MCG Kinship Care Program helps non-parent caregivers
By Jennifer Hilliard

Helen Cavitt, with her adopted children Avis (from left), Jamaul and Riccardo.

Helen Cavitt still remembers the phone call.

It came at midnight, Oct. 9, 2003. Her troubled niece asked a life-changing question.

"She told me she'd been put out on the streets, that she had nowhere to live," says Mrs. Cavitt, of Lincolnton, Ga. "She'd been in and out of shelters and didn't want her three kids to be living in places like that. She asked if I'd take them."

Not wanting to separate the children, Mrs. Cavitt agreed to take them in until her niece could get back on her feet and find a job and a place to live.

That still hasn't happened.

For nearly four years, Mrs. Cavitt has been the primary caregiver for 7-year-old Jamaul, 9-year-old Avis and 11-year-old Riccardo. She adopted them in 2004, nearly a year after their mother left them in her care and disappeared.

"Their fathers also have problems. One has been in jail for sexual abuse. The other is into drugs," she says. "I took them in not knowing what I could do and adopted them because I knew they didn't belong with their fathers. We've made it work."

But at age 60, Mrs. Cavitt faces challenges raising young children again. There are questions she doesn't know she should ask, services she doesn't know exist. Her biggest problem, she says, is finding time to care for herself.

Enter Mike Patton.

Mr. Patton, an MCG School of Nursing social worker, works with the school's Kinship Care Program. Funded by a $50,000 grant from the CSRA Area Agency on Aging, the program serves 14 counties in Georgia by supporting those who care for children in parent-absent homes.

"Mike took the kids last summer and put them in camp during the day," Mrs. Cavitt says. "That gave me some peace of mind because I knew where they were every day and I had a chance to get some rest."

The Kinship Care Program serves caregivers in Burke, Columbia, Glascock, Hancock, Jefferson, Jenkins, Lincoln, McDuffie, Richmond, Screven, Taliaferro, Warren, Washington and Wilkes counties.

Residents receive hands-on services and telephone referrals for issues including health care, housing, food banks and education.

"People can call to ask questions and make sure that they're getting the aid that they qualify for," Mr. Patton says. "We want to make sure that people are knowledgeable about what their rights are and what their children's rights are."

According to the 2001 U.S. Census, more than 2.5 million grandparents are raising their grandchildren in parent-absent homes.

"Interestingly enough, grandparents and other relatives often think that they're the only ones who are doing this," says Judith Salzer, an associate professor of nursing at MCG and director of the program. "Our services help them get to know others and network with other people who are in the same situation."

For more information on the program and available services, call Mr. Patton at 706-721-6227.

(Reprinted with permission of The Beeper, a weekly publication of the Medical College of Georgia).