.

“Let me tell you, I learned a few things about shopping with a young seven-year-old girl,” she says with a laugh. “But it was fun. We had a good time. He said it was a father-daughter day.”

While the state’s first round of settlement funds is being distributed, Alabama expects hundreds of millions more over the next decade. Lowhorne hopes that Alabama officials will continue to distribute this money to grandmothers and that it will also become a model for other states.

“We want other states to follow because other states are like Alabama,” Lowhorne says. “You have tens of thousands of grandparents who are raising their grandchildren with little to no help. Like in Alabama, they get nothing.”

This story comes from NPR’s health reporting partnership with Gulf States newsroom i KFF Health News.

Copyright 2024 Gulf States Newsroom