Grandparents Raising Grandchildren 

Throughout the ages, grandparents have raised their grandchildren – for much the same reasons as today: the mother was unmarried, the parents were dead, incapacitated by ill health, incapable or absent. However, Australia, like most developed countries is now experiencing a rapid rise in the number of grandparents raising their grandchildren. The increase is mainly due to the effects of illicit drug use by the parents of the grandchildren, particularly the mother. Children of parents with substance abuse problems make up the largest group of children entering the child welfare system. [Barth, cited in Patton 1. 2003 P.9]

3.1 ABS Data

No one knows how many grandparents are raising grandchildren in Australia today. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) 2001 Census of Population and Housing has a category of "Other not classifiable household", numbering over 112,000 children, which may include children living with their grandparents. (This category also includes other households, such as where the census collector could not make contact or where there was insufficient information on the form.) According to unpublished ABS data, the Family Characteristic Survey in 1997 found that there were around 12,000 children aged 0 – 14 who were living with their grandparents but not their parents. [ABS 1997 Family Characteristics Survey] This is likely to be an underestimate because of the indirect way in which the information was collected. In its June 2003 Family Characteristics Survey, the ABS included specific questions about each child and its relationship to the male and female parent, guardian or primary carer in the household, with 'grandchild' being one of the categories. This data will be available in March 2004.

Each State and Territory has its own legislation, policies and practices in relation to child protection, so that there are differences between jurisdictions in the data provided. Therefore comparisons and aggregations are not always reliable. Consolidated national child protection data, Child Protection Australia 2001-02 published by Australian Institute of Health and Welfare indicate that there were 18,880 children aged 0 to 17 years in formal out of home care at 30 June 2002. [AIHW] Of these, 7,439 were placed with relatives or kin, mainly grandparents. However this data does not include children for whom there is no care and protection order even if they were the subject of a notification. Nor does it include the large number of children living apart from their parents because of Family Court orders or by informal agreement with the parents and / or child protection authorities, as is the case for many grandchildren being raised by the grandparents who participated in this project.

3.2 The International situation

According to the American Census 2000 Supplementary Survey, the number of children being raised by grandparents in the USA has increased by 78% over the past decade. Between 2.3 and 2.4 million grandparents have primary responsibility for the care and upbringing of 4.5 million grandchildren. [Hayslip & Patrick 2003 P.xi] Most developed countries are experiencing this trend. In the UK, for example, authorities do not know the total number of children being brought up by a relative or friends, however information from the British Social Attitudes Survey for 2001 and 1988 suggests that there are around 100,000 children under the age of 13 living with a grandparent. [Richards & Tapsfield 2003 P.5]

Overseas literature also shows that grandparents in developed countries such as New Zealand, the United States of America, European countries and the United Kingdom are facing the same financial, legal and personal issues reported by Australian grandparents. Despite differences in the social security, education and health systems the similarities between the experiences of grandparents are striking.

In all of these countries the situation is that grandparents struggle with financial and legal issues; they are often not eligible for the payments and support services available to others who provide formal out of home care to children not their own; and their legal rights are often ambiguous and difficult to enforce. The literature indicates that in the US and UK, for example, financial benefits and support services are variable and are usually determined by whether the grandchildren are in the formal child protection systems.

Grandparents in those countries report that the best support they get is from other grandparents in support groups and from staff in the professional agencies that sponsor them. The issues outlined in research in other countries, such as the impacts on the health and well being of both grandparents and grandchildren and the types of support groups and services that are most beneficial to them, have been echoed in all the responses from grandparents in this project. [Richards & Tapsfield 2003; Hayslip & Patrick 2003]

3.3 The ways children come into grandparents' care

3.3.1 Breakdown in parental care

The grandparents may have been concerned for some time about what was happening because of the parents' drug or alcohol addiction, or they may have been aware of problems resulting from the parent's mental or physical illness or intellectual disability. They may have been supporting the family financially and practically, for example caring for the grandchildren intermittently and for extended periods. The parent, usually the mother of the grandchildren (and often their own adult child) may have died and the father may be unavailable or unable to take them. Alternatively, the grandparents may not have known anything was wrong until contacted by police or child protection authorities, often late at night or over the weekend.

3.3.2 Arrangements for care

For all the stories told by grandparents, there are broadly three arrangements by which the grandchildren come into and remain in their care: under Commonwealth Family Law, State child protection legislation or by informal arrangement.

The three types of arrangement:

• Commonwealth Family Law: parenting orders resulting from a hearing before the Family Court or Federal Magistrates Court. These include residency, contact, special issues like schooling or medical treatment, and child maintenance orders, which may be sought by the parents, child or anyone else concerned with the welfare of the child, such as grandparents. Family Court orders determine who has responsibility for decisions relating to the child. When grandparents take legal action to obtain the order it may or may not be contested by the parents.
  
  Support for grandparents raising grandchildren in these circumstances is limited to Family Tax Benefits and any other means tested pension or benefit they may be eligible for through Centrelink and Child Support Payments if such apply.

• State legislation: designed for the protection of children and young people – on application from the child protection authorities, the Children's Court (however styled in each State) may make a range of protective orders to provide a legally sanctioned mandate for child protection services to work with the family. This may lead to the children being placed in out of home care, which includes kinship care with grandparents and other relatives, foster care or residential care. The State authorities retain legal responsibility for decisions relating to the children. In these circumstances, as carers, the grandparents receive non-taxable, non-means tested payments from the State Government towards the cost of raising the grandchildren, as well as support services as assessed necessary by the child protection authority.
  
  Child protection legislation and the range of allowances and support services may vary from State to State, however the issues that grandparents have in relation to the State child protection systems are consistent across Australia.

• Informal Arrangements: which may or may not have the agreement of the parents, and may or may not be with the involvement of the State child protection authorities. In these situations, the parents may not be coping with the children and have asked the grandparents to care for them temporarily; the grandparents may have been concerned for the children's welfare and, not receiving any support from the child protection authorities, may have taken the children with or without the parents' formal agreement; or the child protection authorities may have asked the grandparents to take the children, often in an emergency and have then withdrawn because the children are safe with the grandparents and they have no protective concerns.
  
  With such informal arrangements, the grandparents can go to the Family Court to obtain an order to formalise them, however they are often loathe to antagonize the parents, or cannot afford the cost of legal action, even if uncontested, or they may fear that they will be judged unsuitable to be raising their grandchildren.