Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #109471

Dionne Henderson, BS¹, Carla Clasen, RN/MPH¹, and Kate Cauley, PhD². (1) Center for Healthy Communities, Wright State University, 140 E. Monument Ave., Dayton, OH 45402, 937-775-1116, dionne.henderson@wright.edu, (2) Center for Healthy Communities/Wright State University, 140 E. Monument Ave., Dayton, OH 45402

On July 20, 2004, the Grandparent Caregiver Law went into effect in Ohio. This bill allows grandparents who are the sole caregivers of their grandchildren to obtain either a Power of Attorney (with the consent of the parents) or a Caregiver Authorization (when the parents are unavailable), enabling them to enroll the child in school and consent to medical treatment. While there was significant opposition to the bill from the judicial and school communities, these concerns were addressed sufficiently in revisions of the bill to allow passage by the Ohio General Assembly. In Montgomery County the Kinship Care Coalition, a community-wide coalition, convened a task force to increase public awareness of the law, establish protocols and procedures for filing for power of attorney or caregiver authorization, and monitor the implementation of the law. The task force includes members from the juvenile courts, the local children's services board, the health district, Legal Aid, and several public school districts. This presentation will give a brief history of the Kinship Care Coalition and its involvement with advocating for the law, detail the process and results of the Task Force's work, and describe what has happened in the more than one year that the law has been in effect. Factors with significant impact on success will be reviewed, including the roles of the Kinship Navigators, the community wide coalition, and the focused task force.

Learning Objectives:

• 1. List the factors leading to the Ohio Grandparent Caregiver Law as well as the concerns it raised.
• 2. Describe the steps taken in Montgomery Co. to ensure smooth implementation of the law.
• 3. Discuss the results of the law one year after implementation and identify lessons learned.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.

Recorded presentation