This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2012, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

It's often hard for grandparents to restrain themselves from giving advice or even intervening in their children's family affairs. But most manage to keep quiet, and that's proper. However, when their grandchildren are victims of neglect or abuse, grandparents — or aunts, uncles or other relatives — should be first on the state's list of potential foster parents because they already care.

When families fall apart because of death, addiction or abuse and children are put at risk, extended-family members often step in to help. But sometimes when the state gets involved, grandparents or other relatives are pushed out in favor of unrelated foster parents who are state-supervised and receive state financial support. That doesn't make sense.

A new study by the Annie E. Casey Foundation found the number of children living with relatives, including grandparents, has increased 18 percent nationally in the past 10 years. And the research shows that governments and community organizations should do more to help instead of letting regulations get in the way.

Utah is more often making family members official as foster parents or guardians than it was a decade ago, and that is commendable. But, while Utah has 2,732 children in foster care, there are at least 15,000 children in kinship care, and only about 550 are in state-supervised kinship foster care.

When state family services agencies don't recognize that kinship caregivers shouldn't be required to meet normal foster-parent licensing requirements, grandparents and other relatives may be reluctant to ask for help, fearing they could lose the children to non-relatives.

Kinship foster care is very often the best for children emotionally. But sometimes neither the state nor the community is doing enough to provide financial support for kinship foster parents. Such guardians are more likely to be older, unemployed, lower-income, less-educated and single than foster parents who are not kin. When they take on young children, their situations can become critical.

The state should recognize that even though such families may not be state-supervised, they still may need state support. Programs such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families can help, but grandparents and other kin providing foster care may not know about them or how to apply.

That's where a program called Grandfamilies at the Children's Service Society in Salt Lake City can be invaluable.

The program should be a model for other such services. It counsels new kinship foster parents and directs them to legal and financial resources they might need. Utah needs more such programs.