The Ohio Children’s Trust Fund: Supporting Grandparents and Other Caregivers In the Community

Thank You To The Ohio Children’s Trust Fund For Supporting Grandparents and Other Caregivers In the Community

Last fall, thanks to a significant grant from the Ohio Children’s Trust Fund, Beech Acres Parenting Center expanded our work in helping grandparents and other relatives who find themselves in the unexpected position of raising their grandchildren and other kin. This work is critical, as nearly 9% of all children in the state of Ohio are being raised by a kinship caregiver*.

Now serving families in Hamilton, Clermont, Warren and Clinton Counties, Kinship Connections is a support system and network dedicated to providing assistance with financial resources, navigating confusing and complex paperwork, and connecting with other families experiencing similar circumstances.

Support from the Ohio Children’s Trust Fund makes it possible to help these families at no cost to them. “Relatives are the preferred resource for children who must be removed from their birth parents because it maintains the children’s connections with their families and other familiar aspects of a child’s life,” said Jane Dockery, Coordinator of the Southwest Ohio Regional Prevention Council of the OCTF. The top concerns facing kinship families are the need for kinship navigation, the need for peer support, and the need for parenting education/ parenting support. “Beech Acres is working on all three of these fronts,” Jane said.

We are so grateful to the Ohio Children’s Trust Fund for making it possible to provide hope for vulnerable families who find themselves in unfortunate and unexpected circumstances.

Founded in 1984, the Ohio Children’s Trust Fund is Ohio’s sole, dedicated public funding source for child abuse and neglect prevention. The mission of the Trust Fund is to prevent child abuse and neglect by investing in strong communities, healthy families and safe children.
“OCTF is dedicated to helping children and families thrive. Through our efforts, we aim to increase the funding spent on universal prevention, promote the healthy development of children, and prevent child abuse before it occurs,” said Nicole Sillaman, Program Manager of the Ohio Children’s Trust Fund.