Summarizes the potential sources of financial assistance for grandparents and other relatives raising children. Relative caregivers, social service professionals, and child advocates get basic information about: (1) Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), which offers both child-only and family grants; (2) foster care payments available through the child welfare system; (3) adoption assistance payments, which can include federal subsidies for very poor children with special needs; (4) subsidized guardianship, which provides for financial assistance to relative caregivers who have obtained legal guardianship of children who have been in the foster care system; (5) child support payments, which typically are available to custodial parents, but which relative caregivers can obtain to support the children in their care; (6) Social Security benefits, available under either the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program or Old-Age Survivors and Disability Insurance (OASDI); and (7) tax credits such as the Earned Income Tax Credit, the Child Tax Credit, and the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit. Better collaboration among social service agencies, especially TANF and child welfare agencies, is necessary in order to facilitate a seamless approach to serving kinship care families.
