Navigating Round 2 of parenting: Support for grandparents raising grandchildren

Sep. 14—NAMBé — Robert and Roberta Casta?eda had lived a fairly traditional life. The couple, married for 53 years, had four kids and retired in their 60s.

Their path took a turn, however, about a dozen years ago when they became caregivers for two of their grandchildren, 13-year-old Mario Santos Casta?eda and 12-year-old Mario Cruzito Casta?eda — who go by Santos and Cruzito.

They took the brothers, who were babies at the time, into their home in Nambé when the boys' parents were struggling with addiction. Their mother is now deceased.

"We love them. ... It's fun to raise your kids, only that with your kids, you're working. With your grandkids — we're both retired, so we have all the time in the world to love them and hug them and enjoy them," Roberta Casta?eda said.

Raising the boys also has posed some challenges.

"It's tough sometimes," Robert said.

The responsibility puts a strain on their finances, and at their ages — Roberta is 72, and Robert is 73 — they have much less energy than they did when they were parenting the first time around. They also have to learn new technology and face difficult conversations about what might happen when they die and the range of emotions that come with the living arrangement.

The Casta?edas are among tens of thousands of New Mexico residents who are raising their grandkids or other relatives, an increasing trend driven in large part by high rates of drug and alcohol addiction throughout the state. A report released early this year by the Los Alamos National Laboratory Foundation found the number of grandparents and other kin raising kids in New Mexico rose by 20% between 2017 and 2023, from 30,000 to 36,000.

The report said New Mexico had the highest rate in the nation of kids in kinship care between 2021 and 2023, with 8% of the state's children raised by relatives, compared to a national average of 3%.

The 8% was "likely an underestimate," the report said, as many New Mexico families have informal living arrangements.

New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department spokesman Andrew Skobinsky said about 53% of child placements the agency oversees are kinship placements.

When parents cannot care for their children, he added, kinship placements are preferred. The agency has made a push in recent years to ensure more children are placed with relatives.

"When moving a child into a foster care situation for their protection is required, placement with kin is seen as a less traumatic option than other possible solutions," Skobinsky said.

Help to lighten the load

State and local agencies and nonprofit organizations have responded to the rise in kinship care by offering support programs, financial assistance and other resources for families.

CYFD contracts with the Southwest Family Guidance Center & Institute, which provides a Fostering Family Program that offers case management for kinship caregivers. Case managers help connect families with legal services, Medicaid, federal benefits and food aid, and other resources.

The department's Family Services Division also can help coordinate counseling services.

For grandparents raising young grandchildren — those 5 and under — the New Mexico Early Childhood Education and Care Department has a few helpful resources, including child care assistance, home visiting, early intervention for developmental disabilities or delays and prekindergarten enrollment.

A spokesperson for the department said home visiting provides all caregivers with extra confidence but could be even more helpful for grandparents whose parenting skills feel a little rusty.

As the Casta?edas navigated round two of parenting, it was the city of Santa Fe's Grandparents Raising Grandchildren program that helped lighten their load.

Grandparents Raising Grandchildren, a state program administered and funded by the New Mexico Aging and Long-Term Services Department and the Non-Metro Area Agency on Aging, was launched in Espa?ola in 2012. It offers support in the form of financial assistance and social, emotional, educational and legal resources.

Santa Fe's Senior Services Division administers the program for local residents, offering a financial component jointly funded by the city and state. It provides annual reimbursements of up to $200 per grandchild for up to two children per household for grandparents who are 55 or older and live in the city or county of Santa Fe. The fund aims to help with out-of-pocket expenses for medical care, food, clothing and school supplies.

Senior Services Division Director Manuel Sanchez said the fund was allotted $5,000 this year from the state and $3,600 from the city, an amount that dropped by about $1,400 from the previous year. The funding fluctuates from year to year depending on participation numbers, he said, adding many people might be unaware of the program.

The Casta?edas recently used funds they received from the program to help purchase school clothes and supplies.

"It really helps out because it's getting more and more expensive to buy these large lists — Chromebooks, a special calculator," Roberta Casta?eda said.

"Some of their clothes, they're pretty expensive, their shoes ... so it helps," Robert added. "It's a very nice program."

The Casta?edas heard about the program when they attended a meeting for grandparent caregivers six years ago.

"I was surprised how many people were in there. There was a lot of grandparents raising grandchildren," Robert said.

The couple noted some challenges elderly people face when they raise young children.

"I think the hardest part is, when we were raising our children, we had the Scouts and soccer, baseball — all these things — and we could handle it," Robert Casta?eda said. "You know, we don't have that energy anymore."

"We were not children raised in technology," Roberta added, "and the kids are a lot smarter when to comes to that. We don't have the knowledge that is needed."

A need for more outreach

The Casta?edas would like to see more outreach to grandparents raising grandchildren — not just for themselves but for many other families as well — to inform them about available resources.

"I know that there's a lot of programs out there," Roberta Casta?eda said, "but we don't know enough about it. We just know that they're there somewhere."

Elizabeth Holmes, a program manager for the Santa Fe nonprofit Las Cumbres Community Services, which also sponsors Grandparents Raising Grandchildren and offers support groups for grandparents and grandkids, has been spreading the word about meetings and resources through an email thread with participants but plans to expand her reach.

She is working on a newsletter that will soon be sent out to schools, counselors, teachers, senior centers and other programs to reach more grandparents.

The goal, Holmes said, is to develop a mailing list through some of the organization's partners to get the monthly newsletter in circulation to grandparents who need it but are not as tech savvy.

Support group meetings are held monthly at the organization's center on 5th Street, but smaller groups for both grandchildren and grandparents meet twice a week at various locations, such as parks, museums and Meow Wolf.

Support groups will offer technology education, emotional support, grief support and social and peer support, Holmes said.

New Mexico's one-stop shop for caregiver grandparents who want to learn more about resources is the Aging and Long-Term Services Department's Aging and Disability Resource Center, aging.nm.gov/long-term-care/caregiver-resources.

'We're very honest with them'

The struggles with addiction that led to the Casta?edas' return to parenting are a common problem among families throughout the state.

The LANL Foundation's January 2024 report, "Resilient Families: Helping Grandparents and Kin raise Children in New Mexico," said substance use issues are driving high rates of kinship care.

"In New Mexico, parental alcohol and drug misuse are root causes of why children reside with grandparents and kin," the report said. "Substance misuse disorders are highly prevalent in New Mexico and as a result kinship care is not uncommon."

The Casta?edas are honest with their grandchildren about the reasons for the living arrangement, but the circumstances can be difficult.

"The children, they're confused sometimes why they're in this situation," Roberta Casta?eda said. "It's hard for them to understand. They have a lot of doubts and insecurities, even though we have a lot of warmth and appreciation for each other, and we're very honest with them, but these are things that come up."

The Casta?edas noted a bright spot in their kinship story: Their son, the boys' father, is turning his life around. He recently got a good job and has become more involved with the kids.

"He's come a long way from where he was," Robert said.

Roberta added, "It's wonderful."

When they speak to other grandparents in similar positions, the Casta?edas say being a kinship caregiver is not an easy role to take up but is a rewarding one.

Roberta encouraged other kinship caregivers to always be honest with the children and let the love guide them at the end of the day.

"When you're raising them, [the challenges] are kind of beside the point. What you're looking at is the love and care. ... And when they ask you, 'Why am I with you? What happened?' You've got to be very honest with them because they need that."