County Allocates Over $1 Million To Protect Kids- 33% Cut to Kinship Reimbursement Budget
Scioto County will provide a million-dollar reimbursement for Scioto County Children Services to protect families whose children are at risk for abuse. That includes providing intervention, assessment, counseling, case management, placement, and training. A memo of understanding between Scioto County Department of Job and Family Services and Commissioners broke down the allocation of funds.
One area of the budget taking a hit is kinship care reimbursement. The amount of money available to reimburse families who take in relatives as foster children has been slashed by 33% for next year.
When family members agree to act as foster parents for relatives, that’s known as kinship care. Scioto County Job and Family Services has offered reimbursement for expenses to help those families out.
Kinship caregivers must be grandparents, aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces, siblings, cousins, step-siblings, legal guardians, or spouses or former spouses of the parents.
Among the expenses eligible for reimbursement are childcare and household and clothing items to prepare a home for kids in need. Those items include clothing, bedding, school supplies, food, and other necessities. The total amount of services provided for a child must not exceed more than $3,000 in a year.
In 2021, $128,418 of grant money was available to assist these families. From Oct 1, 2021, through September 30, 2022, $85,304 will be available, representing a budget cut of 33%
Scioto County Department of Job and Family Services Director Tamela Moore Morton said, “This will represent a noticeable decrease in kinship caregiver services this year,” in a memo of understanding about the matter sent to the Scioto County Commissioners.
Stabilizing Families
Kinship care funding falls under SCDJFS’s Prevention, Retention, and Contingency Plan, which went into effect on August 21 of this year. The plan aims to assist low and moderate-income families by helping adults stay employed and by promoting family stability, which in the long run can keep them out of the system and home with their parents for relatives.
SCDJFS allocated $360,000 in funds for these services for the next 12 months. The program will be administered by Scioto County Children Services.
We asked Tamela Moore Morton, Director of Scioto County Dept. of Job & Family Services, and Jason Mantell, Director of Scioto County Children Services, about the programs, but they really didn’t have much to add.
In a joint statement, the directors said, “The recently approved Memorandums of Understanding between Scioto County Job & Family Services and Scioto County Children Services are renewals of agreements that have existed for years. The MOU’s allow for reimbursement of expenses in a variety of situations pertaining to the safety of vulnerable children. These include: reimbursement for child care services for a child in the placement of a kinship caregiver; reimbursement for household and clothing items needed to transition a child into placement with the kinship caregiver; providing assistance to needy families so that children may be cared for in their own homes or in the homes of relatives; and, providing protective services to eligible families whose children are at risk for abuse or neglect. Demonstrating collaboration and focusing on ways that both agencies can jointly assist and serve these vulnerable members of the community, represents the positive direction in which things are moving.”
