GROW program to offer support for grandparents, others raising children

Subhead

First meeting scheduled for Thursday, Sept. 19

Image
  • An initial meeting for the GROW program will be held 6-8 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 19, at the White County School Board Office
    An initial meeting for the GROW program will be held 6-8 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 19, at the White County School Board Office
Body

A new program aims to help caretakers of children being raised by someone other than their biological parents, which applies to a growing segment of White County students.

Guardians Raising Our Warriors (GROW) was developed in response to data showing a more complex view of primary caregivers here.

“There is a definite trend in the schools, not just ours, where families who are bringing kids to school are not traditional biological parents,” says Jane Grillo, parent mentor with White County Schools. “They’re grandparents, aunts, foster parents, adoptive parents, just not mom and dad.”

Grillo says about 10 percent of students in White County schools live with guardians other than their mother or father, based on figures from last year. That stood out to Grillo and White County Family Connection family advocate Annette Boswell, leading them to study the matter further, even attending some Kinship Care meetings.

“We want to partner with any agency that works with grandparents and foster parents and adoptive parents,” Grillo says. “They deal a lot with guardianship issues, and that’s not really a school issue, so we wanted to offer people an opportunity who are in that situation to, first of all, learn that they are not alone in their journey. Also, we need to know what we can do to assist them, because we’re not sure what their needs are.”

Boswell said that the main goal of the program is to find out the needs of the families.

“We’re going to depend on them to tell us about their struggles,” she says.

An initial meeting for the GROW program will be held 6-8 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 19, at the White County School Board Office. Grillo says they’ll begin with everyone simply getting acquainted.

Other items that will be discussed include learning how to use Infinite Campus, a student information system. Attendees also will learn about the Statewide Longitudinal Data System (SLDS) for locating test scores.

Besides learning about available resources, participants can also speak with families in similar situations.

“Everybody has a story, and they can tell you what’s come up for them, but they don’t really know what they need to ask for,” Grillo says. “That’s why we’re hoping that when we ask them questions, they’ll learn some things and meet other families in similar situations who maybe have figured out the answer to a problem already.”

Childcare will be provided for the Sept. 19 GROW meeting. Those interested in attending are asked to RSVP by Monday, Sept. 16, by contacting Boswell at 706-865-2315 ext. 1404 or annette.boswell@white.k12.ga.us, or Grillo at 706-201-0483 (call or text) or jane.grillo@white.k12.ga.us.