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Services
Kinship Navigator
A kinship navigator provides information and assistance to kinship caregivers
about a range of services, resources and support that may be available including:
- Information and assistance for you and your family to other community agencies
- Support for your family, including parent education, training, and support groupd
- Assistance with applying for Federal and State subsidies
- Help receiving or maintaining child care
- Help navigating the educational system
- Advocacy and referrals to medical, dental, and mental health services
- Legal assistance for care or children involved
- Kinship careger kits
Kinship Caregiver Support Program Funds
We provide support to purchase resouces for eligible families, complementing the care you are providing including:
- Food, clothing, transportation, household items
- School uniforms, supplies, field trips, band instruments
- Sports and youth activity registrations, fees, uniforms, tutoring
- One-time help with rent or utilities to prevent eviction or shut-off
- Tutoring or transition counseling
Early Childhood Education Information
Are you caring for a child or children under the age of 6 years?
We can help you prepare them for school by providing early chilhood education materials and tips to include:
- Preparing your child for pre-school and kindergarten
- Making the most of parent-teacher conferences
Eligibility
Services are available to:
- Kinship Caregivers, relatives who are related by birth, marriage,
adoption, or symbolic relatives not related, but who have a strong bond or connection with the children in their care.
Community Resources
Senior Information and Assistance maintains a database of community based
resources ranging from adult day care to legal services and transportation
resources. Log on
and search for resources available to caregivers and older
persons in the Seattle and King County areas.
Caregiver
Journals
Another available source of support is our Online Journals where you can
read daily accounts of the trials and tribulations as well as the successes
and satisfaction of other caregivers. If you'd like to hear some of our
experiences, family stories, share in things we've tried that worked
and sympathize with the things that didn't work, feel free to share
in our stories.
Consider keeping a journal where you record all your feelings, hopes,
dreams and disappointments. It is a good way to reduce stress and can
be a cathartic tool, increasing creativity, enhancing your immune system,
deepening your spiritual life, helping to generating insights. The letter
that was never sent, the things better left unsaid, by setting them down
in writing you can have a safe way of dealing with ideas and emotions
that you may be afraid to express in any other manner. Journal writing
can help with your immediate worries, and later, revisiting your
writing can provide a window into how you once felt and how far
you have come. There is no "right" or "wrong" way to do it !
Avail yourself of this powerful method for taking charge of
your life. Use it to discover who you are and who you want to be.
Email us to register for your own journal.
Caregiver Message Boards
Please feel free to visit the message boards
and interact in real time with people that are going through the same
things that you are. Through Caregiver Connection we hope to give you an
avenue to a wonderful source of support, a private space where you can
receive and provide support, encouragement, comfort, a reality check,
knowledge, and compassion. Create a support group or build a network of
friends. Participate in a venue where people meet for communicating their
needs, wants, desires, experiences and feelings using their voice through
letters, stories, poetry, quotations, email, etc. Help yourself as well as
others navigate through the trenches of being caregiver.
Selected Kinship Caregiver Links
Click on the following links view some of the non-profit and government
sponsored Internet sites that provide helpful information for
caregivers.
Washington Department of Social and Health Services
http://www1.dshs.wa.gov/kinshipcare/
Grandparents Information Center (AARP)
www.giclocalsupport.org/pages/gic_db_home.cfm
Within Reach: Community Resources
www.withinreachwa.org
Washington Law Help
www.washingtonlawhelp.org
Contact Us
Kinship Care
2208 2nd Avenue
Seattle, WA 98121
8am - 6pm
Monday - Friday
Terra McCaffree, Program Manager
Telephone: (206)
448-3110
Toll-free: 1-888-435-3377
TTY: (206) 448-5025
Fax
(206) 448-5748
E-Mail:info@seniorservices.org
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