The Idaho KinCare Coalition is a group of organizations with
statewide affiliations and individuals who are interested in the issues
of informal kincare providers in Idaho. Kincare providers are
those grandparents and other relatives who are parenting children that
are not their own, due to the absence of the parents temporarily,
intermittently and sometimes permanently. Informal kincare
providers are those relative parents who are trying to accomplish the
role of parenting outside of the formal system of the Idaho Department
of Health and Welfare's Bureau of Children and Family Services.
The mission of Idaho's KinCare
Coalition is: To promote social and legislative change through
education and advocacy, and to provide the social supports needed by
grandparents and other relatives raising the children in their
care. The Idaho KinCare Coalition was formed in 2001 by the Idaho
Commission on Aging to help create a grant proposal to the Brookdale
Foundation to further efforts in Idaho to support informal kincare
providers. The Idaho Commission on Aging received the two year
grant and has been cultivating a network of support groups across the
state, informing the public of the issues of kincare providers and the
children in their care, learning the barriers to being an informal
kincare provider in Idaho and bringing those barriers to the attention
of the systems which kincare providers encounter.
Members:
AARP Idaho
Idaho Commission on Aging
Area Agencies on Aging
Families First and Parent Information and Resource
Centers
Grandparents as Parents Support Groups Statewide
Idaho Department of Health and Welfare - Children
and Family Services
Idaho Education Association
Idaho Headstart Association
Idaho State Bar Association
University of Idaho Extension
US Representative Mike Simpson's Office
US Senator Larry Craig's Office
Fourth District Probate Court Guardianship
Monitoring Program
Tina Rice, Senior
Services Program Specialist, can be contacted at ICOA, (208) 334-3833, or
by email at trice@aging.idaho.gov
for more information about Grandparents As Parents.
Statistics
provided by the Idaho Kincare Coalition.
