Financing Care to Low-Income and Vulnerable Populations - Essay Example

It refers to the full-time parenting of children by individuals related by blood, law, or marriage. In some contexts, it also includes care provided by “members of [a] tribe or clan, godparents, stepparents, or other adults who have a kinship blood with a child” (CWLA 1994), although these caregivers are more widely referred to as “kith”. While gaining increasing contemporary attention in social-policy circles, the practice of rearing a relative’s child is ancient and global. In early Hawaiian cultures, for example, paternal grandparents typically claimed the first-born son, and maternal grandparents the first-born daughter, as their own (Luomala 1987, p. 1-45). In many African nations, kinship care has been widely practiced for decades (Hegar 1999), and in colonial America children who lost their parents to death or incapacity were typically reared by grandparents or other relatives (Trattner 1994, p. 39-49).

Public-policy makers generally appreciate the role of relatives in the lives of children; without their assistance, many children might otherwise be forced into the arms of the state and/or strangers for custody and support. Yet efforts to affirm grandparent’s labors in a no-strings-attached policy environment, where parents are tacitly discouraged from raising their children, may have unwittingly contributed to the development of social trends in family patterns and unregulated care for children that is less than ideal. Instead, acknowledgment of the role grandparents plays in the lives of children can be balanced by a combination of social recognition, financial support, and modest bureaucratic regulation. The more generous financial support, and the fewer obligations attached to the funding, the greater the concern that such assistance may create opportunities for and pressures on parents to move children into more economically stable environments in the homes of relatives. Further, the care that is provided at public request can assuredly be variable in quality if it operates entirely outside of basic standards and regulatory controls. The case of foster care is instructive in this regard. Although kinship foster care grew at an unprecedented rate prior to 1997, with the introduction of basic licensing requirements growth in kinship foster care leveled, and relatives offering low-quality care were screened out of the system.

Public policies that support parents and extended family members in caring for children should be encouraged, but they should be introduced primarily to promote parents in their efforts to exercise their duties toward their children. Relatives, a critical safety net for children’s care and protection, can play an important role in children’s upbringing, but public policy should guard against their supplanting the role of parents, particularly with the tacit support of the welfare state. Medicaid pays for health care services for low-income children with and without disabilities and is the major source of federal funds for medical services for special needs children.