I have some exciting news to share with you. Thanks to the efforts of so many of you, Chairman Baucus has scheduled a markup of the Improved Adoption Incentives and Relative Guardianship Support Act for Friday morning. This bill contains many of the provisions of the Kinship Caregiver Support Act that will provide much needed supports to grandfamilies across the country.
This is an important step forward in our hopes to pass this legislation. There is however still significant work left to be done before it becomes law. The full Senate will still need to pass the legislation and work out the differences between the House version of their bill before a final bill can be sent to the President for his signature.
I am also pleased to announce that the Senate Finance Committee will also mark up the Elder Justice Act on Friday, which provides resources to prevent the abuse, neglect, and exploitation of vulnerable older adults. This is an important piece of legislation that Generations United has supported.
Friday should be a great day for anyone who cares about both young and old. In his press release, Chairman Baucus highligted the intergenerational aspect of the legislation, “These proposals will benefit hundreds of thousands of America’s most vulnerable children and senior citizens.”
The Senator and his staff deserves enormous credit for working under such a tight deadline to get this legislation together.
You can read the full text of the press release (with all those good intergenerational themes) here: http://finance.senate.gov/press/Bpress/2008press/prb073008.pdf
2 comments:
Those acts are great...but if the children have not been in the foster care system and relinquishment of custody was voluntary on the birth parents' part...then the custodial grandparents are out of luck.
We are custodial grandparents due to voluntary relinquishment. We don't get child support (neither parent is presently employed), so we have had to shoulder 100% of the expenses (daycare, etc.) on our own on an already stretched budget. It'd be nice if we could get something...but our income is too high (and being 40-somethings doesn't help either).
my grandaughter age almost 17 needs help. has lived with me most of her life and mother now insists she move in with her. child refuses and i now fear what is going to happen to her. mother has been threatening her with court action and she is fearful,however her mother is verbally abusive to her and she gets more abusive when chid has been forced to move in with her. what can i do? is there no law that can protect this child? i have court papers saying child lives with me and i do get child support for her from her father, but there seems nowhere too turn for legal help that is reasonable and also fast.
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