There's good news for certain caregivers in Kentucky.

The Kentucky Kinship Resource Center has expanded its services to caregivers of all backgrounds, guardians, foster parents and people just looking after the child of a family member or friend.

We'll have full access to the center's services.

A kinship guardian is defined as a caregiver who is either a relative caregiver or a fictive kin caregiver.

These are folks who have stepped up to help take care of their relative children.

You know, kids, the kids that they're related to, like grandchildren, nieces, nephews, cousins, siblings.

And it also includes families that are taking care of kids they're not related to, but they really care a lot about.

And that often looks like coaches and babysitters and teachers and just people who have a special relationship to kids and want to take care of them.

We had a traumatic event in our family and I had to retain custody of my granddaughter.

They referred me to Kentucky cans.

They said that would be great.

I was a nervous wreck because I am used to having a support ring ongoing.

We have three different programs and they're all designed to meet a need.

With our weekends program, it's to provide a very individualized one on one service so that, you know, for her kinship families who who come into this situation, oftentimes in a crisis situation, they're not planning or expecting to have to do this, but they step up to do it because it's their it's their kids.

It's their family.

We made a decision in collaboration with the Cabinet that we would expand these programs to be able to offer these services to foster parents, kinship foster parents, so that they could get that same sort of sort of support and navigation and, you know, community with other people who are still doing and walking that kinship journey.

And so this that this has been truly very exciting that we can be able to now through the KRC service any type of kinship family, you know whether they are foster whether they have custody or whether they are just taking care of a child with without any type of of legal, legally recognized authority.

Guardianship or custody.

I had a weekly phone call every week from my peer support.

She would call me every week, make sure I was okay, save money, anything was on any resources that I need to talk.

She connected me with She helped me get a child care set up for my granddaughter.

She gave me that resource.

And that was just so helpful that when you feel like you're drowning and you have a resource and they're like, Hey, I'm not drowning no more.

There's really a support here that can really get me through this.

Kentucky is one of the one of the one of the states in the country that has some of the highest population of kinship families.

And so, you know, ever since we launched these programs in 2021, we've recognized that there's a strong need here in this state.

And since we've been working in this and with these families and we've been providing these support services, we've certainly seen the need that is out there now with the expansion to include foster parents.

I think that we will be able to see even more inclusion of kinship families to be able to work with.

I was scared of this when I first started because I had no most important.

They'll get you through a traumatic event and you're going to be okay.

They make you feel and they let you know you're going to be okay in the end.

Earlier this year, the Kentucky legislature passed Senate Bill 151, which among other things, would prioritize placing children removed from their parents custody under kinship care.

However, the bill has not yet been implemented.

The Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services says doing so will require more funding from the state.