FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: July 23, 2024
Contact: Santino R. Thomas
(518) 949-4809 | [email protected]
Grant will fund services for local, low- to moderate-income families
ALBANY, N.Y. – Recently, the KeyBank Foundation announced that St. Catherine’s Center for Children is the recipient of a $20,000 grant to support the continued work of its award-winning Kinship Care program and aid local low- to moderate-income families. The program provides kinship families with resources and programming to help them thrive. Kinship is a subset of foster care in which family members or close family friends assume the responsibility for and care of a child that has been removed from their biological parents, as an alternative to traditional foster care placement.
Oftentimes, kinship caregivers are already living on a limited income, before taking on care of children. Despite that, a grandparent, aunt, uncle or older sibling may take a child into their home to keep them from residential foster care. This can present a difficult and sometimes unsustainable situation for the family which is why the program at St. Catherine’s Center for Children focuses on the health, well-being and success of the entire family, not just the children.
“We are thrilled to have been chosen as the recipient of this grant, said Cindy Kouhout, executive director of St. Catherine’s Center for Children. “There are so many kinship families out there in need of our services. In fact, most kinship families don’t even realize that there are resources available specifically for them and other families like them. This funding will support our amazing team as it continues its work to place foster children with family members, ensuring familial bonds remain intact and that these children have every opportunity to succeed.”
The traditional form of foster care, when a child has been removed from their biological parents and is placed “in the system,” has been giving way in the last several years to the preferred “family first” method in New York State. It is estimated that there are 16,000 children in foster care, throughout the state. This reflects a 55 percent decrease in the last 20 years, and kinship has played a significant role in that. The NYS Kincare Coalition estimates that now 195,000 children in New York are being raised by kin.
“A big thank you to the KeyBank Foundation,” said Michele Puleo O’Hare, executive director of The Foundation of St. Catherine’s Center for Children. “Our Foundation team worked hard putting together a successful grant request to allow our Kinship Care program to continue providing resources to kinship families in Albany and Schenectady counties.”
“We are proud to support the critical and important services that St. Catherine’s Center for Children provides through the Kinship Care program,” said Fran O’Rourke, KeyBank Capital Region Market President. “This program provides children in our community with safety and stability during challenging times. It helps meet needs unique to foster children and makes our region stronger.”
Generally, there are three different circumstances in which a kinship family is formed: informal kinship care, permanent custody or temporary custody. Informal care refers to an arrangement between the biological parents and a family member in which the courts or child welfare agency are not involved. Under permanent custody, a relative has obtained legal and physical custody of a child and has decision making rights for the child. Under temporary custody, the County has legal custody and places a child with kin.
The willingness of St. Catherine’s Center for Children to embrace change and develop new services is, and will remain, our guiding philosophy as we support human service needs, throughout the region, by providing a comprehensive range of services designed to offer hope, foster growth and improve the lives of the children, families and adults we serve.
For more information, http://www.st-cath.org.
