Over the past year the number of Kentucky children living in households headed by grandparents and/or relatives has increased to 97,000, according to the AARP Foundation.  Of those combined numbers, more than 35,000 children have no parent present in the home where they live.  The underlying cause for this includes drug use by parents, imprisonment, illness or death of the parent.  To address this issue, the Central Kentucky Grandparent Raising Relatives Coalition comprised of Fayette Co. Extension, Lex. Urban Co. Gov., Fayette Co. Schools, BG ADD District, and the Lexington Bar Association plans and implements programming to aid this population.   This includes 10 conference workshops and five monthly support group meetings throughout the year that reaches 400+ relatives from 22 counties.  Family practice attorneys and Benefits representatives provided 108 hours of free counseling valued at over $10,000.  Community agency support equaled $4,600.  The 17^th GAP Conference focused on child trauma, electronic addiction, the adoption process, sexual exploitation, substance abuse resources; higher education costs; discipline; and advocacy.  Agent input includes program planning, marketing, registration and evaluation, a support group facilitator, SNAP-Ed nutrition education and collaborates with other family-service organizations to provide seamless support.  Conference demographics: 20-59 years-37%; female-85%, white-86%, African American-10%, American Indian-2%, Hispanic-1%; Grandparent-78%, Great-Grandparent-6%, Aunt/uncle-6% and other-9%; Children ages range from 7 months-18 years; Divorced, widowed or single-38%; Employed full-time-33%, unemployed-11%, retired-43%.  FCS Extension conducts a monthly evening community support group in conjunction with SNAP Ed for this population. A UK FCS specialist was the Understanding & Disciplining Your Child presenter.

Impact from post surveys (80% return):   86% significantly increased knowledge in the following areas: Trauma/Cultivating Healthy Relationships with Children-59%;  Navigating the Legal Process-59%; Helping the Electronically Addicted Brain-63%; Online Sexual Exploitation-37%; Needle Exchange & Naloxone-25%; Understanding and Disciplining Your Child-77%; Resources Available to Pay for College-29%; Advocating for Relative Caregivers-53%.  Actions taken as a result of this programming: ““Became encouraged to adopt my granddaughters!”; “Got our financial and life papers in order”; “Informed as to how to contact Senator for Bill 1, Kinship Care vs K-Tap”; “Received SS benefits for adopted grandchildren”; “Informed others about the new method of making, hiding and distributing marijuana”; “Worked with counselor, got ADHD assessment.  Worked close with school/school counselor”; “Much better at setting limits and talking with granddaughter”; “Used information from tax attorney to reduce federal tax”; and “The support group meetings made me realize I am not alone and what an impact this has on grandparents.”